From Thomas Kong’s assemblages of food packaging and cardboard made at his Rogers Park convenience store to Charles Warner’s Cathedral III, an intricately hand-carved homage to the sacred spaces of his Prussian childhood, the work in Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art draws on histories of migration and cultural hybridity that have shaped Chicago. On view at Intuit Art Museum through March 22, the exhibition includes 75 works made by 22 different artists, all with ties to the city.
The opening of Catalyst coincided with the unveiling of Intuit’s newly renovated museum in the city’s River West neighborhood last May. The new space’s inaugural show is a wide-ranging expression of the museum’s mission to “champion the diverse voices of self-taught art.” And its focus on the role of immigration and migration within the genre offers a timely, urgent, and place-based perspective.
“This is the first major exhibition to focus on the importance of immigration and migration in the genre of self-taught art,” says chief curator Alison Amick. “We aimed to consider these artists through the lens of their migration experience, cultural backgrounds, and communities to invite new insights into their work. Chicago, a city with a significant and ongoing history of immigration and migration, is fertile ground for this investigation.”
Craft holds a prominent place in the exhibition. About a third of the works on display are made from ceramics, metal, wood, fiber, or mixed-media, materials more closely associated with home, family, and commerce than with the fine arts establishment. Stainless steel vessels by the Polish-born Stanisław “Stanley” Szwarc (1928–2011) are made with discarded metal salvaged from his job at a dental equipment company.
Charles Warner, Cathedral III, c. 1955, mixed media, 48 x 16 x 21 in.
