The Time Is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960–1980

Exhibition Website

Sep 13 2018 - Dec 30 2018

 During the 1960s and 1970s, Chicago was shaped by art and ideas produced and circulated on the South Side.

Yet the history of the period's creative and social ferment has often remained segregated by the city's social, political, and geographic divides. This exhibition—co-organized by the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Smart Museum of Art and presented at both institutions concurrently—takes the first integrated look at the cultural history of Chicago’s South Side during this momentous era of change and conflict.

It aims to upend dominant narratives of the period, and to unearth rich stories by examining watershed cultural moments from the Hairy Who to the Wall of Respect, from the Civil Rights movement to the Blackstone Rangers, from vivid protest posters to visionary outsider art, and from the Free University movement to the radical jazz of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

  • Various Media
  • American
  • 20th Century
  • History
  • Gertrude Abercrombie
  • Ralph Arnold
  • Ben Bey
  • Jeff Donaldson
  • Harold Haydon
  • Jae Jarrell
  • Barbara Jones-Hogu
  • Carolyn Lawrence
  • and others

Exhibition Venues & Dates