The Museum of Contemporary Art hasn’t dispensed with the dick jokes. In fact, a whole room of “Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity” is devoted to artists’ anthropomorphic glosses on the modern tower, which tends to look like a penis even when it’s not trying. The centerpiece of the so-called “personification” section of the exhibit is Vito Acconci’s hilarious High Rise, a structure that visitors can hand-crank to the point of full erection. Extended some 20 feet, the piece bears on it the spray-painted outline of the organ in question. “Make no little plans,” wrote Daniel Burnham.
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Burnham is an appropriate reference here because of Chicago’s centrality to the development of the skyscraper and Burnham’s centrality to the development of Chicago, which is still no slouch in the tall-building department. Twenty-aught-nine saw the completion of Donald Trump’s 1,170-foot Windy City outpost, which for a moment surpassed the nearby Hancock to house the highest residence in the world. But the Trump was soon trumped by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa—unbelievably, about twice as tall. Both buildings were designed by Chicago architect Adrian Smith and the Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The “my-tower-is-bigger-than-your-tower idea,” noted lead curator Michael Darling during a recent exhibit tour, lives on.
The skyscraper may be erotic, but it’s also romantic—it’ll take you to dinner first—and this exhibit makes note of that fact. The Empire State Building shines like a beacon through the black-and-white frames of Andy Warhol’s eight-hour film, Empire (1964). In Fikret Atay’s 2004 video Tinica, a young drummer sits atop a cliff overlooking the impoverished Turkish city of Batman, making music for a community that can’t hear him. Kader Attia’s 2007 installation Untitled (Skyline) consists of about 40 old refrigerators collected from North African immigrants in France; covered in small, mirrored tiles, they’re arranged to resemble a skyline at night. The piece offers a commentary on urban consumerism, garbage, and identity—but it’s also gorgeous, like the set for a Manhattan love story.
Through 9/23: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org, $7-$12, free admission for Illinois residents on Tuesday.
