Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society Organization Logo Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

Exhibition Opening

WORKS BY: Exhibition Reception

05.23.2024 05:00 PM

Event Summary

Devin T. Mays, Untitled (Unnamed), 2023. Installation view, In Practice: Devin T. Mays, SculptureCenter, New York, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Regards, Chicago. Photo: Charles Benton.

How much work does it take to make art seem effortless? Works By attempts to answer this question by bringing together four Chicago-based artists who share an interest in the many meanings of “labor.” The centerpiece of the exhibition is a floor drawing by Tony Lewis, performatively produced on site starting May 1. A sculpture by Devin T. Mays features pallets collected during his wanderings around Chicago’s South Side. Erased: (Unrelated), a 2012 photograph by Bethany Collins, captures a cloud of chalk dust released into a black void—the remnants of the word “unrelated” repeatedly written on a blackboard and then erased. A large photo by Ellen Rothenberg depicts a work boot; another captures a giant lump of crumpled paper that was once a Barbara Kruger mural. The fruits of these artists’ labors will be on view from May 1 (International Workers’ Day) through July 14 (Bastille Day)—two dates that commemorate landmark events in the history of the working class.