Name: What is Seen and Unseen: Mapping South Asian American Art in Chicago
Start: 2024-05-18T11:00:00-05:00
End: 2024-10-26T18:00:00-05:00
Location: South Asia Institute

What is Seen and Unseen: Mapping South Asian American Art in Chicago

The first comprehensive exhibition to map and disseminate this vital chapter of Chicago’s art history.
About this Event

Free Admission Every Friday! Use code: CommunitySAI at checkout.

What is Seen and Unseen: Mapping South Asian American Art in Chicago is a ground-breaking exhibition documenting the history of South Asian art and artists in Chicago. The exhibition, is part of the Terra Foundation’s Art Design Chicago 2024, a citywide collaboration that highlights Chicago’s artistic heritage and creative communities. This is the first comprehensive exhibition to map and disseminate this vital chapter of Chicago’s art history.

The exhibition comprises of: Shadows Dance Within the Archives, an archival exhibition of 100+ years of under-documented exhibition and cultural history, and Are Shadow Bodies Electric? featuring Chicago-based contemporary South Asian American artists. A series of public presentations and a symposium will be held to complement this exhibition.

The exhibition narrative begins with colonial-era perspectives, including those reflected in documentation from the Indian Pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition and the Indian delegation at the World’s Parliament of Religions, both held in conjunction in 1893, in Chicago. It continues with highlights from the long-forgotten first-known solo exhibition in the United States by a South Asian American renowned in international art circles. Details of the exhibition that was held in Chicago in 1920, have been pieced together from various archives across the country.

From this point, the exhibition examines the growing interest in and acquisition of Asian antiquities in the United States in the 1920s-40s, how this relates to the bigger story of Orientalism and modern art, and why select permutations of this phenomenon were presented in Chicago’s cultural institutions. The exhibition also acknowledges the influence of South Asian art, music, dance, theater, literature, and spirituality on American counterculture movements from the early 1900’s to the 1980’s, including the Theosophical Society, Tagore Circle, Beat Generation, 1967’s Summer of Love and its legacy, and underscores how these art forms continue to mark Chicago’s cultural landscape.

Lastly, the exhibition maps a route through the contemporary era, from the 1990’s to today. Chicago has a 30+ year history of contemporary exhibitions and public programs that have featured South Asian American artists, and this section of the exhibition focuses on senior, mid-career, and emerging artists who have made Chicago home and are reshaping the art and life of the city.

While this exhibition endeavors to offer a comprehensive portrayal of the South Asian art experience, critical silences, gaps, and fractures exist in the historical record. This project will hopefully encourage additional efforts at mapping and contextualizing these under-documented South Asian American art histories in Chicago and across the United States.

This project is led by Shelly Bahl, who has significantly contributed to BIPOC community-led arts organizing, programming, research, documentation, and dissemination in Canada and the USA.

Are Shadow Bodies Electric? (Group Exhibition)

Shadows Dance Within the Archives (Archival Exhbition)