On the 5900 block of Stewart Avenue, a quiet, grassy lot in Englewood, there’s a brick house painted from top to bottom in the teal hue of a pack of Newport cigarettes. Across the street, wildflowers grow at the base of an elevated track where freight trains periodically chug by with a low hum. The residence was painted in 2015 by the artist Amanda Williams and a small crew of helpers because it fit Williams’s main criterion: it was slated for demolition.
In institutional art settings such as the MCA, Williams, who grew up in AuburnGresham and now lives in Bronzeville, tries to blur the notions of what art is and what context it exists in. She does that at the MCA with two site-specific installations. Visitors encounter the first, She’s Mighty, Mighty, Just Lettin’ It All Hang Out, when they reach the second-floor gallery. Williams had bricklayers seal off one of the space’s two entrances using salvaged bricks covered in imitation gold leaf. The denied access immediately shifts the dynamic of the venue, subtly changing how many people can fit inside and showing how it feels to be inconvenienced, albeit on a very small scale.
“What does sustainability really mean to a neighborhood?” she asks. “What does sustainability mean in Flint? These are the kinds of questions that I ask, and then you can’t concentrate on just form.”
Through 12/31: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM Museum of Contemporary Art 220 E. Chicago 312-280-2660mcachicago.org $12, $7 students and seniors, free kids 12 and under and members of the military, free for Illinois residents on Tuesdays
