Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers and Ideas Flow, Archives 1915-2015

 Nov 14, 2015, 6:00 AM – 6:00 AM
 Gray Center Lab in Midway Studios, 929 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637


Archive boxes in the Renaissance Society offices

Opening Reception: Friday November 20, 6-9pm

Performance by Negative Scanner at 9pm

Public viewing hours: Tue-Fri, 10a-5p; Sat-Sun 12p-5p

History is both distributed and without title, unresolved and yet endlessly organized. For the Renaissance Society, that history comprises 100 years of artists, artworks, audiences, exhibitions, lectures, performances, publications, correspondence, posters, sketches, notes, and conversations. As a non-collecting institution, our past is sustained through a growing series of archival boxes and the fleeting memories that can’t fit inside.

Let Us Celebrate While Youth Lingers and Ideas Flow is an exhibition of primary source materials and original works presented simultaneously across various off-site locations. With a base at the University of Chicago’s historic Midway Studios, it also spreads to former homes of the Renaissance Society on the campus in Goodspeed and Wieboldt Halls.

Named for a work by artist Ree Morton that was presented at the Renaissance Society in 1981, Let Us Celebrate… pits joyous optimism against the weight of history, considering how long youth lingers and how the institution serves as a conduit for the flow of ideas. The exhibition aims to not only present the past, but also new ideas about the nature of the archive and the plasticity of the ever-evolving present moment.

Let Us Celebrate… is accompanied by a series of informal public programs that animate particular histories and anecdotes from the last century, including walk-throughs with curator Jordan Stein. Information on upcoming programming will be listed here once it becomes available.

For additional information on this exhibition, or other Renaissance Society Centennial projects click here or here.