Featuring over 350 objects, including more than 100 loans from local institutions and collectors, the show filled the fourth floor of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art during spring and summer 2020.

Instead of traditional organizational strategies, objects were arranged to highlight shared artistic and aesthetic concerns. The exhibition treats the works as equals, regardless of geography, date, or artist’s pedigree. In this way, the exhibition proposes a more democratic organization inspired by visual pleasure and discovery.

With this approach as our guide,  our team developed vignettes for review with Olowu and the museum team, refining the layouts through collaborative virtual meetings.  Through this process, broad organizational categories were established and arranged within the museum’s barrel vaulted galleries.

With the organizational strategy determined, we worked closely with Olowu and the museum team to refine each grouping, highlighting unexpected relationships among objects and artists.

The design goal was to create a maximalist, sensory-rich overall experience without overwhelming the individual artworks. This balance was achieved by maintaining a white wall backdrop for the majority of the work while introducing two distinctive display strategies: screens and color.

Four metal screen walls were inserted into the long galleries, breaking up the space and providing additional display area while maximizing visual transparency within the long, barrel-vaulted spaces. Reminiscent of art storage facilities, the screens underscore how Olowu mined Chicago’s private art collections to bring together this eclectic display.

The screens consist of three equal metal frames, fourteen feet tall and infilled with a one inch square metal mesh. Each assembly is supported by an overhead channel spanning across the twenty-four foot wide gallery.

By displaying the back side of the artwork, the screens add to the maximalist presentation, and the ease of hanging allowed Olowu to improvise and refine groupings during the installation phase.

Gallery end walls and display case pedestals were painted in bold colors to punctuate the spaces.  Select case bases were also wrapped in a black and white pattern of Olowu’s design.  The color palette was a collaboration with artist Amanda Williams, whose “Color(ed) Theory” series is shown in the first gallery.

Color combinations, inspired by Williams and selected by Olowu, were studied for each gallery. These colors associate the viewer with Chicago and create a dynamic sensory experience.

Used sparingly, the colors complement the objects without overwhelming them.

A smaller, special room was set aside in the exhibition to highlight photography and rare books.  Walls are upholstered with burlap, creating a soft and muted counterpoint to the bold surfaces of the main galleries.

A shallow shelf wraps the room and features a collection of photos, carefully curated and  arranged by Olowu to suggest a casual display, as if the objects had been pulled from a storage drawer.

The middle of the room is dominated by a large table-like display case highlighting rare art books and surrealist objects.

The case was detailed to allow a clean, minimalist presentation of the objects with a interior environment suitable for sensitive materials. 

This project was a collaboration of Field Guide and William Watson of New York-based Castro Watson, along with Duro Olowu and MCA team members Naomi Beckwith, Jack Schneider, Emilie Puttrich and Brad Martin.

All images copyright and courtesy of MCA Chicago. Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago, on view February 29, 2020 – September 27, 2020.  Unless noted otherwise, all photos are by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.