Over My Head: Encounters with Conceptual Art in a Flyover City, 1984–2015

In 1891, the English writer Rudyard Kipling dismissed Chicago as "the first American city I have encountered... Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again." That sentiment echoed well into the twentieth century, casting Chicago as culturally marginal. Yet in the decades that followed, the city incubated the Imagists, the Hairy Who, AfriCOBRA, and generations of artists and galleries whose influence reached far beyond the Midwest.
 

Over My Head presents a refocused collection of Chicago's role as a nerve center for post-conceptual art. Each work on view (or a version of it) was exhibited, sold, or produced in Chicago between 1984 and 2015. Together, they recall landmark exhibitions and trace the entanglements among artists, dealers, curators, critics, and collectors that shape how a place, and an artist's practice, is understood in hindsight.

Among the cohort of galleries and institutions whose programs inform this recollection of Chicago are Donald Young, Rhona Hoffman, Feature, Robbin Lockett, Rowley Kennerk, Shane Campbell, Monique Meloche, Corbett vs. Dempsey, GRAY, the Art Institute of Chicago, the MCA Chicago, and the Renaissance Society. 

On view September 19–October 11, 2025 at 400 N. Peoria St.
 

Curated Routes