Merce Cunningham: Common Time
Feb 11–Apr 30, 2017
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60611
Merce Cunningham: Common Time is a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center that is appearing simultaneously at the Walker and the MCA. Merce Cunningham (American, 1919–2009) was a seminal figure in modern dance, revolutionizing performance through his choreography and world-renowned dance company and through partnerships with leading artists, who created costumes, lighting, and set designs for his company’s performances. The exhibition showcases Cunningham’s multidisciplinary projects, exploring, as Cunningham described, the “underlying principle that music and dance and art could be separate entities independent and interdependent, sharing a common time.”
Frank Stella, Décor for Scramble (1967) in Event for Television, 1977 (still). Directed by Merrill Brockway. Courtesy WNET-TV New York Archives. Décor ©2016 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Charles Atlas, MC9, 2012. Installation view, Charles Atlas and Collaborators, BMW Tate Live, The Tanks, Tate Modern, 2013. Edition of 3 and 2 artist’s proofs. © Charles Atlas and Tate. Photo: Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson for Tate Photography.
Merce Cunningham at Black Mountain College, 1948. Photo: Hazel Larsen Archer, courtesy of the Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer and the
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center.
Installation view, décor for Views on Stage, 2004, in Dance Works II: Merce Cunningham/Ernesto Neto,
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2012. Photo: Gene Pittman.
Composite image: Merce Cunningham in Canfield, 1970 Brooklyn Academy of Music Photo: James Klosty, Courtesy James Klosty (interior). Merce Cunningham Dance Company rehearsing Travelogue (1977), City Center Theater, New York City,
September 1978 Photo: Johan Elbers Courtesy Johan Elbers (exterior).
Installation view, Merce Cunningham: Common Time, MCA Chicago. Feb 11 – Apr 30, 2017. Photo: Nathan Keay,
© MCA Chicago.
Cover : composite image: Crate Scramble décor 1967, Walker Art Center Merce Cunningham Dance Company Collection, Gift of Jay F. Ecklund, the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation, Agnes Gund, Russell Cowles and Josine Peters, the Hayes Fund of HRK Foundation, Dorothy Lichtenstein, MAHADH Fund of HRK Foundation, Goodale Family Foundation, Marion Stroud Swingle, David Teiger, Kathleen Fluegel, Barbara G. Pine, and the T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund (interior); Carolyn Brown in Scramble Brooklyn Academy of Music 1970 (detail) Photo: James Klosty, Courtesy James Klosty (exterior).
Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg working, c. 1950s. Collection Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Installation view, Merce Cunningham: Common Time, MCA Chicago. Feb 11 – Apr 30, 2017.
Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.
Charles Atlas, MC9, 2012. Installation view, Charles Atlas and Collaborators, BMW Tate Live, The Tanks, Tate Modern, 2013. Edition of 3 and 2 artist’s proofs. © Charles Atlas and Tate. Photo: Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson for Tate Photography.
For additional information, please visit:
https://mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2017/Merce-Cunningham-Common-Time
