Don't just look at art. Grapple with it.
Concrete Happenings invites art-lovers and car-lovers, artists and scholars, drivers and pedestrians to confront the power of public art—the strange power of a massive sculpture produced by Fluxus artist Wolf Vostell.
In 1970, in Chicago, Vostell encased a Cadillac in concrete. The product of that “happening,”
Concrete Traffic, will be installed in the University of Chicago campus north parking garage this fall. It will serve as the provocation for a comprehensive suite of exhibitions and interactive public programs—performances, screenings, talks, art workshops, happenings—that offer unique opportunities to engage with a crucial art historical moment and movement, and to explore the intensities with which an artwork can form and transform its publics.
© Concrete Happenings
On Friday, September 30 between 11am and 4 pm, Vostell’s
Concrete Traffic makes several stops on its return to the University of Chicago campus. First, outside of the Museum of Contemporary Art,
Concrete Traffic will be joined by a number of classic Cadillacs and cement trucks as a backdrop for a free public discussion with Michael Darling, and Christine Mehring, faculty director of
Concrete Happenings. Afterward, a “happening” will take place at the sculpture’s original downtown site now across from the present-day Arts Club of Chicago. Finally, the sculpture will make its way past Midway Studios and the Logan Center for the Arts, site of its original location at the University of Chicago, before arriving at its new location in the Campus North Parking Garage.
© Concrete Happenings
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