The decision on the part of the Art Institute of Chicago to commission architect Stanley Tigerman—described in their own press releases as an “iconoclast”—to design the installation of this exhibit was a clear signal. This was to be no tepid run-of-the-mill show, no simple trotting out of the interminable ground plans and elevations, no staid recitation of art-historical dogma. Rather, there was to be a confrontation of context and content, a pointed and sentient inquiry into the tactics of display, all undertaken to enliven the assorted effluvia of Chicago’s golden age of architecture.

Tigerman

With this exhibition, cocurated by Dan Mills and Maureen Sherlock, the Randolph Street Gallery joined progressive groups around Chicago in commemorating the 20th anniversary of the demonstrations and police riots that took place during the 1968 Democratic convention. The exhibition—incorporating work by 25 artists ranging in age from 26 to 66—included “counter-monuments” specifically addressing the “counter-convention” of 1968, as well as works that testified more generally to diverse voices of political activism in current art practice. The work, by well-established and little-known artists,