After braving city traffic and arriving Friday evening, students walked around downtown Chicago, seeing the famous Chicago skyline and the Sky Bridge in Millenium Park, often referred to as 'The Bean'.
The Art Club stayed downtown just one block from Grant Park and Michigan Avenue, making walking to area attractions very easy. Saturday morning the group walked up to Navy Pier for the SOFA exhibition, or Sculptural Objects and Functional Art. The SOFA exhibition was a great opportunity to see the work of contemporary artists and galleries from around the country and world, all in one place at one time. It was a great chance for the art majors in the group to see how contemporary working artists market and sell their work. As an added bonus there was a ceramic auction and show of outsider, folk, and Intuit art at the same location.
After SOFA, we walked to the Chicago Institute of Art. Students spent the afternoon in the museum, looking at whatever sections of the museum interested them the most. A few museum highlights were the painting American Gothic and a wide range of work, including pre-historical ceramics, mid-evil armor, the new modern wing, a miniatures exhibit, impressionist master works, and Chinese bronzes.
After a long day of walking and seeing a wide variety of art, we had Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner and saw the city lights walking back to the hotel. It was a great time and a first experience in Chicago for some students.
