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Art & Design

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By Lauren Weinberg

“Freaks and Flash” at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
September 11–January 9
The only fall exhibition guaranteed to scandalize your mom, this innovative survey of Western tattoo art features work by Sailor Jerry and other heroes of the medium, as well as vintage sideshow banners depicting tattooed performers. Most pieces come from Midwestern collections and haven’t been displayed publicly since they were removed from their original tattoo parlors.

“Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage” at the Art Institute of Chicago
October 10–January 3
We’re not sure what a 19th-century woman like Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer, was smoking when she created this trippy untitled photocollage (pictured). Whether motivated by opium, too-tight corsets or unrecognized artistic genius, Lady Filmer and her peers in England, Australia and the U.S. conducted experiments combining photography—then a new technology—with watercolors and other media that beat the Surrealists by about 60 years.

“Heartland” at the Smart Museum of Art
October 1–April 11
We’re big fans of Chicago, New York and Europe, but occasionally, we like to see art from other parts of the world—like the rest of the Midwest. This survey of the contemporary heartland includes local stars such as Kerry James Marshall and Deb Sokolow—but it also promises to reveal what’s going on in emerging cultural hubs like Kansas City and Detroit as well as the region’s small rural communities. Site-specific installations and performances should prove exciting complements to the exhibition’s drawings, photographs and videos.

“Close Encounters” at the Hyde Park Art Center
November 8–January 24
The Field Museum’s collection includes a 19th-century marae. The descendants of the Maori tribe that made this sacred structure don’t mind if it stays in Chicago—as long as it’s restored to its original function as a meeting house. The Hyde Park Art Center has invited Juan Angel Chavez, Tania Bruguera and six other artists from Chicago and New Zealand to make new works that address this unusual request, in collaboration with six local institutions including the Field Museum.

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Check out the other sections in our 2009 Fall Preview: