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Over this past weekend, I went with the Art Department at my university on a trip to Chicago in order to check out a bunch of different museums.

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This weekend was jam-packed with art museums, architectural tours, and photographic exhibits, so I’ll just stick to some of the highlights.

One of the most exciting places we visited was the Art Institute of Chicago. This museum is enormous. I spent a good five hours there and was only able to view a small fraction of the exhibitions this place had to offer.

A section that I spent quite a bit of time with was the John Gossage display. The museum housed a vast collection of his work that covered the entirety of his career.

Gossage’s work was really interesting and is incredibly varied. One set on display was titled Hey Fuckface!. The set consists of photos that are mounted over handwritten expletives. The penciled-in words are partially covered by the print, but most of them are still completely legible.

The photographs in this set were all taken in some of the most heavily polluted places in New York State. These places have all been listed as hazardous waste sites by the EPA, but haven’t received any sort of attention or help. In this way, the works serve as a kind of protest or call to action. The expletives work to get people’s attention and maybe annoy some people into realizing that these places exist.

Another exhibit in the Art Institute was Shatter Rupture Break. This exhibit is a collection of very diverse pieces from different artists from multiple time periods.