Countering the recycled refrain that “painting is dead,” the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s recently opened exhibition, The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970–2020, suggests that painting remains in a constant state of renewal and rebirth.
The Living End assembles a body of work that cuts across geographies, histories, and contexts, reflecting painting’s progression alongside emerging technologies and changing cultures. Through works by a diverse group of 60 artists, the exhibition surveys the last 50 years of painting, focusing on landmark technological and conceptual shifts. This includes the generative relationships between still photography and painting, and video and performance art, as well as computers’ role in artmaking, from experiments with computer-assisted graphics in the mid-1960s to the mining of digital and social media culture today.
“The way that the show is organized is this mirror image that looks at how artists used early computers and early media production tools like the Xerox machine, and then how artists are now beginning to outsource the production of their work to computers, printers, other people, so on and so forth. And these two mirror images are situated at different points in history. The show is looking at a trajectory and a forward progression of these ideas from the 1960s and even before that to the present.” – Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator and organizer of the exhibition
Comprising paintings, performances, videos, and installation works, The Living End examines how artists have challenged fundamental assumptions about painting, ultimately changing our understanding of what constitutes a painting, how they can be produced, and who can be considered a painter.
The Living End is curated by Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator, with Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator. It is on view at MCA Chicago through April 13, 2025.
To learn more, visit mcachicago.org/thelivingend.
