The Time Is Now!: Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960-1980

"During the 1960s and 70s, Chicago was shaped by art and ideas produced and circulated on its South Side. Informed by the city's social, political, and geographic divides, this history of creative expression left behind a cultural legacy whose impact continues to unfold nationally and internationally. The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960-1980, published in tandem with a major exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art, examines this cultural moment--ripe with change and conflict--and the figures who defined it. Focusing primarily on the Black Arts Movement, The Time is Now re-examines watershed cultural moments: from the Hairy Who to the Wall of Respect, from the Civil Rights Movement to AfriCOBRA, from vivid protest posters to visionary outsider art, and from the Free University movement to the radical jazz of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. The book contains a series of essays, interviews, and other contextual material, along with full-color images of all works included in the exhibition and extensive reproductions of ephemera and historical photographs"--… (more)