Musicians will perform alongside works in the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Tony Hisgett, via Wikimedia Commons.
Two venerable Windy City institutions announced a partnership on Wednesday that will bring audio and visual together in an original way. Pitchfork is teaming up with the Art Institute of Chicago to throw a music festival inside the museum.
Dubbed Midwinter, the festival will take place February 15–17 and feature a diverse assortment of Best New Music-approved artists such as Slowdive, William Basinski and the Chicago Philharmonic performing “The Disintegration Loops,” Mount Eerie, Kamasi Washington, Panda Bear, Grouper, Deerhunter, Perfume Genius, Joey Purp, and more.
Pitchfork festival director Adam Krefman said in a statement:
you'll be able to look at a Monet while listening to original music from Nico Muhly; Laurie Anderson will occupy the same space as Georgia O’Keeffe, while the glitch-rap of JPEGMAFIA is playing in another wing of the museum. I can't think of another event quite like it and we are excited to bring it to life in Chicago.
Krefman says the festival will open dialogues between art forms with select performers taking creative cues from works in the museum. It’s certainly an interesting prospect to imagine, say, Julia Holter creating original music inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942).
“Midwinter expands the possibilities of what audiences can experience at an art museum, and—uniquely—at the Art Institute,” Jacqueline Terrassa, the Women’s Board Chair of Learning and Public Engagement at the museum, added in the press release.
