On Stage: Frictions

Thursday, Apr 6 – Jun 18, 2023

220 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago announces Frictions—a performance series that points to the transformative potential of the frictions or tensions created by Black movement within a society that reinforces racial divisions. 

  • Taking place at the MCA from April to June 2023, Frictions will be a suite of in-person performances and performance-driven video works created by three artists—Will Rawls (Brooklyn-based), Shamel Pitts | TRIBE (Brooklyn-based), and Barak adé Soleil (formerly of Chicago, now based in London).
  • Each artist will explore questions of temporality, movement, and the frictions they inhabit through different relationships to pace, rhythm, and presence. The series will also challenge anti-Blackness by using bodily action to suspend perceptions and expectations of Black individuals.
  • The artists’ works will occupy the museum’s theater and public spaces, while navigating the larger space of society. The series also interacts with the usual timeframe of the museum by taking place both over a long duration in the videos and through fleeting, limited-run performances.

To purchase tickets, visit mcachicago.org.