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Ethnic Museum Reviews
Chicago: City of the Big "Little" Museums
DOMINIC A. PACYGA
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CHICAGO, LONG KNOWN as an industrial powerhouse, has remade itself into a world-class city. The Field Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago Art Institute are legendary for their exhibits and collections. Smaller institutions, such as the University of Chicago's Smart Gallery, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Chicago Cultural Center, also have grabbed the public's attention with fine exhibits, but the "City of the Big Shoulders" has other, lesser-known museum assets that speak volumes to both the city's and the nation's history. The Chicago area is home to dozens of smaller museums and cultural centers that trace the culture of various immigrant groups in both the homeland and the diaspora. In the following essay I will look at five of these more than thirty institutions. All five are easily accessible by public transportation and four are situated relatively close to each other and to other cultural institutions. All are in neighborhoods, which today provide a home for, or once housed, large numbers of immigrants from these ethnic groups. |
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These museums provide a public space to celebrate the culture of the groups they represent. Most of their mission statements claim that they will commemorate not only the national cultures of the groups involved, but also the history of their groups' immigration to the United States and to Chicago. Their successes in doing both of these things vary, but all make some attempt to discuss immigration and to a lesser extent ethnicity. |
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THE HELLENIC MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER | |
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(801 West Adams Street, 4th Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60607; www.hellenicmuseum.org)
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Founded in 1983, the Hellenic Museum is currently located on the fourth floor of a large building that houses the Greek Islands restaurant in Chicago's Greektown, just west of the Loop. This relatively small space accommodates part of the museum's permanent collection and gallery space for rotating exhibits. Included also is a room for the soon-to-open Frank S. Kamberos Oral History Center. The Hellenic Museum has recently acquired the collection of the Cyprus Museum in Jacksonville, North Carolina. This huge collection dedicated to the history of Greek civilization on Cyprus includes over three hundred artifacts. In addition to pieces of antiquity, the Cyprus collection comprises a large number of maps ranging from the late medieval period to the modern era. At the present time the Hellenic Museum has most of this collection in storage and plans to exhibit only a portion on a revolving basis. Currently included in the exhibit, "Cyprus: The Golden Green Leaf in the Wine Dark Sea," are a small selection of maps and various examples of ancient stoneware on loan from the Cyprian Department of Antiquities or from donors and the permanent collection. |
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On display until September 20, 2008, was the "Sacred Art" exhibit, which explores the place of icons in Greek art and religious ceremonies. The correct term for painting a Byzantine icon is "writing the icon," because in essence the iconographer is telling the story with every brush stroke. Icons are common throughout the Orthodox world and present the sacred essence of the topic covered. Byzantine art follows various technical and symbolic procedures, which are well represented in this beautiful exhibit. In addition to icons, the exhibit includes vestments, sacred book covers, and religious works of art. Many of the pieces were created in the United States and reflect immigrant and ethnic art in the new culture. |
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