MCA Chicago Plaza Project: Alexandre da Cunha


July 8, 2015 - June 5, 2016 - For the MCA’s ongoing Plaza Project series exhibition, Da Cunha presents objects of a more urban scale to address this particular site.  Cleaned up and set on the plaza as an object of beauty, this red-white-and-blue vessel is not only meant to inspire double-takes for visitors passing through the area, it also functions as a strange, quasi-kaleidoscopic viewing device: when viewers peer into its open end, complex shadows, forms, and the depth of the interior chamber are revealed as sunlight filters down into the barrel through a hole in the top. Da Cunha is also exploring the use of precast concrete sewer pipes—like those coursing underneath Chicago—to make artistic arrangements from the different sizes and shapes that are available to the construction trade.