Morbid Curiosity, January 27-July 8, 2012

Welcome to Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection. This groundbreaking exhibition, one of the Chicago Cultural Center’s largest to date, showcases over five hundred artworks and other artifacts from the personal collection of Chicago-based collector Richard Harris. Amassed over several decades, Harris’s collection explores the iconography of death across cultures and traditions spanning nearly six thousand years, and includes works by some of the greatest artists of our time.

To help guide your visit, the exhibition is organized into two major sections: The War Room, which deals with the horrors and reactions to war expressed through art; and The Kunstkammer of Death, a play on the traditional European term for a ‘cabinet of curiosities’. While the subject matter may seem a bit macabre, artists have long derived inspiration from death, mortality, and the impermanence of human existence. This eclectic collection examines these concepts from centuries past to the present day.

Please note, this exhibition contains explicit imagery that may be disturbing to younger or sensitive viewers.