Derrick Adams: Funtime Unicorn: Ruby Rides Through Four Seasons
@ TheMART
222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza, Chicago, IL 60654
Opening Friday, April 14th, at 8:30PM
On view through Wednesday, July 5th
Funtime Unicorn: Ruby Rides Through Four Seasons builds upon Adams’s famed Funtime Unicorn project celebrating Black joy, love and play. The animation–realized in collaboration with The Channel–unfolds across the four seasons and begins with Ruby in a playground before she embarks on adventures through joyful dreamscapes. Ruby’s journeys feature a majestic display of colorful backgrounds and light tunnels across the 2.5 acres of THE MART, while visitors will also watch the flowers bloom, leaves fall, and snow drop in the playground as she returns for each season. Viewers will be transported through Ruby’s journey by the narration of a young girl, with background vocals by Cleo Reed, set to an original jazz-trumpet soundscape by Dave Guy from the Roots. Funtime Unicorn first appeared in Adams’s signature Floater series, a collection of vivid portraits of Black people in various states of rest and play, as a life-size inflatable pool float before Adams made Funtime Unicorn into a unique and interactive sculpture.
Funtime Unicorn: Ruby Rides Through Four Seasons coincides with EXPO Chicago’s 10th edition (April 13–16, 2023) when the Funtime Unicorn will be part of a new public commission on Chicago’s Navy Pier, as well as Adams’s work featuring as part of Rhona Hoffman Gallery’s booth. 2023 is a significant year for the artist with a new ‘Art at Amtrak’ commission inside Penn Station, the Beyond Granite project inviting him to install a temporary work on the National Mall in DC, and his Last Resort Artist Retreat welcoming its first month-long residence to Baltimore this Spring. On view from April 14—July 5, 2023, Adams’s ART on THE MART commission is presented in partnership with Rhona Hoffman Gallery, which also has a solo exhibition of Adams’s work on show until April 1, 2023.
“Working with THE MART as a canvas is completely unique and outside of the general gallery or museum context,” said Adams. “Through giving viewers a window into my imagination, I hope that they will again feel the magic of their childhood memories.”
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Tags: Art on theMART, Chicago, Derrick Adams, Derrick Adams: Funtime Unicorn: Ruby Rides Through Four Seasons, Funtime Unicorn: Ruby Rides Through Four Seasons, Loop
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