JUNE-JULY Highlights

Descabellada by Monica Prieto, digital print on archival paper, 24.5 x 16.3 inches, 2002.

“Longing for Bunny Mercer”

Friday, June 7 through Saturday, June 15

Opening reception: 6-8 p.m. Friday, June 7

Seven artists––Dawn Brennan, Jean Bundy, Joann Harling, Dustin Larson, Monica Prieto, David Roane and Marci Rubin––have created paintings, sculpture, video and a mixed-media installation in response to the fictional character Bunny Mercer. Each artist has a different view of Bunny, a character they created as a group: ex-lover, surrealist houseguest, menacing childhood memory. Free copies of The Bunny Book, an artist’s book that comprises visions of thoughts about Bunny Mercer, will be available at the exhibition. The book was funded by a UChicagoArts grant, and the exhibition was co-curated by Whitney Rugg, curatorial intern, and Stephanie Smith, Associate Curator at the Smart Museum of Art. The exhibition will be on view at Gallery 312, 312 N. May St. (312) 942-2500.

Exterior of the Reebie Storage and Moving Co. building.

Oriental Institute Museum

“Egyptomania, Chicago-style” bus tour

9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, June 15

Climb aboard a bus and see first-hand how the excavation of King Tut’s tomb––an archaeological event that gripped the world in the 1920s––resulted in an explosion of art and design in the Egyptian style. This tour, led by Egyptologist Michael Berger, will include Chicago sites that incorporate Egyptian themes in their designs, including the Reebie Storage and Moving Co. building and the Chicago Tribune building, where an actual piece from the Great Pyramid at Giza was embedded into the structure. A slide presentation, bus transportation, handouts and lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant will be included in this program, which is co-sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The tour begins and ends at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 S. Michigan Ave. $60 for Oriental Institute and Chicago Architecture Foundation members, $65 for non-members. For registration, call 702-9507.

Photograph of Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies Executive Seminar performance of Antigone (Mortimer Adler, center right), n.d.

Special Collections Research Center

“Great Ideas: The University of Chicago and the Ideal of Liberal Education”

Through Friday, Sept. 6

In the 1930s, Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins set out to infuse the University curriculum with the spirit of the “Great Books” program, which was developed by Adler’s mentor John Erskine. Their project helped to shape the College’s core and eventually led to the University’s collaborative efforts with William Benton and the Encyclopedia Britannica and with Walter Paepcke, founder of the Aspen Institute, to disseminate information about the “Great Ideas.” The discussion surrounding this experiment in liberal education reflects the goals of the University during the Hutchins era while illuminating broader intellectual battles waged over the role of “culture” in American life. Drawing on the papers of Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, William Benton and Walter Paepcke, this exhibition explores the cultural milieu that made the “Great Ideas” central to the University’s educational mission. This exhibition is on view at the Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St. 8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday-Friday; 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Saturday. 702-8705. Free.