June-July Highlights

Robert Arneson, Model for California Artist, 1984

The Smart Museum of Art
"Material Identity: Prints by Robert Arneson"
Saturday, June 21 through Sunday, Sept. 14
"Big Idea: The Maquettes of Robert Arneson"
Thursday, July 10 through Sunday, Sept. 7
10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. 702-0200. Free.
Robert Arneson (1930-1992) reinvented American figurative ceramics by integrating sculpture and painting in his large-scale and often satirical pieces. By embellishing and distorting his own face, Arneson fashioned visual puns regarding his use of clay as a medium and expressed his personal struggle with cancer. "Big Idea" is the first exhibition devoted to Arneson's maquettes--small-scale, three-dimensional sketches in clay. The 75 maquettes, along with related drawings and large-scale sculptures in the exhibition, chronicle Arneson's evolution as an artist, his freewheeling creativity and his prodigious imagination. A second exhibition, "Material Identity," features a vibrant but often overlooked aspect of Arneson's work, such as sketches that reflect the central themes of his sculpture. There will be an opening reception for "Big Idea" at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10, featuring a lecture titled "Robert Arneson's Irritable Subject" by Jonathan Fineberg of the University of Illinois, Champaign.

The Carillon at Rockefeller Chapel

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
Carillonathon
6 p.m. Sundays, June 22 through August 24
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. 702-7059. Free.
This series of free recitals features University Carillonneur Wylie Crawford along with guest artists from across the United States and Europe. Free tours of the carillon commence at 5:30 p.m.

"Ram Caught in a Thicket"

Oriental Institute Museum
Film Series: "Testament: The Bible and History"
1:30 p.m. Sundays, June 15 through June 29
Oriental Institute Museum, 1155 E. 58th St. 702-9507. Free.
The Oriental Institute will screen the critically acclaimed series "Testament: The Bible and History" on Sundays in June. The first episode, "As It Was in the Beginning," which will be shown on Sunday, June 15, searches for the roots of the Book of Genesis in the great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. On Sunday, June 22, the second episode, "Chronicles and Kings," which compares archaeological evidence with biblical history, will be shown. The third episode, "Mightier Than the Sword," will be shown Sunday, June 29. This episode examines the written word in Judaism, as host John Romer visits Qumrun and Masada in search of the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Virgil. Opera. Venice, 1533.

Special Collections Research Center
"Writing for the Eyes from Antiquity to the Renaissance"
Through Monday, Oct. 6
8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Saturday.
Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St. 702-8705. Free.
Interactions between the visual and verbal arts are explored in this exhibition of illustrated texts that contain descriptions of actual or imagined works of art. In conjunction with the Smart Museum's exhibition "The Painted Text: Picturing Narrative in European Art," "Writing for the Eyes" examines how the experience of readers and the intentions of authors are transformed when descriptions of works of art are presented alongside depictions of them.