The Special Projects section features newly commissioned works by the artist
2017
September 16, 2017–January 7, 2018
James Welling participated in the second Chicago Architecture Biennial, a citywide architecture and design exhibition. The theme for 2017, selected by the Artistic Directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, was "Make New History."
As part of an exhibition titled A Love of the World, The City Gallery at the Water Tower presented photographs, commissioned by the Biennial, from Welling's Chicago series (1986-2017). The photographs were taken at the Illinois Institute of Technology campus—which Welling first visited and photographed in 1987—and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments, both of which were designed by Mies van der Rohe and are closely associated with modernist architecture of the 1950s. Also as part of this exhibition, the artist's Chicago works have been reproduced in large scale and installed on the exterior of the the Chicago Cultural Center building through the summer of 2019.
"Architecture has long been one of James Welling's primary inspirations," notes Interior Design magazine, ". . . For the recent Chicago series, Welling has turned his attention to work by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe . . . Digital techniques were used to artificially saturate the photographs, imposing Welling's palette on the architect’s work. 'I was especially interested in combining intense colors with the monochromatic colors of Mies,' Welling writes."