Wrightwood 659 welcomes groundbreaking exhibitions

Art gallery Wrightwood 659 will feature a trio of new exhibitions beginning April 14 through July 15. Visit the Lincoln Park space as it showcases the talents of artists Kongkee, Shahidul Alam, and Patric McCoy.

Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk April 14-July 15, 2023

London-based Chinese artist Kong Khong-chang, known as Kongkee, will showcase his latest series Warring States Cyber Punk at the Lincoln Park gallery this summer. Featuring graphic art pieces, light installations, video media, and found objects, the exhibition follows a fictionalized story of famed Chinese poet Qu Yuan. Kongkee conceives a landscape where the poet time travels from the Warring States period of ancient China, to a futuristic cyberpunk world. Through an immersive visual experience combining historical truths with imagined futures, Kongkee explores themes of mortality and human existence.

Shahidul Alam: Singed But Not Burnt April 14-July 15, 2023

The works of renowned Bangladeshi artist and activist Shahidul Alam will be displayed at Wrightwood 659 in the artist’s most comprehensive US exhibition to date. A photographer, writer, and Time Magazine Person of the Year (2018), Shahidul Alam brings awareness to injustice and civil unrest through his work. Alam has dedicated his nearly 50-year career to covering the Bangladeshi struggle for democratic freedom. His works document the fight against autocratic rule, class inequality, human rights abuses, and the quest for national identity. Explore the resilience of a nation faced with the pressures of mounting globalization in Shahidul Alam’s Singed But Not Burnt.

Patric McCoy: Take My Picture April 14-July 15, 2023

Patric McCoy paints an intimate portrait of 1980s black queer culture in Chicago through his photo series Take My Picture. In more than 50 photographs, McCoy captures the vulnerable reality of a decade which would end in crisis for the LGBT community, amidst the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Curated by artist and educator Juarez Hawkins, the series portrays its subjects with candid authenticity, affording them agency over their stories. Of the exhibit, Hawkins remarked, “McCoy and his camera fulfilled an unspoken need for Black men to be seen. Seen by someone who did not objectify them as ‘Other’, but an insider who allowed them, paraphrasing Langston Hughes, to be their ‘beautiful black selves’.”

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