CHICAGO.-Part of Chicago's city-wide Festival of Maps, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) joins more than 25 cultural and scientific institutions in a unique collaboration to present Mapping the Self from November 3, 2007 to March 2, 2008. Mapping the Self explores how artists use systems of information to influence change and to understand and explain themselves and the world. The exhibition examines how the decoding and re-encoding of information -- both physical and metaphysical, with or without maps -- fosters personal exploration, artistic expression, and communication.

Although Mapping the Self draws upon the work of artists who include maps in their work, the show does not present maps in a traditional way. Instead, the exhibition draws upon works from the MCA Collection along with key loans, including works by a significant number of Chicago artists, in a variety of media such as artists’ books, photography, drawing, video, and sound.

Tricia Van Eck, MCA Curatorial Coordinator and Curator of Artists’ Books and the exhibition's curator, says, "With the explosion of high tech information systems, geographical data and its analysis, the map - an image associated with information - is increasingly becoming a means of expression for artists to organize and disseminate information."

Mapping the Self is divided into two sections. The first section of the exhibition explores the locative, temporal, and philosophical position of the self and how artists either record, understand, or communicate the individual’s place in the world on personal, local, and global levels. This section pairs the MCA’s work by early conceptual artists interested in the idea of place with recent work by artists exploring similar ideas of defining themselves within the world.

The second section focuses on society: borders and boundaries; ownership and use of space; and the collective power of individuals, which flows from the first section’s emphasis on the self. Since maps can communicate ideas involving the intersections of identity, politics, and culture, this section explores how mapmaking practices allow artists to address socio-economic and geo-political issues and to present new and alternative modes of social engagement. These works aim to bring to light previously unknown or unconnected ideas to foster new perceptions of the world.

Artists in the exhibition include Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, John Cage, Janet Cardiff, The Center For Land Use Interpretation, Paul Chan, Agnes Denes, Jan Dibbets, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tom Friedman, Hamish Fulton, Douglas Huebler, Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Frank Olive, Dennis Oppenheim, Kim Schoenstadt, and Dan Wang. Chicago artists in the exhibition include Haseeb Ahmed, Jeremiah Barber, Diana Frid, Paula Henderson, Shane Huffman, Jam Studio, Barbara Koenen, Patrick McGee, Adelheid Mers, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Stephanie Angell Nadeau, Judy Natal, OODA Group, Laurie Palmer, Claire Pentecost, Deb Sokolow, Deborah Stratman, Philip von Zweck, and Frances Whitehead.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a concurrent issue of the local magazine Whitewalls that will be dedicated to mapmaking.