A show challenging conventional understandings of public art, Culture
in Action in Chicago had a new social agenda, and rethought what an
exhibition of contemporary art might be. Through eight projects by
artists initiated in the early 1990s and developed in collaboration with
local people, the intention was to engage diverse groups over time, in
addition to the visiting public in 1993. In the fifth book in Afterall's
Exhibition Histories series, the course of these projects is
documented, with critical reappraisal of this important exhibition in
newly commissioned essays and interviews, together with reviews from the
time.