CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting Tony Cokes: On Boredom, open now through March 14, 2027. This is Tony Cokes’s first public outdoor presentation in Chicago, and brings his signature style to Bluhm Family Terrace. For over forty years, Cokes has remixed various media sources into vibrant videos, signs, lightboxes, and billboards that are often set to music. His ability to recontextualize fragments of contemporary culture into works and installations that speak directly to the present has made him one of the most celebrated artists working today.

This two-part installation turns the terrace windows facing Millennium Park into a billboard—viewable from across the street and the park below—with the phrase “Let yourself be free,” drawn from Aretha Franklin’s 1968 recording of “Think.” Another freestanding sign by Cokes displays two phrases by English cultural theorist Mark Fisher: “We don’t have the freedom to be bored anymore,” and “There’s a set of forces that want us to be permanently anxious.” The typographic visuals are accompanied by a soundtrack of songs Cokes chose to resonate with the city of Chicago. Instead of directing viewers to a single interpretation or conclusion, this installation invites them to explore their own ideas through words, music, color, and cultural memory.

“Cokes’s work allows us to think through history and meaning by creating juxtapositions that unlock new ways of looking at the world,” said Giampaolo Bianconi, Dittmer Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art. “He is an artist who approaches every situation as a chance to do something new. His installation for the Bluhm Family Terrace offers a fresh perspective on the space as much as a lens through which we can view our own time.”

Tony Cokes: On Boredom is curated by Giampaolo Bianconi, Dittmer Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art.