The Wabash Arts Corridor: Murals Beyond Museums

The Art Institute of Chicago provides free access for Northwestern undergraduate students to more than 300,000 art pieces from 5,000 years of human history. While the works of Van Gogh and Pollock fill this famous museum space, just one mile away an expansive artistic world flourishes, defying the constraints of museum walls. Grab a friend and enjoy a few hours or the entire day exploring a lesser-known gem of Chicago.

An outdoor urban canvas that twists through the streets of the South Loop, the Wabash Arts Corridor embodies the artistic spirit alive in Chicago. Columbia College Chicago began this dynamic project in 2013 with the intention for the collection to grow throughout the city. Urban art in the medium of outdoor murals defies the classic narrative of art as an experience between the artist and the viewer. These mostly-paint-on-brick canvases span four-story buildings and tattoo the sides of train tracks - Chicagoans living in the South Loop reside amongst these masterpieces. Columbia College’s mission to move art beyond the constraints of museum walls speaks to the importance of prioritizing accessibility to art for the public. This writes a new narrative of art as a public affair of human expression, defining art’s audience by more than just who can afford an entrance ticket. The project is in conversation with the city and integrates the murals within eight schools, 19 galleries, 14 performance spaces, five hotels and over 40 restaurants.

For a picture-perfect afternoon this fall, take the CTA from the Noyes station to the Harrison stop. As soon as you get off the train, you’ll already spot murals around you and in the distance. Explore! Mural hop from canvas to canvas, using the attached interactive map provided by the Wabash Arts Corridor website to easily find murals you want to see. It can be helpful to plan your path ahead of time, or it can be equally as fun to just put yourself in the middle of the corridor and create your path as you go. As the diagonal lines from the cityscape and vibrant building colors frame the various murals, trek into the living art museum of the Wabash Arts Corridor. You’ll always see more murals in the distance, drawing you deeper into the corridor and its conversation.

From my own afternoon of mural-hopping, these were some highlights: