Art Institute of Chicago and Threadless Hold Contest for Art-Inspired T-Shirt Design

CHICAGO - The Art Institute of Chicago, named the best museum in the world by TripAdvisor, and Threadless, the global design community best known for its independent artist-designed t-shirts, today announce the launch of an ongoing series of collaborative t-shirt design challenges, called the Art Institute x Threadless Explore Series. Encouraging artists to explore the artwork and exhibitions at the Art Institute, the series will kick off with Shatter Rupture Break, a t-shirt design challenge inspired by the current exhibition of the same name. Artists from around the world will have three weeks to submit their designs to the challenge, which will then be voted on by the Threadless community of more than 3 million users. The winning design will be announced and shown on April 10 at the Art Institute's After Dark event. In addition, the winning artist will receive $2,000, a modern art book library curated by the Art Institute, and his or her original design will be printed on a t-shirt for sale on Threadless.com.

Shatter Rupture Break is the first in the Art Institute's Modern Series, which showcases the museum's renowned collection of modern art. The exhibition examines the ways that ideas of fragmentation and rupture, which permeated the United States and Europe in the early 20th century, became central themes in modern art. For the design challenge on Threadless, artists will use these themes to design original t-shirt art. Future challenges in this series will not only highlight upcoming exhibitions at the Art Institute, but also will allow the opportunity for artists to create mash-up designs inspired by the museum's collection.

"We are tremendously excited about the creative possibilities of this partnership with Threadless," said Gordon Montgomery, the Art Institute's Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs. "Inviting artists from around the world to let their imaginations run wild with our iconic works of art as inspiration is sure to result in dramatic wearable designs. Threadless has been a great partner, and we look forward to working with them on this ongoing design competition."

The Art Institute and Threadless previously have partnered for occasional design challenges. In recent years, the two collaborated on challenges inspired by Impressionism and Surrealism, producing winning designs from artists in England and Brazil.

"Working with the Art Institute has been such a great experience for us and our artists that we wanted to find a continual way to keep this partnership going," says Jake Nickell, Threadless Founder and CEO. "The Art Institute x Threadless Explore Series was born from that idea, and we're beyond excited to have the museum continue to be a resource and inspiration for our community."

Artists will have until March 10 to submit their t-shirt designs to this challenge via http://www.threadless.com/shutterrupturebreak. Anyone interested in the Shatter Rupture Break exhibition or design challenge can join the Art Institute and Threadless on Twitter on February 25 from 2 to 3 p.m. CT using the hashtag #ArtThreadChat to ask questions of the curators, find out more about the exhibition and specific artworks, and share works in process for the challenge. Additional information about the exhibition can be found at http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/shatter-rupture-break