Cleve Carney Museum of Art Announces Retro Gaming Exhibition, “Insert Coin: Inside Midway’s Arcade Revolution”

The Cleve Carney Museum of Art (CCMA), located on the College of DuPage campus (425 Fawell Blvd.), has announced its upcoming fall exhibition, INSERT COIN: Inside Midway’s Arcade Revolution. The exhibition, featuring several classic playable arcade games, fan ephemera and video installations, chronicles the dramatic rise and eventual upheaval behind Chicago’s most prominent manufacturer of video games, Midway Games. 

Inspired by the acclaimed 2020 film Insert Coin, the exhibition will be coordinated with film director Joshua Tsui, detailing the creation and impact of the most popular games in the ’80s and ’90s including Mortal Kombat 2, NBA Jam, Cruis’N USA, Tron and more. Insert Coin will be on view October 26, 2024, through February 16, 2025. An opening reception will take place from 5 –7 p.m. on October 26, with additional special events to take place throughout the run. 

For this exhibition, Chicago Gamespace and the CCMA will create a series of rooms, each displaying the influential periods within the gaming world and Midway Games’ role, while drawing inspiration from the film, featuring behind-the-scenes video, art and ephemera from the making of these games, scenes from the Insert Coin documentary, interviews with former Midway game developers, and the classic arcade games themselves for exhibition visitors to play. Key playable, vintage arcade games will be highlighted including NBA Jam, Tron, Mortal Kombat 2, Cruis’N USA and more. 

“It is impossible to ignore the visual and cultural influence of video games on our society,” said CCMA Curator Justin Witte. “The graphics and narratives created in iconic games of the 1980s and ’90s have shaped how generations interact with the world around them. No company has been more instrumental in this shift than Midway Games. We are excited to share the history of this dynamic part of our shared visual heritage.”

Williams Electronics packed arcades with coin-operated games during the 1970s and 1980s, notably innovative hits Defender, Joust, and Robotron, while rivals Bally Midway, were also peaking with United States distribution of Space Invaders and Pac-Man while developing their own hits such as Tron. In 1983, the United States’ video game market crashed, ending the first era of meteoric video game arcade popularity. 

The exhibition will detail how Midway Games navigated the rise and fall of gaming, then ushered in the arcade’s renaissance in the 1990s with a golden string of game releases such as NARC, Smash TV, Terminator 2, Cruisin’N USA, Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam, then how these successes were marred by a cutthroat corporate culture, a nationwide outcry over violence in video games, and bankruptcy.

“Ernest Cline described Midway in the 90s as “punk rock” in Joshua Tsui’s magnetic ‘Insert Coin’ documentary,” said Gamespace Owner and Curator Jonathan Kinkley. “No better term describes the irreverent and brilliant artists and misfits who broke technological and artistic barriers, as well as more than a few cultural norms. It is a thrill for Gamespace to work with Tsui and CCMA and Williams, Bally Midway and Midway Games’ developers to share Chicago’s biggest story in game history with the public.”  

Tickets are $12 and available for purchase online, by phone and in person. Phone and in person purchases will have no added fees.  To ensure fair access for all guests, the duration of gameplay on each game will be moderated based on real-time visitor capacity.  For additional information please see www.theccma.org