Idols and Taboos: Modern & Contemporary Art and Theology Today

Thursday, May 23, 6 – 7:30 pm

Ballroom, MacLean Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 112 S. Michigan Ave

This free, public event is part of a four-year research project on the topic of Theology, Modernity, and the Visual Arts, led by Professor Ben Quash at King’s College London, in collaboration with Duke University, and generously sponsored by the McDonald Agape Foundation. Its purpose is to enquire into a theological reading of modernity in the company of visual artists, asking how the visual arts can help us to understand the theological (or even anti-theological) currents of modernity more deeply.

Post War & Contemporary Art

Hindman will present 119 premier examples of Post War and Contemporary Art on May 22 at 10am CST. The sale boasts a particularly spectacular array of 20th century sculptures with highlights by Barbara Hepworth, Harry Bertoia, Anish Kapoor, Anthony Caro, George Segal and Richard Artschwager.

Amy Sillman

Amy Sillman opens Wednesday, May 22 at the Arts Club of Chicago with a public opening 6–8pm

For her exhibition at The Arts Club, Sillman elaborates a trajectory of free-hanging, two-sided works on paper that play upon the physical and emotional demands of mark-making. With intermittently recognizable figural motifs on one side, Sillman layers pungent colors and fields of interest in restless proposals of form on the other. The serial images are installed like a rebus that treats the gallery as a unified entity. 

Nelly Agassi: Spirit of the Waves

Opening Thursday, May 23 at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts is Nelly Agassi: Spirit of the Waves. 

Through a newly commissioned body of work, including a large-scale textile installation, intricate embroideries, works on paper, sculptures, and a performance, Agassi conjures historical and imagined narratives from the architectural details of the Graham Foundation’s Madlener House. The culmination of Agassi’s 2019 Graham Foundation Fellowship, this exhibition explores erasure, preservation, identity, and architecture’s capacity to change.

Genevieve Gaignard: Black White and Red All Over

Ending on May 24 at Monique Meloche Gallery is Black White and Red All Over, Genevieve Gaignard’s first solo show with the gallery, and her first in Chicago. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s new body of mixed media works on panel and includes a site-specific installation.