Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest.&nbsp;Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition&nbsp;<a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788406386/nq4xx2c2tsa2og1kfgkz.jpg"> <h4>Nikko Washington –&nbsp;</h4><h4>Artist</h4> “I’m thrilled to further expand my artistic and design practice by introducing other mediums into the mix. I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change and devoting a lot of time in the studio as well. Fall/winter is my favorite time to create new works.&nbsp; I have an upcoming solo show with <a href="https://vsgcontemporary.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">VSG&nbsp;Contemporary</a> that I am excited about. The work will delve further into the topics of cultural mythology and how these tales and narratives have helped shape my worldview.&nbsp; Also, it wouldn’t be right if I left out my&nbsp;excitement for this upcoming season of Chicago sports.” <a href="https://www.nikkowashington.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nikko Washington</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Nikko Washington

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961823/s3lp0uull2s8mvd8funj.jpg">Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue.&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" target="_blank">Purchase a copy or subscribe</a>. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961824/mghrpnghxd9j9ko2dsjt.jpg">Andi Crist BY ALISON REILLY Andi Crist’s warm, engaging demeanor is evident in the first few minutes of our conversation. Generous with her time and forthcoming in her observations, she cares deeply about building relationships through her art making. Crist grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, devoured art classes, wrote songs and played music in high school, and moved to Chicago to study visual art at Columbia College. In 2024, she received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a woodworker, sculptor, ceramicist, and conceptual artist, and she teaches at Illinois Institute of Technology. We discussed her multidisciplinary practice, her experience working as an art handler, preparator, and fabricator, and how she thinks about labor, creativity, and value in the art world.&nbsp; CGN: You grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. How did that environment shape your point of view as an artist? Andi Crist: That’s such a funny question. Nobody’s ever really asked. CGN: Oh, really? AC: Yeah, maybe because I never was super connected with the arts community down in Birmingham. I moved to Chicago in 2007, so it’s been 20 years since I lived in the South. I was definitely one of those art kids—one art credit was required in high school, and I graduated with like seven. I was surrounded by artists who had a big impact on me, because they were working artists. All my art teachers were trained in Alabama and then continued to teach and work in Alabama, which gave me this desire to try to expand my community outside of what I was familiar with. CGN: Do you identify as a Chicagoan? AC: My family still lives in Alabama, and I go back every year. I love being in Alabama. Maybe now being in Chicago for almost 20 years, I identify as a southerner living in the city. I carry on the social qualities of a friendly southern person [laughs].&nbsp; CGN: You have a varied art practice—woodwork, ceramics, mold making. What drew you to those types of fabrication methods and that type of art making? AC: My dad is a carpenter and a hobbyist woodworker, but his career was psychology, and my mom was a professor and an incredible craftswoman. I absorbed my mom’s model of creativity, which is to try a bunch of different things and not necessarily finish them but to try to learn as much as I can by just going for it. My practice over the years has become an exploration of conceptual elements of what makes art art and not just craft. Do you have to be a master craftsperson or a professional artist in order to make something that resonates with people? I make a lot of work that references the mode of making and requires a variety of different media. I just finished teaching a ceramics production class where students learned how to produce molds, think about positives and negatives, and get into a level of production rather than just handicraft as a way to multiply their output. I got into fabrication because I’ve always liked working with other artists. I have a background in theater and gallery work. I’m a voracious learner, and I like being able to share those skills with my community. Then I end up making work about that. It’s a self-feeding cycle. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961825/zzejqwibga5f5wk6einh.jpg">Andi Crist,&nbsp;Artist’s Ladder, 2023.&nbsp;Photo: Jeff Perlman CGN: Thinking about your background as an art handler and preparator—how did you get to the point where you were making work about that experience? AC: In 2010, right before I graduated from Columbia, I was living in a storefront in West Logan Square with my partner at the time. We started a gallery called Autotelic in the space and had to build it out using the worst tools with very minimal resources. Then we started curating shows there and that meant helping other artists figure out how to install their work in our unusual space. Eventually, I gained the reputation for knowing how to do that type of work. I started getting invited to work in museums and galleries.&nbsp; The Holocaust Museum was the first museum I worked at, and as difficult as that subject matter is, that experience was really important to me because I was learning more about the larger world of gallery work. As an artist working as a preparator, you’re straddling both sides of that space. You’re really seeing how the sausage is made. You’re hearing all the conversations about artists, curators, the process of exhibition making. There is a lot of information you can gather about the economics of the art world by just being the person that has the know-how to touch and handle artwork. Eventually that started feeding into my art practice because I wanted to make work that was contributing to a conversation around art as a type of job. It fueled a methodology of seeing everything in the world as the result of a long line of processes that required effort and thoughtfulness by many hands. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961826/uv5bysb5fbne30gr5czh.jpg">Andi Crist, Fair Warning, 2025. CGN: The title of your recent exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum—Live, Laugh, Lo—sorry, not Live, Laugh, Love—Live, Laugh, Labor. AC: [Laughs] That’s what everybody does. CGN: I love the title—it’s perfect. You incorporate humor along with thoughtful critiques about labor and value in your work. What role does humor play? How does it help you connect with your audience? AC: One of my biggest criticisms of art with a capital A is how easily it can be overly intellectualized. I think that’s why I end up making a lot of work that references things that already exist or have some kind of real purpose. It’s important to give people a foothold so there’s an obvious place to board that train of thought. As an artist—maybe this is me getting into a sweeping argument about what artists should be—but I personally believe in intellectual accessibility. Humor is a swift way to drop defenses and allow people to come in without feeling like they are not getting the joke or not understanding. I like to make work that can hold both of those things at the same time—it’s funny on the surface level, it’s kind of cheeky, but there’s also another way to look at it that is intellectually clever. There is a joy in the attempt to “get it”. Like the satisfaction of grasping how a crossword puzzle actually works. It’s also so much a part of my personality. I take myself seriously as an artist, but my ego isn’t at the heart of it. It’s really something that I do because I love to make things, and I love to connect with other people. My parents raised me on puns, creating those language relationships between things and people and space. Understanding a joke is the same way that we understand art, and while neither of my parents would consider themselves artists, they taught me how to think about art. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961828/gnotyfijabr7e15kb6hm.jpg">Andi Crist,&nbsp;69 Bananas CGN: Your work, Artist’s Ladder, explores hierarchies, workplace cultures, and institutional values. What experiences shaped your reflections on these themes?&nbsp;AC: The ladder piece distinctly represents the complicated relationship between front of house, back of house, and the hierarchy of labor. Who is the artist in those relationships? How much does another person’s knowledge and expertise contribute to the success of another artist? There are enormous, industrialized art practices out there, warehouses full of people making things, and those people are also artists. When you make work that involves other people, it’s important to acknowledge their contributions. I’ve had complicated interactions with other artists who are like, ‘Hey, do you want to collaborate with me on this thing?’ but really they just want me to make their idea. I made Artist’s Ladder while I was in grad school at UIC, and it really represented my relationship with a lot of other artists, because I could be an actual support structure for them. Then it turned into this absurd physical thing. It’s extremely overbuilt with inlaid racing stripes made of exotic hardwood, and a butcher’s block-style plaid top. It’s not really like an FU as much as it is asking for acknowledgement of my skills and the essential support structures that exist.&nbsp;CGN: I want to ask you about another piece, Five O’Clock Somewhere, a wool rug that resembles a children’s play mat. I work at a library, and it reminded me of rugs I see all the time. It’s a peaceful image of an office park with a large fountain surrounded by a parking lot. I’m curious why you chose a rug as the medium to depict that image.&nbsp;AC: To me the heart of that joke was that it was a landscape. I wanted it to be physically traversable. And that was, I don’t want to say controversial, but it was something that I had to talk about a lot. The critique of that work was the fact that I didn’t want to hang it on the wall and turn it into a tapestry. I really wanted it to be a rug that people could walk on. When I showed that work at Chicago Artists Coalition for the New City Breakout Artists show. There was a lot of pushback about having it on the floor and allowing people to walk on it.&nbsp;That, to me, was such an important conversation, because, in my mind, the fact that you could walk across it and traverse it was part of how I was thinking about the object. Rugs are utilitarian–they are floor coverings. When you make art that doesn’t do anything, you don’t get to participate in that part of the conversation.&nbsp;I enjoy sparring around art like that. I am totally tickled by the pushback. The critique of display is exciting, and sorting through the politics of utilitarianism in art spaces is fun to me. And then—it was so crazy—we ended up showing it halfway on the wall and halfway on the ground.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961829/r1zylkwfw9rkw191skdl.jpg">Andi Crist, Five O’Clock Somewhere, on display at Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths at The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, 2025. CGN: Oh, wow. AC: I was like, this is the epitome of compromise! I had to build a structure so that it could hang that way safely.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: I would say just put it on the ground if that’s what you want to do. It’s interesting that there are still very fixed ideas about the way that art should be displayed.&nbsp;AC: That preparator part of it, that’s what I’m all about. I was having that conversation about what physically supports the work or what conceptually supports it in the way that it’s shown.&nbsp;&nbsp;CGN: Have you always been a writer? How do your art and writing practices work together?&nbsp; AC: I can’t say that I’m a writer, it’s probably the same way that it can feel weird to call yourself an artist. But I feel like I’ve always been relatively good at writing. The first time I ever did any kind of professional writing was contributing,&nbsp;a long time ago, to a website called eHow. The editors would send me a title, and then I would have to research how to do that thing. Then I would write out step-by-step instructions for how to do that.&nbsp; I think that’s how I had to make myself think through my conceptual practice—I had to do the research, coagulate that into some kind of document, and then I would have stream-of-consciousness conversations with myself. “Why are we interested in this? Why would we make it this way? What would I want to talk about if someone were to ask me about this?” It’s almost like I was pre-interviewing myself.&nbsp; I think the writing is just another way for me to process that idea before I put in all of the time and energy to actually accomplish it.&nbsp; CGN: What are you working on right now? What projects do you have coming up? AC: The biggest project that I have right now is my house. My family and I suffered a major house fire on New Year’s Day. We’ve been displaced since then and are navigating rebuilding our house. It was a total loss.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961830/kekfqzf9f87fq48juogh.jpg">Andi Crist, Single-Use Fireplace, 2025. Photo: Mikey Mosher. &nbsp;CGN: I’m so sorry to hear that.&nbsp; AC: Thank you. We’re all okay, but it’s been a really tumultuous year. I moved my studio into a storefront last summer, and so most of my, at least relatively recent, work is safe, and I still have all of my materials, but my home life is starting over. I just had my first full year at this space, and it’s got a little gallery built out in the front called Coming Soon. It’s beautiful with floor-to-ceiling windows on Division and Central Park. I’ve been inviting people into the space to try things out.&nbsp;After teaching the ceramics class, I came into a bunch of nice slip casting molds, and I’m making some really playful, weird, ceramic stuff. I want to be open and not put too much pressure on myself. Having a big studio by myself is very expensive, so it’s easy to want to make it feel like it’s worth it. But if for now all I can do is make it a resource for other people, then that will be the thing I do. Be less selfish, but more selfish with my time. Saying I can’t do that, or I don’t want to do that. It’s not my nature to say no—I’m such a yes man. I’m learning how to be a yes man for myself.&nbsp; CGN: That makes sense after going through something so traumatic.&nbsp;AC: I have an amazing support system. Our friends started a GoFundMe. It was incredible. I’m so humbled and floored by how held I felt by Chicago. I can’t help but throw a little shout out to my Chicago people. I can see how people’s lives get totally ruined by this kind of tragedy. I feel so lucky. Chicago definitely showed its love back.&nbsp; CGN: For your project Coming Soon, are you bringing in other artists? AC: My philosophy is that I want to be involved as little as possible. I am thinking about it more as a hosted than curated space. I’m actively soliciting proposals or ideas for workshops, meetings, book clubs—I’m down for making it a resource, whatever that means. I don’t want to over-think it, I want it to be an intuitive and organic thing, which is why I call it Coming Soon—it can be a placeholder for anything. It’s exciting. Taking my hands off the reins is a good exercise for me. <a href="https://www.andicrist.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">andicrist.com</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961831/gno5dhliwfnzpuaim78s.jpg">Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher

Andi Crist: The Art of The Pun

Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest.&nbsp;Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition&nbsp;<a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.&nbsp;</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788406156/qqmps2pxxrcbtrnnc9lo.jpg"><h4>Debra Kerr –&nbsp;</h4><h4>CEO, Intuit Art Museum</h4> “Fall is busy at Chicago Artists Coalition, since we will have Resident Exhibition openings on Friday, September 4 and October 30. We’re also hosting our annual <a href="https://chicagoartistscoalition.betterworld.org/events/neon-90s-night" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fundraiser</a> at Ignite Glass Studio on Thursday, October 1, where we want&nbsp;everyone to have the opportunity to support artists as much as they support art. The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures hosts a regional convening here in Chicago November 12–14, and there will be activities across the city, open to the&nbsp;public, and CAC will be hosting at least one. My favorite public event of the year, Grabadolandia, is the 3rd weekend in November at the National Museum of Mexican Art. In its 14th year, it’s full of family-friendly, hands-on printmaking, social activism and gorgeous art for purchase. You’ll also meet some amazing gente!”&nbsp; <a href="https://art.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Intuit Art Museum</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Debra Kerr

Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest.&nbsp;Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition&nbsp;<a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788406185/ufuadbvbeybjwsvzr4qz.jpg">Photo by Travis Roozée <h4>William Gross –&nbsp;</h4><h4>65GRAND</h4> “Ever since my school days, I’ve looked forward to fall—a season of reconnecting with friends, embarking on new adventures, and sharing an enthusiasm for art. In that spirit, I’m excited to announce our fall lineup at 65GRAND. The gallery presents solo exhibitions by William Staples, Holly Murkerson and Shane Huffman. Staples debuts paintings that both reflect and incorporate materials from the landscape surrounding his home along the Esopus Creek in the Catskills, exploring formal conventions of painting while challenging how we perceive pictorial space. Murkerson makes photographic work that seeks to visualize embodiment and the porousness between body and environment, grounded in the materiality (liquid, mineral, animal, light), apparatuses (eye, room, womb, chamber) and slow metabolism of analog photography. Huffman continues ‘swimming to the moon,’ investigating the unified phenomena of “lightmotionspace” through photographic experiments at the intersection of lab work and alchemical sorcery. We have also extended Jenal Dolson’s installation, Interrobang, which inaugurated our project space.&nbsp; We look forward to welcoming you for artist talks and special events at the gallery this season!” <a href="https://www.65grand.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">65GRAND</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – William Gross

A Family Home for Stories: Collectors Macol and José Cerda

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961856/l0eezimwds7hltrezbjd.jpg"> This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue.&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" target="_blank">Purchase a copy or subscribe.</a> By SUSAN GESCHEIDLE Launched in 2005 by Duncan MacKenzie, Richard Holland, and Amanda Browder, the legendary art podcast <a href="https://badatsports.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bad at Sports</a> is turning 21. If you were around the scene back then, you remember this trio of brilliant, sharp, and irreverent creatives who added dynamic intellectual energy to the city’s art dialogue. I spoke with Duncan to revisit the podcast’s early days, trace its evolution, and understand its impact today. Susan Gescheidle: Let’s go back to 2005. How did the idea for Bad at Sports come together, and who named it? Duncan MacKenzie: Friendship and building lives around contemporary art is the real story of how Bad at Sports became a thing. The origin starts with Richard Holland, a marriage proposal, the Suburban, and a few drinks. Richard and I became friends at the 2003 Stray Show. While drinking, I accidentally blurted out that I was going to ask my girlfriend to marry me—and immediately tried to take it back. He demanded a quarter, explaining that it meant I had him on retainer and, as a lawyer and an artist, he was legally obligated to keep quiet. Realizing we worked in the same building, we resolved to meet after work to discuss exhibitions. While working on an exhibition at Michelle Grabner’s Suburban, we learned a handful of people were making “radio show-like” audio programs distributed as large MP3s. Of the 3,000 or so of these existing on Earth (per Adam Carolla’s early distribution numbers), none addressed contemporary art. It was a whimsical thing to do: make an audio program about things we are supposed to experience visually and bodily. It removed the most obvious thing in the content to address it through artistic intent, humor, philosophy, viewer reception, system status, and curatorial context. In doing it that way, the conversation becomes the thing, the artists become central, and the artwork bears fruit as a subject of contemplation, narrative, and experience. As we walked to Richard’s attic to record Episode 4, we ran into Amanda Browder and “press-ganged” her into joining us. It was a massive moment of serendipity that crystallized Bad at Sports. A few weeks later, Brian Andrews formed the “San Francisco Bureau,” setting our format for the first several years. The name is another story. In our first graduate seminar with legendary curator Mark Pascal, he asked SAIC’s first-year print grads why they were there. It was an obvious feint to disabuse us of our naivety, so nobody answered. I looked around theatrically and said, “I don’t know, Mark, maybe we are all just bad at sports?” It wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but five years later it was exactly the name Richard and I were looking for to set a tone—light, a little real, a lot confusing, and just repellent enough that folks would have to be interested to figure out what we were about. We wanted to embrace contemporary art pretension and skewer it (and ourselves) at the same time. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961858/jgs1hhheczm1i78n7lvr.jpg">The one where Bad at Sports interviewed David Hockney. SG: Whose brainchild was the audio format? Did you foresee a 21-year commitment? DM: The impulse was twofold. Richard and I were trying to find something to listen to that would enrich our studio time. We came from practices requiring repetitive tasks, and we also wanted to document a scene getting less attention than it deserved. We had no idea what we were doing. There were no models. We borrowed from radio, bar and studio talk, magazines, and graduate seminars…but really, it was an adventure. We still lack infrastructure because we have never been planning a future; we have just been trying to do “a now”. So many projects get hung up on the things that can make the “work” work for them and forget that the “work” is the thing that must work before it can work for you. We approached the thing we make like an artist approaches their studio: we started and kept letting the project lead us. SG: Was the goal simply to review gallery shows or to capture the art world’s wider, raw conversations? DM: When Amanda joined the show we figured it out. We thought we would pull an artist in to talk “smack” about what we had seen that weekend. But we had so much fun with Amanda that we started to see how we could engage the whole art world through the concerns of individual artists. It allowed us to constantly learn and grow while tracing the curves of the art world’s discourse. It completely reshaped our original notion. Brian and the SF crew expanded it to partnering with organizations like Art Practical. SG: Where did that very first episode take place? Was it with Chris Cook, curator from the Sioux City Art Center? DM: Yes. We did it a couple of days before it dropped, on what felt like the hottest day ever, in the hottest attic. Chris Cook was an outstanding guest, but it was hot, beer was involved, and I kept trying to bait him into arguments about modern art. We recorded for 90 minutes, and the episode was cut to something like 35. Richard claims he only cut my hectoring and pointed jokes about minimalism. Chris was a good sport—he is now the ED at the Bemis Center—but he is reluctant to get back on mic. The second episode needs to be reissued. It is an interview with Chris Sperandio about a pilot show he made for Fox. They were unhappy that it had not gone through their lawyers first. I think we should put it out as a limited-release vinyl record. SG: Was the project easier to manage when it was a small core group, or do you prefer this mesh, “well-oiled machine”? DM: That is funny to think about. It always feels like being in a band—but one where you never really know who will show up for practice… or the gig. We only meant to have an independent voice in the art world and be beholden to the artwork itself. That has sometimes been a blessing and sometimes a curse. I think everyone who has ever worked with us has been mad at everyone else who has ever worked with us; but like any good band, we are just as much family as friends. We are always there to pick up the phone for one another, and the ethic of the project is about showing up and contributing. Everyone connected is still welcome where we are. No one would call us a “well-oiled machine,” but we are a bunch of folks who are serious and care about what we do. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961858/gwxdh2vnkmvykbni6sxa.jpg">Tony Lewis and Baddie on the Terrace of the MCA during a recording session in 2025. SG: In 2006, you added Christopher Hudgens for the website and Mark Staff-Brandl for a footprint in Europe. Did that expansion happen naturally? DM: Like natural growth, we didn’t know how to control or dictate it; we learned along the way. Christopher Hudgens has been an incredible bedrock for the website. Mark joined us for a while because he loved what we were doing and wanted to contribute. Because of what Brian was doing in SF, what Amanda did in NYC, and the work of a few others, we actively tried to court a network model where we could share a different kind of art world than you get in Artforum or Frieze. In lots of ways, it worked amazingly for many years, but the core was always Chicago and the Midwest. SG: Looking at the local ecosystem—the galleries, art schools, fairs, non-profit and public spaces, curators, and critics—what has gotten better, what has gotten worse, and what is completely different? DM: This could be a whole interview, but there is a catch-22 here. Everything that has gotten better has also changed or taken away something great. The best thing is that we have more access to art than we could have imagined in 2005. The downside is that there is so much of it, and it is often overwhelming and underfunded. In 2005, we had a broken but stable model of the art “business.” In 2026, we have a lot of legacy models that need to be reassessed, but we are all afraid the sky is falling, so we stick with what we know. We need to rethink the value arguments contemporary art makes to its audience. For me, it is always the same: this is a space of experimental culture. A safe space to ask questions, take unpopular stands, and “fuck around and find out.” It’s the space in which we expose ourselves to the unknown and the unknown exposes itself to us. It shouldn’t be—but can’t help but be—a place where we build ourselves as idea brands that “co-lab” with institutions to cross-expose our audiences. What artists do for humans is too important for that. SG: What does Chicago’s art scene do exceptionally well that outsiders—especially in New York, LA, and global art hubs—still don’t understand? DM: I always think that this is a byproduct of Chicago-based collectors wanting their NYC friends to recognize and admire their newly acquired works without having to justify their tastes. In general, I think we do a decent job of supporting our scene, but I would love to see us have the confidence that LA does and just say, “What NYC doesn’t know won’t hurt them.” We incubate and train the country’s best talent; we need to give them more to stay for than part-time teaching jobs and an incredible scene. Sales would help. SG: Has your episode length changed over the years to keep up with how people consume digital media today? DM: We always try to keep it to about an hour, but that is totally flexible. If the conversation is going somewhere, I never want it to stop, but you also want to be conscious of the audience. That said, it seems almost impossible to do what we did 21 years ago. The social media requirements, the need for constant engagement, video, editing—it would have been too much to wrangle at one time. SG: Did you ever anticipate that Bad at Sports would step in front of the camera? DM: We never mean to. There is something magical about a voice going out and finding someone. I don’t know that we need a face; the works we talk about are the face. We are “Muppets” that exist to get ideas out. Plus, I have learned that if you make a mean joke, criticize someone’s artwork, or get something wrong, those folks’ friends never forget. Artists themselves are fairly forgiving. SG: In 2007, you dedicated Episode 79 to the West Loop—including the Chris Verene show at my gallery, gescheidle. The show notes explicitly tease you for repeatedly butchering his name on air.&nbsp; DM: Yes, and I am sorry. I remember and feel shame for every single incorrect moment of the last 21 years. I am fortunate to live in a community that has been accepting of my—and our—quirks. It has been a delight. Hopefully, we made some friends and some enemies. Either way, we loved you and all of it. SG: You’ve evolved from irreverent commentators into trusted mainstays. How has that journey shifted your approach to honesty? DM: In the early days, we got a lot of hate mail. Our value then was honesty: we weren’t in anyone’s pocket, and we said what we meant. It didn’t mean we weren’t wrong sometimes, but we were giving a raw and real reaction. It was quite different from writing reviews. When reviewing, you sit with the work, balance internal and external concerns, measure the venue, consider the gallery’s reputation, consult other writers, and look at precedents. But when you are in the space, you react to a work like it is another creature. You react viscerally, bringing reason and experience to the object to vibe-check it. It is messy but honest, and a product of direct engagement. I think that is rare, and the audience and artists understood. That said, a number of partners and friends threatened us with bodily violence—but it is art, so that seemed bonkers. To date, only two of us have been punched over reviews. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961859/vmmwkk6ubgy2zvflichy.jpg">BAS atop the MCA SG: If you were forced to pick just one single episode as the most important or culturally significant conversation you’ve ever hosted, what would it be? DM: Interesting question, and hard to answer. The interviews with Tony Fitzpatrick were important because we got a slightly different Tony than we got most of the time. Our interview with Kerry James Marshall was also important and incredibly revealing. Actually, everything in the first five years is amazing because no one was savvy enough to know what we were doing, so we got more honesty. I remember chatting with people from NYC where it felt like an hour-long pitch. A great interview is a conversation that is hard to leave, and that is what we chase now. SG: Where is the most unique, bizarre, or flat-out fun space you have ever recorded an episode? DM: We did a series with apexart in NYC where we would do interviews in destabilizing or transitory places. Amanda did one between two stalls in a decommissioned NYC school bathroom. I flew an artist to Chicago, met him for two hours of beer pong, and sent him back to the airport. His experience of Chicago was two taxis and one room. They were bizarre and fun. For VOLTA NY, we installed a bed and did 24 interviews over three days, John-and-Yoko style. Mat Gleason was super fun. SG: What is the most unexpected geographic location where someone is downloading the podcast? DM: I maintain a strict rule against checking metrics. We want the work to be the thing. That said, it has been fascinating to see the global reach of the show and just how many folks have spent time with us over the last 21 years. SG: What platforms do you personally turn to? DM: Obviously, Chicago Gallery News. But The Visualist is a longtime collaborator and an invaluable artist-run resource. I completely trust Mike and Meg to point us all toward an interesting future. I am hopeful about the impact Gertie will have, or Motley as an art-first PR firm. One of the things I hope for with the next generation is that they see ways to help existing projects—and, where there is not a thing, that they go ahead and make the thing that should be there.&nbsp; SG: How did your relationship with Ed Marszewski and Lumpen Radio come about? DM: Ed is a fellow traveler. We grew up in this art scene together, alongside Andrew Rafacz, Western Exhibitions, threewalls, Roots &amp; Culture, a generation of artists, and a score of projects no longer with us. Ed and BAS have been vital parts of this artist-run community, and we remain deeply connected and supportive of one another. More directly, when Ed started WLPN, we had coffee and he explained that he was opening a radio station for us. Then Logan said if we did it live, there was no expectation to edit. We will do anything Ed asks because he is one of us, and he has never let us down. SG: Keeping an arts project alive for 21 years is a miracle. How is the podcast funded, and has an angel donor ever dropped a massive bag of cash? DM: We are super open to an angel donor. We have lofty ideas for Season Two. Season One was held together with duct tape, goodwill, and glue. You can find our merch at badatsports.threadless.com SG: Did King LeBron actually fund the podcast, or is this just elite clickbait? DM: We are attempting to preserve the anonymity of our donors. I am horrified to hear that this has leaked. SG: Have you ever had to issue a genuine apology to someone for an episode that went too far or was just plain mean? DM: I like to think we are never mean and that, when we punch, we punch up. That said, in retrospect, “up” is a matter of perspective, and maybe it wasn’t what we thought it was. We were a little hard on Sterling Ruby and Rashid Johnson. I remember apologizing to Rashid in a Miami bar one night. He got it. Sterling, on the other hand, went out of his way to upset one of us and be dramatically uncool about it. It was disappointing, given his compound in LA. SG: What’s the next milestone? DM: I can’t speak for everyone—maybe for our current team: Ryan Peter Miller, Brian Andrews, and permanent guest host Jesse Malmed—but I love it. This has been one of the greatest trips ever. SG: Richard Holland traded BAS for real estate, and Amanda Browder has an art practice and studio in Brooklyn. Do you three still stay in touch? DM: Richard is my real estate agent and neighbor. Amanda exploded out of Bad at Sports and has gone on to fortune and glory through building-sized installations and spectacularly colorful artworks. We all hang out every time we can track her down, and Richard and I get together whenever time allows. I am sure both will be present on October 3 at the MCA when we record the last six episodes of Season One. Episodes 999, 998, 997, 996, 995, 994… Not that I am counting. I fucking love Chicago. There is no better art city—or city city—in North America. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be anywhere but here. #

Bad at Sports at 21: Before Everyone Had a Podcast, Chicago had This

Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest.&nbsp;Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition&nbsp;<a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.&nbsp;</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788405779/eqa3we3n7ojlwakfnvjq.jpg"> <h4>Brookes Ebetsch –&nbsp;</h4><h4>Director, Chicago Artists Coalition</h4> “Fall is busy at Chicago Artists Coalition, since we will have Resident Exhibition openings on Friday, September 4 and October 30. We’re also hosting our annual <a href="https://chicagoartistscoalition.betterworld.org/events/neon-90s-night" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fundraiser</a> at Ignite Glass Studio on Thursday, October 1, where we want&nbsp;everyone to have the opportunity to support artists as much as they support art. The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures hosts a regional convening here in Chicago November 12–14, and there will be activities across the city, open to the&nbsp;public, and CAC will be hosting at least one. My favorite public event of the year, Grabadolandia, is the 3rd weekend in November at the National Museum of Mexican Art. In its 14th year, it’s full of family-friendly, hands-on printmaking, social activism and gorgeous art for purchase. You’ll also meet some amazing gente!”&nbsp; <a href="https://www.chicagoartistscoalition.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chicago Artists Coalition</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Brookes Ebetsch

Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest.&nbsp;Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition&nbsp;<a href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.&nbsp;</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788405399/tkadnn5aubk7zzcd6w3o.jpg">Photo by Maria Ponce <h4>Ionit Behar –&nbsp;</h4><h4>MCA Curator</h4> “Although summer is my favorite season in Chicago, September feels like the city’s true new year. At the MCA, I’m especially excited about Slow Dance, opening September 12 and curated by my colleague Jadine Colingwood. The exhibition explores slowness as a form of resistance, inviting us to pause in a culture of constant performance. Later in the season, we’ll present Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, a major retrospective curated by Jack Schneider, that marks the artist’s return to the MCA more than two decades after his first exhibition here. I’m also looking forward to Maria Gaspar’s live performance We Lit the Fire and Trusted the Heat (After Angela Davis), which transforms materials from the former Cook County Jail into a powerful space for music, memory, and community. Beyond the museum, Chicago Exhibition Week is when the city’s museums, galleries, and spaces open their doors with exhibitions, performances, and conversations, reminding us why Chicago remains one of the most exciting and generous contemporary art communities anywhere.” <a href="https://mcachicago.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Ionit Behar

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234909/jaxlqvisaonmohweln4u.jpg">Rashid Johnson at his studio in Brooklyn, New York, 2024. Credit: Sabrina Santiago. This interview is CGN's Fall 2026 cover interview. <a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" target="_blank">Purchase a copy or subscribe.</a> By SUSAN GESCHEIDLE Chicago native Rashid Johnson brings his 30-year survey, <a href="https://mcachicago.org/whats-on/exhibitions/rashid-johnson-a-poem-for-deep-thinkers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A Poem for Deep Thinkers</a>, home this November. Opening November 7, 2026, the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago follows stops at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Susan Gescheidle: You move fluidly between photography, painting, sculpture, and large-scale architecture. What is the underlying anchor connecting these mediums across this 30-year trajectory? Rashid Johnson: That’s a big question. The lack of medium specificity in my project is born of curiosity and an ambition for problem-solving, but simultaneously recognizing that art is a horrible vehicle for that. Art is intended to allow space for exploration. It’s dynamic and unspecific. Shifting, exploring, and different outlets provide me opportunity. That’s why my work doesn’t fit easily into a simple diagnosis. SG: The architecture of the MCA Chicago, the Guggenheim, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth shapes visitor movement differently. How will this spatial shift affect your early Columbia College work compared to your massive current installations? RJ: The MCA is a great facilitator for what happens in the later work. The Guggenheim is an interesting space because the lower parts of the rotunda are built for smaller works, which allowed my earlier Columbia College photography to shine. Contemporary spaces like Fort Worth and the MCA make you face different obstacles around smaller objects. They make you gather them, build structures and narratives, and sometimes use salons to occupy the space effectively. It presents different challenges, but also opportunities. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234911/yvlialmz7lqbsuducbd8.jpg">Rashid Johnson, Sanguine, 2025. Installation view: Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers; April 18, 2025–January 18, 2026;&nbsp;Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Photograph by David Heald. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York. Courtesy of the artist.&nbsp; SG: Materials like black soap, shea butter, books, and plants became central to your mid-career shift. Do these elements change in meaning over time, or do they serve as a growing vocabulary for new spaces? RJ: I think a bit of both. Materials have a vocabulary unto themselves and a way they become legible to each individual viewer. Your relationship with plants, or whether materials are familiar or foreign, is going to dictate how you read my project. For example, if you grew up with shea butter—applying it or seeing it sold on the streets—you may have a different sense of it than someone coming to it for the first time. The language belonging to the material continues to inform how an audience engages with it. I love that aspect; it’s quite rewarding. The other opportunity is looking at the materials through my biography. You recognize them as foreign to you, but familiar to me, allowing you to read the work as both an insider and outsider. I’m excited by the way people translate the materials through their own experiences, but simultaneously imagine my relationship to them. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234912/z9vxzejf628vaiol97hp.jpg">Installation view: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, ‘12x12: New Artist/New Work,’ 2002, Chicago, IL. Courtesy of the artist.&nbsp; SG: How has your core group of early Chicago benefactors and collectors sustained your work over the last 30 years? RJ: My early benefactors and collectors in Chicago played an enormous role in creating space for me to make work, and they continue to give me hope in how patronage can be an effective partnership. When I was leaving Chicago, I approached supporters Paul Gray, Evan Boris and Monique Meloche, Dan Berger, and others to ask for a loan to be paid off with future artwork in order to help me transition to New York. They facilitated that. The patronage and enthusiasm for local artists is enormous in Chicago; it’s an important part of the city’s character. The way those early patrons imagined their relationship with me is the criterion I use to judge the quality of people who acquire my work today. SG: What do you hope a new generation of collectors discovers in your art today? RJ: I hope a new generation feels energized, entertained, and curious about how my project translates personal experience into illustrated objects, material investigations, and a way of imagining the world. I hope they use my practice as a launchpad to explore their own enthusiasm for art and feel open to the curious opportunities it provides. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234913/h9wolwcvfrp1bkivmlgk.jpg">Installation view: Rashid Johnson: ‘The Rise and Fall of the Proper Negro,’&nbsp;2003, Chicago, IL. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery.&nbsp; SG: You and your former partner, fellow artist Sheree Hovsepian, launched the residency at Casa Gracia on Menorca with no required deliverables or exhibition. What kind of creatives are you hoping to attract to this pressure-free environment? And is this yet another way of giving back to the artistic community? RJ: We’re hoping to attract good ones. We want people who share our enthusiasm for art, who contribute to discourse, and who are modern—the kinds of people who don’t avert their eyes and who understand the challenges of being a maker in a complicated world. We want thinkers and writers. I’ve been so widely supported and nourished by a community of practitioners, collectors, and curators that I see this as an opportunity to pay it forward. I want to continue to provide opportunities—mirroring the ones I had, while having the ambition to provide the kinds of opportunities I wish I’d had. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234914/kyf26lsp3vekmpkt2hqh.jpg">Rashid Johnson during his childhood in Chicago, IL. Courtesy of the artist. SG: You are from Evanston and went to Evanston Township High School, just like my kids did. Raised by a mother who was an African history scholar in a home steeped in Du Bois and Baraka, how did that deep Afrocentric grounding and Evanston’s activist community shape your worldview? RJ: It shaped it dramatically. Growing up as a child of academics in a family that prioritized critical engagement keeps that history at the forefront of my work. It drives my references and the questions my projects ask. Evanston is a special town. Its diversity, complexity, and proximity to Chicago force you to ask deep questions. More recently, its push to be at the forefront of reparations aligns perfectly with the values I associate with the community—values like restorative justice and making wrongs right. Evanston shaped me in ways that were vital to my development, and I’m incredibly proud to be from there. SG: Second part of that question, and most important: Do you still agree “It’s a great day to be a Wildkit”? RJ: Every day is “a great day to be a Wildkit!” The high school was so important to my development and my understanding of the world, and so I’m still proud to be an Evanstonian. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234916/hf874fw4v3body0kueyl.png">Rashid Johnson, Untitled Escape Collage, 2018 (detail). Ceramic tile, mirror tile, branded red oak flooring, vinyl, spray enamel, oil stick, black soap, wax, 97 × 121 × 2.25 in. (246.38 × 307.34 × 5.72 cm). Collection of Kathy and Mitchell Jacobson X.2025.88 © Rashid Johnson, 2025. Photo: Martin Parsekian SG: You were only 23 when Thelma Golden curated your work into Freestyle at the Studio Museum in Harlem. You’ve been open about the anxiety that followed the sudden spotlight. What words of wisdom do you have for young artists experiencing a sudden breakout? RJ: I was always dealing with some anxiety, but the spotlight gave me space to reflect. It’s something I’m proud of, happy to have experienced, and I’m even happier to have navigated things that, at a certain stage, I wasn’t even ready for.&nbsp; What I would say is keep your eye on the prize. Don’t believe the hype. Continue to fight, work, and focus on the qualities of your project. Think about it as a long-term opportunity, not a short one. SG: That Harlem breakout proved the power of institutional backing. Today, you aggressively champion younger artists to galleries and collectors. How did your own path shape your approach to mentoring the next generation? RJ: I came up at a time when a number of important people developing their positions in the cultural landscape provided opportunities for me. They educated me through their words, teaching, and action—people like Thelma Golden. Watching how she navigated the landscape of contemporary art, I paid attention. I tried to be present, and wanted to be a vehicle. If you continue to prioritize what matters most to you as a practitioner, you’ll be served by it long term. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234917/dbbunbn6mtx3iyf1kryj.jpg">Rashid Johnson, ‘Broken Crowd “The President’s Audience,”’ 2026, at The Obama Presidential Center, Chicago, IL. Credit: The Obama Foundation.&nbsp; SG: Your commission for the new Obama Presidential Center here in Chicago is a massive milestone. Tying your work to the civic legacy of the first Black president must be an incredible honor. Did you get a personal phone call from President Obama? What did this request for art mean to you emotionally? RJ: I did not get a personal call from the president, but I know that he is aware of my work, and we’ve had several discussions in the past. I was also able to walk through my Guggenheim retrospective with the first lady, Michelle. They have shown themselves to be such incredible, thoughtful patrons in the way they relate to and platform artists. So, I was extremely proud to be included, especially as a native son. Of the presidents I’ve witnessed, he is the most sincere, thoughtful, engaged, and sophisticated leader I can think of in my years paying attention to political life. I’m just proud to be part of something that I think has a lot of integrity. SG: Your mosaic, Broken Crowd, lives inside the Center’s teaching kitchen rather than on a traditional museum wall. Since these commissions are site-specific, how did you choose this space, and what does a community hub add to the meaning of the artwork? RJ: I love the utility of the space, and I love the idea that it’s going to be employed by people who live nearby and visitors who have the ambition to explore and learn. My project is so committed to intellectual and actionable curiosity. The fact that my installation lives in a space that creates room for learning, exploration, and development—and even thinking of it colloquially, the idea of cooking, like how do you cook up something, how do you conjure something? For it to share space with those ideas is fundamentally in line with how my practice aspires to engage an audience. So, for me, that was the spot. SG: Personal question here: You and your son, Julius, share a birthday, which inspired your artwork, Soul Painting “Birthday Boys.” He’s 15 now—does a 30-year museum survey buy you any “cool dad” currency with him? RJ: Zero. He is the person least impressed with me that I’ve come across. I may be some people’s favorite artist, but I’m not even sure I’m his. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788234918/qpc383z36efexjzyzlbg.jpg">Rashid Johnson, God Painting “The Spirit”, 2025 (detail). Oil on linen. Private Collection. © Rashid Johnson, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth. Photography by: Stephanie Powell SG: Before we wrap up, if you could show your work anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? RJ: If I could show my work anywhere in the world, it would be—real answer—the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. And I’ll tell you why. It’s the museum that opened its arms to me first. It’s the one that not only brought me in as a practitioner, but brought me in as a student and as a young person—giving me space to think about what art could be, introducing me to things that I now love that I wasn’t sure what they were, and giving my curiosity space and opportunity to be challenged, to explore, and to see things with different eyes. On top of that, it continues to be such a special place. I’m a boy from Chicago, and it gives me an opportunity to welcome in people who followed my journey from start to finish. In the vein of Woody Allen’s film Deconstructing Harry, I get to see everybody. When I’m there and everybody gets to see me, that’s enough reward. SG: Looking ahead, where do you see your practice evolving next? RJ: As a practitioner who’s also a sober man, I try to take it one day at a time, so I don’t look too far ahead. If I knew where my practice was going, I’m probably going in the wrong direction. I’ll know more tomorrow, so you can ask me then. # <a href="https://mcachicago.org/whats-on/exhibitions/rashid-johnson-a-poem-for-deep-thinkers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers</a>Museum of Contemporary Art ChicagoSaturday, Nov 07, 2026–Sunday, Apr 25, 2027

CGN interview with artist Rashid Johnson MCA exhibition November 2026

A Poem for Deep Thinkers: Rashid Johnson Returns to Chicago

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788754384/e2iqxsigaocmssjl041e.jpg">A rendering of the exterior of the main building of CAMi This interview is from CGN's Spring/Summer 2026 issue.&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" target="_blank">Purchase a print copy or subscribe.</a> By BIANCA BOVA More than 20 years in the making, the Contemporary Art Museum Indianapolis is finally preparing to open its doors, just as the festivities of May get underway in the city.&nbsp; “We didn’t intend on becoming a museum when we started out,” says Shauta Marsh, CAMI’s Director and Chief Curator. She is also the museum’s co-founder, along with her husband Jim Walker, a longtime journalist and teacher who serves as its Executive Director. “We were just working as part of a group of artists living in Indianapolis, and there were certain things that weren’t happening here that we wanted to see happen. So we tried to make them happen.”&nbsp; To say that the couple has made them happen is an understatement. In 2004, they started Big Car Collaborative as an artist-led nonprofit focused on active programming in public spaces, creative placemaking for communities, and socially engaged art. They operated in the city’s Fountain Square neighborhood for nearly a decade, before expanding to neighboring Lafayette Square, where they opened Service Center. Their first major adaptive-reuse project site, it was situated in the former automotive tire service center of a defunct Sears department store.&nbsp; “The tire center had been empty for several years,” notes Marsh. “We talked to the landlord and were able to use the space in exchange for covering operating expenses like lights and trash removal, and fixing the space up. Of course, it was still a tire center, so it was less about white box shows, and more about social practice art projects. Being in Lafayette Square–which is less residential than where we were in Fountain Square, more of a business district–we became kind of a destination space. So we naturally became more event-driven, though we did continue to have exhibitions. We did a show with Found magazine, we had more music and performance-related events, we had, at one point, a bunch of skateboarders who came in and built all these ramps and did their thing, all at Service Center. We also built what we called the Pizza Garden. We installed a pizza oven, and built this big raised-bed garden where we grew everything you would need to make a pizza. We held this end-of-the-year harvest, where we made the pizza from scratch, ground our own wheat for the crust and everything.”&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788754384/exkqht23ps34mtokstu8.jpg">CAMI co-founder Jim Walker In 2014, as Big Car Collaborative reached the milestone of a decade in operations, Service Center closed its doors. The property was to be returned to use as a commercial business unit. Around the same time, Marsh and Walker moved their family to the Garfield Park neighborhood, a historic residential community situated along a 150-acre park south of downtown Indianapolis. “We started thinking about a new place that we could have the organization again, this time in our own neighborhood, because that was the other thing–if you’re working with community, it goes better if you’re working in the neighborhood you live in, and if a majority of the artists that work with the organization are living in the neighborhood you’re working in. When we started looking, we came across this building that was boarded up and we were like, ‘What’s going on with this? It doesn’t look too bad. We could do something like we did at Service Center with this, it needs only a moderate amount of work to be usable,’” Marsh continues, conceding “We were also tired of moving Big Car around. We really wanted our own space.” They found it on Cruft Street, in what would become Tube Factory Art Space. With the support of noted cultural philanthropist George Seybert, President and CEO of Tube Processing Corporation, a manufacturer in the aerospace and energy sectors, and his wife Diane, Big Car was able to realize their vision of a new kind of art space, opening the following year with a series of commissioned exhibitions.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788754385/mzogz9j1dlu60xtgohwq.jpg">CAMI co-founder Shauta Marsh during site construction “George and Diane, they are long time supporters of art in the city, they had helped build the Indianapolis Art Center. George had grown up in the neighborhood, and he was excited to see what we would do at the space. We had a proven track record at that point, and they had faith in what we were doing.”&nbsp; After getting Tube Factory up and running came Big Car’s first long-term and short-term artist residency homes, which made use of vacant properties that neighbored the building along Cruft Street.&nbsp; “Artists are, a lot of times, blamed for gentrification, but they’re also victims of it,” acknowledges Marsh, “They’re really just looking for somewhere affordable. Other people see what they’re doing and say, ‘These people are really cool. I want to live around these cool people, too.’ and then the cycle starts all over. We saw that happen a few times, and we were a part of it. We don’t have the ability–or the money–to fix those problems, we can’t stop or solve gentrification ourselves. But we felt we could do a little bit of something, which is how we ended up developing the artist housing. Artists fill out a survey–we don’t do income or credit checks–and we gauge if they’re a good fit based off of their answers about working in the community. Part of participating is committing sixteen hours a month to the community. That 16 hours can be almost anything: reading a book about social practice art, researching the history of the area, volunteering, attending neighborhood meetings. This helps, as we really want to demystify contemporary art. A lot of the general public have this idea about artists, that they’re standoffish, that they’re unapproachable, that they’re moody and all these things. That’s not always true. So we also wanted to help ensure the public, when they’re in contact with artists, have this experience that’s positive. People are more open to art than each other a lot of times. When you have an artist out there sharing their work, people become curious, and they’ll talk to each other. Then they start to see each other as a person, and it can help reduce the polarization that we’re seeing in society. It makes them more open to the idea of people that they might have thought they don’t like.” Tube Factory also became the home of WQRT 99.1FM, a low-watt radio station.&nbsp; “The opportunity actually came along for us to have the station when we were between physical spaces,” recalls Marsh, “We were always interested in sound art and in experimental radio, and we think of the radio station as another type of space, as another means of exhibition.” <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788754386/rjibif7ymm9963ixhgxb.jpg">Chicken Chapel of Love, window view From there, Marsh and Walker continued to develop their vision for a holistic arts campus on the property. Finally, in 2023, construction began on the 40,000 square-foot main building that would become the Contemporary Art Museum Indianapolis. Accompanying it on the surrounding five acres are the original Tube Factory Space; the radio station’s headquarters; eighteen new artists’ studios; six new exhibition galleries; a suite of five storefronts available to owners of creative small businesses; eighteen affordable homes for long-term and visiting artist residents; a performing arts space; a culinary arts area; a sculpture park; and The Chicken Chapel of Love, “a sacred art project” initiated by Marsh that includes works by Nasreen Khan, Julie Xiao, Justin Cooper, Jason Gray, and, Rachel Leah Cohn, with its own commissions of art, performance, music, and poems on-going. Taken as a whole, the campus represents thirteen million dollars in total investment on Cruft Street, making it one of the the most significant culturally-driven adaptive reuse projects in the city. With this dramatic increase in space, programming, and financial commitment came the decision to formalize a name change, and establish the campus as a museum.&nbsp; “I’m a lover of museums, first of all, I want to say that,” acknowledges Marsh, “but museums have problems, they’re imperfect, they always need improvement. We are–we have always been–artist-run. To this day, our staff are artists and we try to ensure that they have opportunities to exhibit and continue to be artists. We don’t want artists to have to take jobs to make a living and then give up what maybe they went to school for, or what they wanted to do initially, what gives meaning to them. We are an artist-run space, but one that’s decided it’s time to institutionalize.”&nbsp; With that institutionalization, the Contemporary Art Museum Indianapolis takes its rightful place in a legacy that has been establishing itself in the city for years. It is a legacy of generous attitudes towards defining what a museum space can be; and one that has yielded sprawling, highly activated institutional campuses throughout the entire city.&nbsp; Newfields, perhaps the best known of these campus museums, on the North side of the city, is home, most prominently, to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, a well-respected one hundred forty-two year old collecting institution. Also situated on its one hundred fifty-two acre compound is Fairbanks Park, which encompasses a thirty-five acre lake, woodlands, wetlands, and the largest native pollinator meadow in the region; The Garden, a fifty-two acre horticultural park; the historic Lilly House; and the Elder Greenhouse, an active conservatory dating from the 1920’s.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788754386/lp3irixuhpsrz6v2z255.jpg">Yvette Mayorga's work installed at CAMI In the city’s Broad Ripple neighborhood, the Indy Art Center sits along the White River. Founded in 1934 as the Indianapolis Art League through funds from the Works Project Administration, it has long been an access point to both art and nature in the heart of the city. Today its campus is anchored by a Michael Graves-designed building, which houses the Marilyn K. Glick School of Art, complete with an auditorium, classrooms and studios for adult and childhood education programs, exhibition galleries, a library, and a sculpture garden that follows the river trail.&nbsp; Meanwhile on the near eastside, the city’s younger and more experimental artists find purchase in the Factory Arts District, the onetime home of legendary automotive engineering and manufacturing giant Schwitzer, sited on a sixteen acre industrial complex. The complex contains commercial galleries, artist studios, private car collections, restaurants, event spaces, and vintage shops, oriented contiguously in a labyrinthine series of open-ended industrial corridors that themselves play host to monthly parties and social events.&nbsp; Even the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, fresh off of a 60 million dollar renovation (and as much if not more of destination for visitors to the city than all of the aforementioned institutions combined) is, in its own right, not just an archival repository for the sport that made the city famous, but a kind of campus museum, sitting as it does in the shadow of the track’s pagoda control tower.&nbsp; This context, when lent to CAMI on the eve of its grand opening, leaves the new museum poised to cement itself as a cornerstone of this uniquely Hoosier model for the placement of modern cultural institutions in civic life. It is a model that draws on a natural tendency towards granting the broadest possible latitude to defining the scope of an institution; a nimbleness that allows for adaptation to the resources at hand, itself born of a kind of Midwestern pragmatism; and a legacy of labor, with that labor itself rooted in a legacy of love for work worth doing.&nbsp; “You know,” reflects Marsh, “everybody here always says, ‘We don’t have the ocean, we don’t have the mountains,’ you know, all that stuff. But we have this cultural landscape, and maybe that’s the thing we have that sets us apart–regionally–in this world.”&nbsp; <a href="https://camindy.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">camindy.org</a>

A New Kind of Museum: A Stand-Out Space Opens in Indianapolis

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429838/cvi5grjbn78aj55mxvqn.jpg">Images courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photos: Bob. Publisher’s Note: Earlier this year Dana Randall, Communications and Alumni Relations Manager at the Chicago Artists Coalition, sat down with CAC resident artist Pedro Montilla and Alyssa Brubaker, Director of <a href="https://www.moniquemeloche.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);" target="_blank">moniquemeloche</a> to discuss Montilla's practice and the process of working together. By DANA RANDALL Pedro Montilla’s work has been gaining traction over the last year, and he isn’t planning to slow down anytime soon. During a conversation with Montilla and Alyssa Brubaker, Director of Monique Meloche Gallery, the two discussed Pedro’s recent solo exhibition, *Mirar abajo*—which translates loosely to “look below”—, as well as EXPO Chicago, and what lies ahead for Montilla. Regarding the development of *Mirar abajo*, Brubaker first encountered Montilla’s work during his Graduate Thesis Show at SAIC in 2025 while accompanying Monique Meloche and her husband, Evan Boris, a partner of the gallery and a collector. The visit came after a recommendation from Staci Boris, curator and Director of Exhibitions at SAIC. “We were really struck by his sensibility as a painter and his approach to material, subject matter, and composition,” shares Brubaker. “From there, we invited Pedro to do a solo show in our viewing room last fall, which was adjacent to our exhibition with Maia Cruz Palileo, an artist on our roster.” The exhibition was curated with an underlying trust in Montilla’s work and support for his ideas. As Montilla describes, “being given a lot of freedom to just do my work as I normally do, very organically,” as well as “knowing the gallery’s program and also feeling very welcomed by them,” contributed to his decision to fully invest himself in the exhibition. Following his graduation, a summer fellowship at Ox-Bow in Saugatuck, Michigan further prepared him for the solo presentation and allowed him to concentrate on building a cohesive body of work. Born in the Colombian Andes, Montilla works primarily with fique, a coarse fiber often associated with systems of transportation. In his work, the material resists functioning as a neutral support, producing images that remain open, porous, and unstable. “Fique is the main material in the work because it allows painting to be loud, to breathe, and to condition the image,” he says. Montilla’s work behaves like a story to be unwoven. “I like poetry a lot, and I like words a lot. I wanted to aspire to do a body of work that could behave a little bit like a fable,” he shares. “The two big themes that were meaningful at the time—and archetypal themes—were both the shadow and the ground. So I gave a lot of time and attention to creating this nonlinear fable surrounding these two beings.” <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429839/vwqyh5tngk6yntngler0.jpg"> Brubaker also reflected on the relationship between Montilla’s work and Maia Cruz Palileo’s exhibition, which was on view concurrently. “Serendipitously, these two shows were sort of interacting with each other, and these are two artists that hadn't met each other, but the works had so much synergy,” she shares, noting how both artists were “thinking about the land, thinking about histories, thinking about bodies being moved through borders, and even color-palette wise.” The opening included a conversation between Montilla and Palileo moderated by curator Mariela Acuña, Director of Exhibitions and Residency at Hyde Park Art Center, where the artists discussed their approaches to painting through the lens of their respective histories. “I think that there is a very important way for me to work where I need to be able to thread ideas and images together with things that actually happen either in my life or in my dreams or things that I envision,” Montilla shares regarding his studio process and the storytelling behind his work. “But I also like to make those things broad enough that they are not specific to my own experience. That’s where I think a lot about poetry, because poetry is a way of presenting ideas that is not necessarily linear. It has a linear context for me, for sure, but I also like that images can work separately while still belonging to and behaving within a larger body of work.” Montilla has several upcoming projects on the horizon. He recently showed work during EXPO Chicago this year in the viewing room at Monique Meloche Gallery, where a piece was acquired by a prominent private collector. His work was also included in a special group exhibition at Chicago Artists Coalition during EXPO Art Week, where he is currently an artist in residence. Additionally, this May he will participate in *Summer Delight*, a group exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in West Palm Beach on view from May 20–September 12, 2026. He is also preparing for a solo exhibition with Policroma Galería in Medellín, Colombia, opening June 4, 2026, and will make his debut at Art Basel Miami Beach through Monique Meloche Gallery later this year. Next year, he will exhibit work alongside Yehimi Cambrón Álvarez and Gunjan Chawla Kumar in a group exhibition curated by Jordan Barrant at Chicago Artists Coalition in March 2027. Montilla is currently a Lecturer in the Painting and Drawing Department at SAIC. You can follow Montilla’s work through his website or on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/pedro.montilla/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagram</a> as well as at <a href="https://www.pedromontilla.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pedromontilla.com</a>

An Interview with Pedro Montilla + Alyssa Brubaker

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429746/jockwa3twa4n2qhxhf8m.jpg">Neisser’s minimalist living room in her 19th Century home. All photos by CGN. <h4>This feature appears in CGN's spring/summer 2026 issue. To purchase a copy or subscribe&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);" target="_blank">click here.</a></h4> By GINNY VAN ALYEA Some art collections live in grand, purpose-built spaces. Others come together more organically over time, shaped by travel, taste, and different chapters of life. One I had the chance to see this winter fills the walls and shelves of Kate Neisser’s sunny, 19th Century, Lincoln Park row house, reflecting a personal and generational affection for living with art in the city of Chicago. Most collections I visit offer a window into someone’s passions and personality. Occasionally, though, they can feel more assembled than lived with — technically sound but missing a certain ease. Neisser’s collection feels as relaxed and welcoming as she is. The art doesn’t feel staged. It feels at home.&nbsp; Following is our conversation, edited for clarity. *CGN: Are you from Chicago? Kate Neisser: I’ve lived elsewhere, but I’m very much of Chicago having grown up about a block away from here in a similar house. CGN: When you saw this house, what did you think?&nbsp; KN: I fell in love with it immediately, it simply felt like home. It’s neither too big, nor too small—it’s just right. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429747/ylee1hpalehu5zpp8f5u.jpg">A view of Neisser’s dining room. Above the fireplace is a painting by Canadian artist James Brown. On the wall to the right of bookcase, sculpture by Richard Nonas. CGN: Today it’s quite modern inside, with some original details. Did you do any renovations?&nbsp; KN: Before we moved in 1999, we made adjustments that aligned with our taste and way of living. For instance, we customized a long kitchen banquet with drawers beneath for toys and built book shelves in the dining room. What better dinner partners than the characters populating books and the authors who created them? CGN: When you updated the house, was it with art in mind? KN: Definitely. We removed the picture moldings because they can distract from art hanging within their confines, and we also changed out the lighting so it wasn’t so much decorative as it was conducive to enhancing work. Art is always in the back of my mind, if not at the forefront. CGN: You grew up around art—and you’re from a collecting family. KN: We should start with the fact that I was named after my grandmother’s closest friend curator Katharine Kuh.&nbsp;And some of my earliest memories are of the original MCA store where my mother was the first book buyer. xI’d spend school holidays miscalculating the change from transactions at the cash register or coloring at a desk in the cave-like office. To this day I’m not sure it didn’t have a dirt floor. That’s a question for store founders Rhona Hoffman, Dorie Sternberg and Helyn Goldenberg. I actually remember Helyn telling me that one of my drawings looked like a Dubuffet. Imagine the impression that leaves on an eight-year-old. CGN: Did you wonder who Dubuffet was? KN: If memory serves, Helyn showed me a picture of the artist’s work. From then on, every time I see a Dubuffet, I think of Helyn. In fact, to me, art is as much about the work as it is about the people who’ve taught me how to see and appreciate it.&nbsp; CGN: How else do you think your parents influenced your interest in art and eventually collecting?&nbsp; KN: My parents derived a great deal of joy from collecting and learning together. They also set a terrific example for me in terms of building relationships with people who are on the same art journey. CGN: Did they get started together or separately? KN: Before he met my mother, my father collected antique maps from Asia and Japanese block prints many of which hang in this house. My mother always had an amazing eye. Together, they explored the Chicago art scene and developed a collection.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429748/w5gia2qvhe5c29eeuw8c.jpg">Works by Robert Mangold installed in Neisser’s kitchen. CGN: When did your interest become more focused?&nbsp; KN: While I collect contemporary art, there isn’t a rigid focus. I have a profound appreciation for art of all types though my collecting was oriented by living with the art in my childhood home and then later my mother’s stunning collection of minimalist work. I like what I like because it touches me. CGN: So you’re not trying to fill in some to-dos. KN: No to-dos. None. CGN: You’ve mentioned that sometimes when you encounter a work of art you feel, “I really have to have this.” KN: Yes. Falling in love is probably the factor that contributes most to an acquisition. When I fall in love with something, that’s it. I’m a relatively restrained person, so when I have that feeling — that’s the one— I go with it. CGN: Does that happen often? KN: It’s more frequent than a lightning strike but certainly not hard to keep up with. When I pass on a potential purchase, I’m gratified knowing it’s out there and that other people are deriving pleasure from it. I think art should be shared. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429748/kgkzne0navnhr2v7i15c.jpg">Another living room view. * CGN: You support many organizations and institutions in Chicago, including the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Design Museum of Chicago. It sounds like your parents made friends by supporting art and artists and that you have too. KN: Through my involvement, I’ve met some of my favorite people who were with me at an art fair or gallery when I made a purchase. The art you see here is about those relationships, too.&nbsp;And I’m always happy to support young artists and young people. Both of my kids are professional musicians and this house is still full of their friends who, passing through town, keep me open, interested and fueled. CGN: How much time do you spend outside of Chicago? KN: I spend the summer and winter in Aspen, so I’m here six months out of the year.&nbsp; CGN: Are you involved in the art community in Aspen?&nbsp; KN: In Aspen I’m more of an outdoor dog. Though I periodically stop by the galleries or the museum, I’m generally on skis, a bike or hiking.&nbsp; Beyond that, I travel. I went to Japan last May, which blew my mind and then met my kids in London in July.&nbsp;I love going to museums and galleries with them. It’s amazing to see what they’re drawn to, what they notice, and what they respond to. CGN: Being from Chicago and connected to the arts for your whole life, how do you see the arc of the contemporary scene here right now, especially considering a new generation of galleries, some transitions from the old guard, and new ways of doing things? KN: It’s a thrill to be in Chicago. There’s art literally coming out of the walls in nearly every neighborhood with buildings punctuated with murals and parks dotted by public art. In terms of the gallery scene, it’s evolving at an accelerated pace with multiple transitions.&nbsp; And with those transitions, there’s also the loss of great galleries like Rhona Hoffman. I feel like I grew up there. I dated Rhona’s son, and I worked for her one summer. There will never be another Rhona. We’re in a different time. And I love the idea of younger people trying their hand and seeing what sticks. It’s also a completely different period because there’s so much online consumption. The hooks are going to have to be different for a gallery to have longevity. CGN: There have been conversations for years about the Chicago collecting community and whether galleries can rely on the local collector base. KN: Yes, but I think there’s a lot to be said about Chicago as a community. To me, the galleries that will enjoy the most success will be those that serve as community centers—places that feel open, where people can engage in discourse. Not only for collectors, but for visual artists, musicians, writers, and designers. * CGN: Can you talk a little bit about the Design Museum of Chicago and your relationship to it, since it’s a newer museum here? KN: DMoC isn’t just a design museum as in, ‘I love your Arne Jacobsen chair.” It’s also about elevating design born and bred in Chicago. It can be house music, an urban garden in Garfield Park or something in Ukrainian Village. The Design Museum is about makers and communities, and how that affects the design ecosystem in Chicago — graphic design, typography, beer — you name it.&nbsp; And it not only features “good” design, but it also examines “bad” design in order to consider what invites people in? What pushes people out?&nbsp; * CGN: You’re drawn to conceptual pieces and minimalist works. What draws you to that aesthetic? KN: I’m fascinated by how a simple angle or curve can evoke a feeling and create depth in space. There’s something tender and oddly human to me about minimalism.&nbsp; CGN: Tell me about these [geometric] pieces in your kitchen? KN: These are a set of works by Robert Mangold, whom I love. They’re at once architectural and extremely human with each one feeling a little bit “off.” CGN: It almost recalls a family portrait—there are nine single works, but they’re all related. KN: They are all related, and each is perfect in its own peculiarity. CGN: Were you able to choose the installation? KN: I did. It was so long ago that I’m not sure what made me do it that way. Maybe the color, maybe the shapes. You could spend forever rearranging them. But I chose the placement of everything in this house. It has to do with intuition and what feels aligned with something I feel. These particular works have been here for 12 years now. I see them so much that sometimes they’re just part of the wall, part of the woodwork. CGN: Do you move things around or reinstall works?&nbsp; KN: Well, there’s a Rodney Graham in our house in Aspen—an upside-down tree. Last winter I’d been in the house for about a week and one of my kids called at 11:00 pm to ask if it was still there. I said, “Of course, I would have noticed if it weren’t.” He said, “No, I really don’t think it’s there.”&nbsp; I didn’t want to get up, but I went to the kitchen and discovered that he and his friend had turned it right-side-up from its intended inversion. He and I laughed until we cried.&nbsp; So sometimes you live with something for so long, you know it’s there—it feels right knowing it’s there. But you don’t always notice it in the way you think you do. CGN: Once you realized it was actually upside down, did you turn it back? KN: I certainly did!&nbsp; * <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429749/qlzmpuxg7sl6mrcabk07.jpg">Works are tucked into private spaces as well as public in Neisser's home. Neisser led me on a tour of her home, sharing details about small sculptures tucked among books, antiques placed on fireplace mantels, works on paper installed in stairwells, and even a book wrapped in clear plastic by the artist Christo. Ambling through her home, she shared stories about why certain works are placed in specific spots, as well as how she came to acquire much of her art. Art occupies prime wall space beyond the entertaining areas. It complements the fashion in Neisser’s dressing room, welcomes her children home when they return to visit, and populates every hallway. Altogether, there is a loosely cohesive contemporary mixture of faces and architectural shapes in the art Neisser has acquired, displayed symbiotically with older pieces such as maps and prints her father loved. CGN: You have a lot more than art displayed in your dining room, and I know you are also a writer. Tell me about these bookshelves.&nbsp; KN: I love books. I love the idea of the people who are in books, the people who own books. It’s another way of populating the house with history and stories. I’m not too picky about how things are displayed—I love having a bit of “past” in the bookcase. It becomes part of the family. CGN: Bookshelves can invite people to spend time examining all that is displayed on them. KN: This sculpture, which looks like wood but is metal, is by Richard Nonas. My mom and I bought that together. I think Rhona had it at EXPO—maybe 2016. We both fell in love with it. CGN: Tell me about this drawing.&nbsp; KN: This is by Hannah Wilke who had spent much of her career photographing her body which, I understand, was quite sexy. The drawing was made after a cancer diagnosis and treatment that left her somewhat disfigured.&nbsp;I think it’s beautiful and achingly human.&nbsp;I found it on an acquisition trip in New York with the Society for Contemporary Art (SCA). We walked into the Andrea Rosen Gallery and Andrea turned to [Art Institute of Chicago President and Director] James Rondeau and said, “Oh, I wanted to show this one to Judith.” I didn’t know who Judith was, but I loved it and wanted it. It turned out she was actually thinking of it for my mother’s collection. CGN: Was your mother was still alive? KN: Yes. And she loved it, too. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429750/yuktghoio5zvqc8cfnlo.jpg">Above: on table: a Christo wrapped Chicago magazine; a sculpture by Martin Puryear. On wall: a work by Robert Mangold that Neisser says reminds her of the shape of her father’s face. CGN: I see more geometric shapes, as well as more round or oval shapes. Are they connected to architecture or design for you?&nbsp; KN: They’re connected to both.&nbsp; CGN: They also recall the fondness for people you mentioned. What about this face in the dining room?&nbsp; KN: Right. This was from my parents collection by the Canadian artist James Brown. CGN: He has such a great expression — the narrowing of the eyes, there is this sense he is observing or judging what is actually going on.&nbsp; KN: I just think he’s hilarious. It reminds me of a novel by Roald Dahl called, “My Uncle Oswald.” He belongs here overseeing the mantle like some august self-important relative. CGN: I think people sometimes assume minimalism has to feel hard or spare, but these works aren’t — they’re beautifully soft and many are also fun.&nbsp; KN: Right. Some people may see restraint, but I see sheer beauty.&nbsp;&nbsp; # <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429751/k6xccgzc6eud12unplax.jpg"> <h3>This interview appears in CGN's spring/summer 2026 issue. To purchase a copy or subscribe <a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">click here.</a> </h3>

Falling In Love: How Collector Kate Neisser Discovers Art

<h3>Spring and summer offer a full slate of&nbsp;exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout&nbsp;the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. – CGN</h3> Read our 5TTT with Jay Krehbiel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-jay-krehbiel-executive-chairman-freemans" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with Michelle T. Boone&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-michelle-t-boone-president-and-ceo-the-poetry-foundation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with Monique Meloche&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-five-to-talk-to-monique-meloche" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with “Easy” Otabor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-isimeme-easy-otabor-anthony-gallery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. To subscribe to the spring/summer magazine click&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. <h3>James Mesplé – Artist</h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429569/jz3fjdymozjsflowcolo.jpg"> “While exhibiting at the Cliff Dwellers, Morton College, Triton College, and The Arts Club of Chicago in 2025 and 2026, I realized that all of my [exhibited] paintings contained figures. It made me hungry to create landscapes focusing on vegetation. However, I was invited to create a diptych for Duality (March-April 2026) at Jackson/Junge Gallery, and my ideas returned to figuration. After finishing a small and larger diptych for Duality, I began a new series focusing on landscapes. Will figures suddenly reappear in the landscapes in diminutive form? Maybe. In the meantime, I am drawing and painting flowers, plants, and trees and thinking about our Earth and humanity’s place upon it. I am also taking out time to create a Painted Sculpture for Greek Town, which will be displayed for the public on Halsted Street during the Summer, Fall, and Winter of 2026. My exhibition, “One Thing Leads to Another,” at Morton College last year got me interested in the Morton Arboretum. I will spend my summer at both the Arboretum and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Here’s hoping Flora and Demeter give Chicago a pleasant Summer and that Ceres and Pomona provide a bountiful Autumn Harvest of paintings.”

Anticipating a Season of Art: Arist James Mesplé

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429592/sr9bbjkg3bypekj4mb6w.jpg">Andrea Carlson, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Photo: Philip Maisel. Note: this interview is the cover feature for CGN's spring/summer 2026 magazine. To purchase a print copy or subscription&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" target="_blank">click here</a>. By ALISON REILLY Andrea Carlson’s layered, large-scale paintings explore the liminality of the shoreline–specifically the Great Lakes. Born and raised in northern Minnesota, Carlson’s complex landscapes pulse with repeated geometric patterns, portraits of animals, and the products of art making such as pottery, baskets, and statues set against a persistent horizon line. Through her work, she challenges the colonial cannibalism of Indigenous peoples and cultures and presents new, counter narratives. Carlson, who exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2024-2025, has been busy preparing her upcoming exhibition at the <a href="https://camstl.org/exhibitions/andrea-carlson-endless-sunshine/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis</a>, which will feature a new series of paintings on birchbark along with screenprints and sculpture. CGN: What are some of your earliest memories making art? Andrea Carlson: I doubt there was a single day growing up when I didn’t draw, so it is really hard for me to isolate specific memories. Typically I’d draw horses as a kid, because they were the most beautiful animal I could imagine. When I was about six years old, my dad was going to throw away some roller window blinds that were made of thick paper. I remember that he cut off the metal rods on the ends of the blinds and gave me the paper part. I was able to draw large horses on those, and that was his idea. He told me that I had to fill the whole sheet. It seemed like every birthday or Christmas, someone would give me a RoseArt box set of artists’ pens, pencils, and watercolors, and I would burn through those supplies pretty quickly.&nbsp; CGN: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?&nbsp; AC: I come from a family of artists going all the way back. I was always an artist, there was no realization, no story. In college I had a moment of doubt when thinking about my employment prospects as an artist. I thought maybe I should pursue linguistics for grad school, because I learned Ojibwe in undergrad, and I really loved teaching the language. In the end, art school won out, and I went to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for my MFA and have been working as an artist ever since.&nbsp; CGN: What is a typical day in your studio like?&nbsp; AC: The image of me in my studio is so bleak: it is just my broken body sitting, hunched over a table for 12 hours a day including weekends. That has been going on for years now. Sometimes I have online meetings and take calls, but generally I’m in a trance while making work. I’m able to listen to audiobooks while I work, and I solicit everyone for book recommendations. I’m on a horror kick right now, but I’ll go through entire genres of books. I’ll listen to anything. Recently, I was able to hire a studio manager, and it is so odd to have another person in my space. It might be better to work with people, because when I spend so much time by myself I get a little socially odd and then, in total contrast, I’ll be hoisted out on stage for artist talks and openings.&nbsp; My studio is on Lake Superior now and that is helpful as far as feeling a sense of belonging and security. Looking over the lake before I start my day and in the evening is very grounding for me. It is a privilege and honor to be so close to that lake.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429592/femz2jvoznvucugkuxk7.jpg">Andrea Carlson, The Buffet, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Photo: Philip Maisel. CGN: How does your location–Chicago, Minneapolis, or northern Minnesota–affect the work you create? AC: Many of my paintings are organized against the backdrop of the endless horizon of the Great Lakes. Although place is very important, many people can relate to a body of water, a mountain range, or other natural landmarks as having personhood or a sense of being. The land I reference in the work is not as specific as these post-settler place names, but more general, as if land could be seen as an access point to infinity. We all live on a sphere, a seemingly infinite surface, or infinite horizon. But there is also deep time under our feet. I live on the Laurentian Shield, on the north shore of what is now called Minnesota. The land is older than dinosaurs, and there are very few fossils here because the land mass at the surface came into existence before most life forms came into being.&nbsp; One view of my work is how the earth buries narratives and takes things back. People, objects, the lives of animals, films, stories, books, teachings can all move across the surface, everything can have a diaspora, but it usually ends with things being put into the ground. In my work, the objects, film, and animal references are pre-internment, temporary, and out-of-context to the land. They are passengers heightened by the seeming oddness of their presence and arrangement against the land, or the shore of the seascape I put them on. I often refer to the shore as a liminal space, not fully water or land. It is a space of transition where I hold things in relation to each other, but it is also a space of the Great Lakes. There is so much shoreline in the middle of this continent, so much liminality. CGN: What is your process for making these intricate, complex paintings and drawings? AC: My process starts with observation and conversations, reading, collecting imagery that is important to the subject of the work, or looking into a museum’s collection. Writing is a big part of my process. After I have collected the ideas I draw in light sketches and organize each figure on the paper. To complete the process for the work to have meaning it has to be seen by people. It starts in conversation and is completed in conversation.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429593/iwvfctswokfalxr9afi4.jpg">Andrea Carlson, The Buffet (detail), 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Photo: Philip Maisel. CGN: Can you tell me about some of the most important objects that appear in your large-scale works like The Buffet?&nbsp; AC: There isn’t any one object or reference I feel is more important than another, but in the center of this painting you will see Namadjii (brand) pottery and black ash baskets that have an interesting history. Namadjii is an Ojibwe word taken from a place name in Minnesota where the clay was harvested. The pottery was meant to “look native” even though it was made by settlers. Nevertheless, those vessels are still made from Ojibwe land, and the appropriation is an act of violence. The black ash baskets reference a form of basket making that is threatened by the invasive emerald ash borer. At the center of the piece, where the baskets and pottery are placed, animals are hiding under and around the table, as a depiction of “The Last Supper” or in this case that moment before the meteors strike.&nbsp; CGN: Cannibalism appears as a recurring motif in your work. How did you first become interested in exploring it? Why is it important to your work?&nbsp; AC: I got interested in cannibalism, as a metaphor, because I got pissed off. I watched a horror film called Cannibal Holocaust while an undergrad, and it bothered me so terribly. I was also researching a lot of decolonial and post-colonial theory then and had noticed how the idea of cannibalism was used by scholars to describe settlers and aspects of colonization that dangerously consumed Indigenous people. Cannibalism was a metaphor for assimilation policies: consuming the other and making it part of the colonial body and identity. Jack D. Forbes wrote Columbus and Other Cannibals, bell hooks wrote an essay called “Eating the Other,” Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes by Michael Ames, Deborah Root’s Cannibal Culture, to name a few. These books also referenced an Ojibwe monster, the Windigo, to talk about the cannibal sickness of settler colonialism. All of these pieces of information were coming to me at the same time, and I felt that my VORE series could act as a witness, almost an “I witness the continuation of these things” in my landscapes.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429594/dajlhpapsqowbf1odfkc.jpg">Andrea Carlson, Low Relief Mound, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman. Photo: Philip Maisel. CGN: When did you start incorporating sculpture and video into your art practice? What motivated you to do so?&nbsp; AC: In 2014 I made a few videos of masks being dissected for a solo exhibition at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg. A few years before that I had made film props and assisted in production for Shezad Dawood’s film A Mystery Play. That film was also produced at Plug In ICA. I enjoy making sculptures, and I’m a tremendous fan of film works, but painting and drawing on paper has taken precedence in my career. That will more-than-likely change in the coming years. I have plans to make more sculptures. When it comes to film, I think the element of movement and time is interesting. Non-static art forms can’t be held all at once in the mind or can’t be observed in a fixed state because it’s always changing. I wanted my large-scale paintings and sculpture to work in a way that has to be traversed. The sculpture is relatively new in my professional work, but I have always done sculptural things, whether the mentioned film props or putting things together in a three-dimensional way. The large scale wooden column work came about through the Toronto Biennial, when I started doing sculpture as standalone work.&nbsp; CGN: Can you tell me about your upcoming exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis? What other projects are you currently working on? AC: The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis will feature a few new works including Red Welcome, a ten-foot tall and eighteen-foot long work, as well as some work that I’ve been making for my Creative Capital grant. I also have a traveling exhibition organized by the Denver Art Museum that will be going to the Ringling Museum [Sarasota, FL] and Nasher Museum of Art [at Duke University]. I’m also developing some paintings on canvas and sculptural works for an upcoming museum exhibition that isn’t announced yet. I have a lot on my plate, but I am getting ready to have a few weeks off after the CAM St. Louis opening. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429594/rbfek3kytmabb5indzgu.jpg">Andrea Carlson, The Host, 2025,&nbsp;Detail view. Courtesy of the&nbsp;artist and Jessica Silverman.&nbsp;Photo: Philip Maisel. CGN: What motivated you to co-found the Center for Native Futures in Chicago? How has your work with the Center influenced your own art practice?&nbsp; AC: The Center for Native Futures was a COVID baby. During the pandemic, Debra Yepa-Pappan organized online weekly meetings amongst a few Native artists in Chicago. At the time she was working at the Field Museum. We all missed each other, and we all wanted proximity to each other again. Through these meetings, Debra, her husband Chris Pappan, and Monica Rickert-Bolter shared their long-time dream of making a gallery where Native people had a say in what was on the walls, agency and space. The Terra Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation agreed and generously supported us. There is an irony in Native people asking for space in a land where we were forcibly removed, and a city seemingly hell bent on depicting Native people through stereotypical imagery. We wanted to contribute to healing through this space. I’m not sure that co-founding CfNF has influenced my own art practice in a direct sense, but I’ve become more sensitive to the love and care people put into the spaces I exhibit in. There is a lot of labor that goes into supporting artists’ work. Every time we exhibit as artists, there is unseen labor and people who are advocating and lifting behind the scenes. * Andrea Carlson: Endless Sunshine is on view at&nbsp;the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, March 6-August 9, 2026.&nbsp; For more information, visit <a href="https://www.mikinaak.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mikinaak.com</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://jessicasilvermangallery.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">jessicasilvermangallery.com</a> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429595/e3tqntcte3ju5sak82ha.jpg"> Note: this interview is the cover feature for CGN's spring/summer 2026 magazine. To purchase a print copy or subscription&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" target="_blank">click here</a>.

Andrea Carlson: Mapping New Futures

<h3>Spring and summer offer a full slate of&nbsp;exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout&nbsp;the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. – CGN</h3> Read our 5TTT with Michelle T. Boone&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-michelle-t-boone-president-and-ceo-the-poetry-foundation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with Monique Meloche&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-five-to-talk-to-monique-meloche" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with “Easy” Otabor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-isimeme-easy-otabor-anthony-gallery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. To subscribe to the spring/summer magazine click&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. <h3>Jay Krehbiel –&nbsp;</h3><h3>Executive Chairman, Freeman’s</h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1784661299/pqnduicrkysfrvybef0b.jpg"> “I’m especially excited about the season ahead at Freeman’s, as our spring calendar brings together collectors, scholars, and the broader arts community through a dynamic series of auctions and events. Our partnership with EXPO CHICAGO remains a highlight, including Art After Hours at our Chicago gallery, where we enjoyed welcoming friends and colleagues from across the art world [earlier this month]. This season features a rediscovered Josef Šíma masterpiece leading our Impressionist and Modern Art auction, alongside specialized sales spanning Native American Art, Modern Design, and Western Art—each offering collectors meaningful opportunities to engage with exceptional objects and the stories they carry.”

Anticipating a Season of Art: Jay Krehbiel –  Executive Chairman, Freeman’s

<h3>Spring and summer offer a full slate of&nbsp;exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout&nbsp;the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. – CGN</h3> Read our 5TTT with Monique Meloche&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-five-to-talk-to-monique-meloche" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Read our 5TTT with “Easy” Otabor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-isimeme-easy-otabor-anthony-gallery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. To subscribe to the spring/summer magazine click&nbsp;<a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. <h3>Michelle T. Boone</h3><h3>–&nbsp;<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">President&nbsp;and CEO, the Poetry Foundation</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429437/imkvifgkadeisa32g5ej.jpg"> “This April, which is National Poetry Month, Poetry magazine unveils Bold Type, a new design series. The poem “First Light” by CAConrad fills the Poetry Foundation’s exhibition space wall as the first iteration of the series. Bold Type encourages visitors to linger and reflect on Conrad’s piercing visual poem, from which the line “no one can afford to lose love” serves as the theme for our 2026 spring event season.&nbsp; Nothing says spring like EXPO Chicago, which I’m always excited about attending. It’s a great platform to see many Chicago galleries under one roof and get introduced to artists and galleries from around the world. But it’s also a time to explore neighborhood galleries, and at the top of my list is heading to the Hyde Park Art Center to see “Cyndey M. Lewis: Weeds Grow In All Directions.” Her work gives a whole new meaning to “...one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, crafting rubbish, plastics, and paper into the most beautiful artworks.”

Anticipating a Season of Art: Michelle T. Boone – President  and CEO, the Poetry Foundation

<h3>Spring and summer offer a full slate of&nbsp;exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout&nbsp;the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. – CGN</h3> Read our 5TTT with Monique Meloche <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/anticipating-a-season-of-art-five-to-talk-to-monique-meloche" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. To subscribe to the spring/summer magazine click <a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>. <h3>Isimeme “Easy” Otabor&nbsp;</h3><h3>– <a href="https://anthonygallery.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Anthony Gallery</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429417/w6rdmza2ahn5rfikbgx0.jpg"> "I’m looking forward to building on the momentum of our newly opened Anthony Gallery location in Amsterdam and continuing to expand its programming. The response to the space has been incredibly energizing, and we’re excited to deepen our presence there through thoughtful curatorial initiatives.&nbsp; At the same time, we’re preparing to extend that vision with plans to open a new space in Japan, creating further opportunities to connect artists and audiences across regions. Our goal has always been to establish a strong foundation in Chicago and grow outward strategically, and we’re accomplishing that in real time.” #

Anticipating a Season of Art: Isimeme “Easy” Otabor – Anthony Gallery

<h4>Spring and summer offer a full slate of&nbsp;exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout&nbsp;the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke&nbsp;with five insiders about what excites them now&nbsp;and what they anticipate next. – CGN</h4> <h3><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1780429353/kajspfjk56mmm0dejdzb.jpg"></h3><h3> </h3><h3>Monique Meloche – moniquemeloche</h3> “We are so excited that two of our artists are included in the prestigious Biennale de Venezia opening this May in Italy.&nbsp;Lavar Munroe will co-represent The Bahamas and Ebony G. Patterson is included “In Minor Keys” posthumously curated by Koyo Kouoh in the Central Pavilion.&nbsp;We have not properly celebrated Ebony being named a MacArthur Genius since she was busy with her co-Artistic Director duties for Prospect.6 in New Orleans last year.&nbsp;Thrilled to finally have the occasion to fete her, Lavar, former moniquemeloche artist and SAIC alum Carrie Schneider also included “In Minor Keys”, as well as Sanford Biggers and Maia Cruz Palileo in an auxiliary exhibition sponsored by Denniston Hill in Venice.&nbsp; Following our 25th anniversary extravaganza in 2025 we will host Cheryl Pope at the gallery during EXPO Chicago and can’t wait for our out-of-town supporters come to the fair, gallery, and our 15th annual private Pizza+Prosecco Party at our home!” <a href="https://www.moniquemeloche.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">moniquemeloche.com</a>

Anticipating a Season of Art: Five to Talk to – Monique Meloche

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1784661136/lfdbp37ysfuq3bhpxeid.jpg">Elise Seigenthaler Publisher's Note: This interview is featured in CGN's spring/summer magazine. To purchase a copy or subscribe in print <a href="https://chicagogallerynews.myshopify.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);" target="_blank">click here.</a> By JEFFERSON GODARD You are all cordially invited to the housewarming of a new gallery in town. After ascending to the second floor of 1709 W Chicago, you will be welcomed into the space of Elise Seigenthaler Gallery and her inaugural show, Housewarming which offers “paths through memory, material, and imagination.” Artworks by emerging artists Amira Diaw, Rebekka Federle, Ava Peterson, and Olivia Porter include tightly cropped photographic-like paintings capturing intimate scenes alongside large drippy renderings of both domestic and regal interiors on paper and canvas. Sitting close by these painted works are wooden sculptures representing the family dog. About this exhibition, Seigenthaler states, “I wanted the first show to feel warm and welcoming. Art is for everyone and everyone should feel welcome.” Seigenthaler is unique in her delicate yet deliberate approach, while setting a nuanced and narrative-based theme for shows that will cajole the Chicago gallery public. A graduate of SAIC who is also armed with a “Rhona-Diploma,” Seigenthaler is a native Chicagoan born to artists parents of French and Southern roots equipped with a keen eye for what will make an impact on the Chicago art world. *<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1784661136/h6xk5biod1zsgvwjshyd.jpg">Installation of Housewarming at Elise Seigenthaler Gallery. Photography by Charlie Young. Jefferson Godard (JG): Housewarming serves as both a means of introduction and a welcoming gesture. What was your impetus for opening a gallery?&nbsp; Elise Seigenthaler (ES): The gallery had been something that I was thinking of while working with Rhona. Chicago is such a great city and adding to the art ecosystem here was paramount to me. Then, when Volume Gallery’s became available [because they moved nearby to 1700 W. Hubbard], this served as a catalyst for me to open my space. And, on a personal level, my dad’s sudden passing also made me realize how short life was and the need to seize the moment.&nbsp; JG: As for your formal training, you are a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), but you began your studies in France. ES: I am half French and having spent my first 17 years in Chicago, I wanted to explore life in France. It was a wonderful way to explore my ancestry and also proved to be very cost-effective. I studied video and photography at Atelier d’Sevres in Paris where the program was focused on building portfolios for higher art education, like the Beaux-Arts or Arts Decoratifs. However, instead of continuing my studies there, I used my work to enter SAIC. In retrospect, France gave me discipline and structure, while SAIC offered me more conceptual freedom.JG: Upon graduating, your first foray into the commercial gallery work was working for the venerable Rhona Hoffman. What drew you to work for Rhona Hoffman? ES: Rhona and the history of the gallery were always so impressive to me. It was my goal to work there and being part of this legacy. Rhona proved to be generous and trusted us immensely. She also empowered her interns and assistants, and even though our team was small, there were more opportunities to grow and carve out a role for yourself.&nbsp; JG: You described your experience of being Director of Rhona Hoffman as a ‘Rhona-diploma.’ Tell me more about the Rhona-diploma? What are the entry requirements and course load, and what did you get out of it? ES: I often joked that working for Rhona was like getting a “Rhona-Diploma” or “RHG PHD” because it felt much like an education but one that no formal program could replicate. The entry requirements are curiosity, stamina, and humility, but ultimately you must have thick skin. As for the course load, you get relationships with artists, museums, as well as collectors. Plus, one of the outcomes is that you learn how to make decisions quickly. And the learning curve did not only come from Rhona. The previous director, Julia Birka-White, and Rhona’s right-hand for over 20 years, Ben Gill, all helped me understand the gallery and what it needed to function. I left armed with confidence and a well-honed sense of standards. What I also learned from Rhona is that art and artists are paramount; everything else follows.&nbsp; JG: Now that you have your own space, what is your focus and what do you want out of the gallery?&nbsp; ES: There is an echo in Chicago of ‘we need more spaces’ and I want to be a host for Chicago artists. My primary focus is on Chicago-based artists, while also introducing artists from other cities. I strive to create a balanced program that is open to all media, with some emphasis on expressive and figurative-based works. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1784661137/sffx0yswfi9gp2bxouhl.jpg">Installation of Housewarming at Elise Seigenthaler Gallery. Photography by Charlie Young. JG: You mentioned that you want to represent artists from early to mid-career, but that you want to take it cautiously, which you likened to ‘dating.’ Can you elaborate here as well as share some of your plans for the immediate future? ES: When I say dating, it’s like a long-term commitment. It’s not just about loving one work but about really understanding and getting behind the artist’s vision. Like any partnership, we need to share the same values and have good communication. And much like a romantic relationship, we also need to trust each other implicitly.&nbsp; Also, it is how these relationships serve as the foundation for the gallery. The support from the artists, collectors, gallerists, and friends at the very start really help shape the gallery. And I’m very grateful for these relationships and their support. This first year’s program will be dedicated to group exhibitions, each built around a different theme. In fact, our next show is titled “Before We Knew Better,” and will include artists Sarah Bedford, Day Brièrre, Josiah Ellner, and Lea Le Floc’h.&nbsp; As for the future, I would like to participate in art fairs, bring on a staff, and one day have a second location in Paris. After all, one has to dream! <a href="https://eliseseigenthaler.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">eliseseigenthaler.com</a> #

Elise Seigenthaler Gallery: A New Arrival Opens in West Town

<h3>At its heart CGN is a unique resource devoted to&nbsp;exploring and supporting the contemporary art market by listening to collectors and gallerists, promoting living artists and by educating new and future collectors.&nbsp;</h3><h3> </h3><h3>One of the ways we keep this exploration interesting is to regularly examine the various art collections in our midst. No collection is the same and each is as unique as its steward. CGN has conducted dozens of interviews over the years with collectors who have generously shared their stories, homes and treasured pieces with us.&nbsp;Collecting art is fulfilling pursuit, but there are bound to be delightful moments as well as inevitable challenges. We asked a handful of collectors to share their own stories or lessons learned, as well as some insight into what has kept them going and what may inspire the next generation of collectors who are so important to the future of the art market and today’s working artists. Keep up with CGN to read more collector stories and interviews.</h3><h3> </h3><h3>– CGN</h3> <h3>To purchase a copy of the fall print edition&nbsp;<a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" target="_blank">click here.</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053879/gd22vpd17ahfsnxdwvxw.jpg">Leadership Advisory Committee members from left: Denise Gardner, Leah Hope, Joan Small,&nbsp;Elizabeth Catlett, and Isobel Neal at the presentation of the LCA Award to Catlett at the Art Institute in 2005. “I showed Elizabeth Catlett’s work several times in my space in Chicago, Isobel Neal Gallery, years ago, so I am very excited to see a new exhibition of her art coming to Chicago. It’s a collaboration between the Brooklyn Museum, The National Gallery of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Elizabeth Catlett: “A Black Revolutionary Artist And All That It Implies” is an exciting retrospective exhibition of over 100 sculptures and prints by Catlett that opens at the Art Institute on August 30, 2025 and runs through January 4, 2026. Long known and world-recognized for her strong imagery of women, children and social concerns, her work continues to be immensely contemporary and relevant today. It’s been wonderful to follow her career for years and to see this extraordinary exhibition come together for everyone to enjoy.”

CGN Collector Stories: Isobel Neal

<h3>At its heart CGN is a unique resource devoted to&nbsp;exploring and supporting the contemporary art market by listening to collectors and gallerists, promoting living artists and by educating new and future collectors.&nbsp;</h3><h3> </h3><h3>One of the ways we keep this exploration interesting is to regularly examine the various art collections in our midst. No collection is the same and each is as unique as its steward. CGN has conducted dozens of interviews over the years with collectors who have generously shared their stories, homes and treasured pieces with us.&nbsp;Collecting art is fulfilling pursuit, but there are bound to be delightful moments as well as inevitable challenges. We asked a handful of collectors to share their own stories or lessons learned, as well as some insight into what has kept them going and what may inspire the next generation of collectors who are so important to the future of the art market and today’s working artists. Keep up with CGN to read more collector stories and interviews.</h3><h3> </h3><h3>– CGN</h3> <h3>To purchase a copy of the fall print edition&nbsp;<a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" target="_blank">click here.</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053870/ffzcfy98blkwhw0mgcyo.jpg">The couple pictured at the opening of the Christina Ramberg show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in February 2025. In the background is&nbsp;“Belle Reve”, (1969) on loan from their collection for the show, one of two pieces by Ramberg that was loaned to the show. “Our collecting continues to be focused on post-war and contemporary Chicago-based artists as we fill in gaps in our collection. It is always a thrill when a piece by an artist in our collection is borrowed for a major exhibition, such as the recent Christina Ramberg retrospective, which traveled from Chicago to LA, then to Philadelphia. Attending the openings is enormously gratifying and is a great way to meet other curators, collectors, and arts patrons from around the country.”

CGN Collecting Stories: Michael Robertson and Christopher Slapak

<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053973/xpmvbk29qdgdv3n1rrwq.jpg">The exterior of Addington Gallery on Wells Street in River North By JACQUELINE LEWIS This year marks the 25th anniversary of <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://danaddington.com/addingtongallery/" target="_blank">Addington Gallery</a>, a fixture in Chicago’s River North Arts District and a reflection of founder Dan Addington’s unique role as both artist and gallerist. Since opening its doors, the gallery has navigated major shifts in the neighborhood’s landscape, from changes in the retail environment and art market to a steadily growing residential population, attracted to the area’s artistic reputation but simultaneously pricing galleries out of it. Through it all, Addington and his gallery have remained passionate about showcasing thoughtful, process-driven art that people can afford. As River North keeps evolving, Addington Gallery remains a welcoming space where creativity and community come together. * CGN: Let’s start with a bit of background.&nbsp;What led you to your home in River North at&nbsp;Addington Gallery? Dan Addington: I grew up in the western U.S., in Colorado, Montana, and Alaska, but our family eventually returned to our Midwestern roots. I went to high school and college in Iowa. I double majored in art and theater at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, followed by a master’s degree in art and art history at Arkansas State, and an MFA in painting at Illinois State University. Immediately after graduate school, I moved to Chicago and began exhibiting my own work right away. CGN: How did your past experience lead to Addington Gallery? DA: My original intent was to continue exhibiting my work and eventually teach art at the college level. I had taught classes as a graduate student and knew that I loved that interaction. I had also worked at the campus galleries at Arkansas State and Illinois State. I worked side-by-side with Director Barry Blinderman at ISU designing art catalogues and organizing and installing exhibitions. During that time, I also spent time with well-known artists Barry brought in from New York, where he had previously owned and operated Semaphore Gallery. Working so closely with notable artists over those years and talking to Barry about his time as an art dealer had an indelible effect on me. I was intrigued by the idea of working in galleries. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053974/flwuq4o25ulcvycans9y.jpg">Dan Addington, pictured in his gallery circa 2010 CGN: You’re celebrating 25 years of Addington Gallery in River North this year. How has the gallery changed and evolved over the past quarter century? DA: I spent the first six of those 25 years working in other spaces, meeting dealers, and learning as much as I could about the process. My first full-time gallery job was with Eva Cohen Gallery in both Highland Park and River North. I split my time between the two locations and eventually became the director of the downtown space on Superior Street. Eva was a great teacher. It was a challenging job, and I learned very quickly that you had to get good at everything. One day I was helping curate a show and learning the physical techniques associated with preparing and installing artwork. The next day I was meeting new clients, learning to be responsive to their needs, deciphering their ideas, going to their homes, negotiating acquisitions, and installing on site. I loved all of it, but what kept me most excited was working with artists and feeling like I was part of a team helping facilitate their vision in the world.&nbsp; Around the same time, I began exhibiting in commercial galleries in other cities and found that I had a unique rapport with the dealers who represented my work. Gwenda Jay Gallery was the first to represent my work in Chicago, and Gwenda was a great mentor to me. After Eva Cohen retired, I became director at Gwenda’s gallery, and eventually a partner. Gwenda Jay / Addington Gallery opened in 2000–that’s the 25 year anniversary being celebrated this year. Operating the gallery day-to-day gave me the experience that ultimately convinced me to open my own space in 2007, Addington Gallery, where I started showing many of the artists Gwenda and I had represented together. The challenge of opening a gallery and the excitement of becoming a parent for the first time happened within a year of each other. Looking back to 2007, those 18 years have been thrilling. I’ve loved exhibiting each artist and have learned from every one who has hung art on these walls. The gallery has grown too, and every time a new artist shows here, it brings new life and vision into the space. The gallery is a kind of macro-vision of the values I believe in as an artist. Being an artist and a curator intermingle and inform one another. In many ways, the gallery is a physical manifestation of the creative concepts I care most deeply about, and it comes to life through relationships and collaboration. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053975/bakplncjto6agormkrhk.jpg">Gallery visitors view work by Robin Deneven CGN: You’ve been in the center of River North for many years. Can you speak to the changes you’ve seen? What do you think the future holds for the neighborhood? DA: Wells Street has seen a lot of development, especially in the past 10 to 12 years. Businesses come and go, and COVID was tough on small retailers. But many restaurants in the area have persevered since 2020, and more have joined them. The same is true of galleries. Those that have closed in River North have typically done so because an owner retired, while some new galleries have also opened. Meanwhile, a large number of new residential buildings continue to go up across the neighborhood, and Wells Street has never been as active as it is today. When I first started here, the vast majority of art deliveries I made were to the North Shore and western suburbs. Now, most of our deliveries go to homes in the city, especially the area from downtown Chicago up through the upper North Side. The River North Arts District remains a thriving center for the arts in Chicago. CGN: Have you ever considered moving the gallery? DA: I’ve looked at other spaces, but I love the walk through traffic we get here, and I like our space. River North is easily accessible, more people live in the area than ever, and there are many visitor in nearby hotels around Michigan Avenue. The number of galleries within walking distance makes it a destination for art lovers. Opening nights happen every other month, usually on the first Friday, and they’re always fun and well attended. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053976/c1i7hd5gsway0wjjiegc.jpg">A view of work by Howard Hersh at the gallery in early years. CGN: With all these years under your belt, what do you consider to be some of the most important aspects of managing your gallery? DA: Every exhibition we mount still feels important and exciting to us, and we continue to get better at curating and installing them. You know that anticipation you feel when a musician or band you love releases a new album, and the excitement of listening to it for the first time? That’s how I feel when an artist brings in a new series of paintings. It’s exciting every single time. As an artist myself, I make it my business to understand how each painting is made—the materials, the process—but even more importantly, why the artist made those choices. Every artist has a story. It’s embedded in the work, and it’s my job to help communicate that. It’s thrilling to see people who visit the gallery connect deeply with the work, whether it’s on a gut level, a spiritual level, or an intellectual level. Some are young people walking in for the first time, and others are seasoned collectors. I’m constantly reminded how meaningful a career in the arts is when someone tells me how moved or affected they were by what they saw here. I’m also fascinated by process-oriented abstraction and the materiality of the medium, and I value drawing and the skill of observation. I’ve pursued these ideas in my own work for years, and I’m always interested in how they emerge in other painters’ work. At the gallery, it’s not unusual to see artists who chart their own course between these two sensibilities. <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053976/vkgzccnllhlviui6k6az.jpg">From left: Dan's wife Steph, Dan, son Aedric, and artist Makoto Fujimura during his exhibition reception at the gallery in 2011. CGN: With this year’s milestone, do you have anything special planned?&nbsp; DA: While we’re always working to develop new, exciting, and visually compelling exhibitions, we also continue to look outward to the community. I regularly guest curate exhibitions at other venues across the city and work with local community art centers. We recently launched the Young Curators Initiative, in which we turn over the gallery space to curatorial studies students with a focus on women of color. We work with their advisors to support them as they curate their first public exhibition in a professional setting. This summer, we launched Sketchbooks for Kids, where we give a quality 8x10” sketchpad and dual-tip pen to any child 15 or younger who visits the gallery with a parent or guardian. These were the tools I loved most as a child, the ones I carried everywhere, and they’re what started me on this journey. It’s a small but meaningful way to pay that forward. Both of these programs flow directly from my own experiences. We love to encourage the artist, and the art viewer, within each person at every age. * After 25 years, Dan Addington’s dedication to art and community remains at the heart of the gallery. As River North continues to change, Addington Gallery stands strong as a space where artists and audiences come together. This milestone marks not just an achievement, but a continuing journey. Addington Gallery744 N. WellsChicago, IL 60654<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://danaddington.com/addingtongallery/" target="_blank">addingtongallery.com</a> View Dan’s work at <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://danaddington.com/" target="_blank">danaddington.com</a>

Dan Addington: 25 Years and Counting in River North

<h3>At its heart CGN is a unique resource devoted to&nbsp;exploring and supporting the contemporary art market by listening to collectors and gallerists, promoting living artists and by educating new and future collectors.&nbsp;</h3><h3> </h3><h3>One of the ways we keep this exploration interesting is to regularly examine the various art collections in our midst. No collection is the same and each is as unique as its steward. CGN has conducted dozens of interviews over the years with collectors who have generously shared their stories, homes and treasured pieces with us.&nbsp;Collecting art is fulfilling pursuit, but there are bound to be delightful moments as well as inevitable challenges. We asked a handful of collectors to share their own stories or lessons learned, as well as some insight into what has kept them going and what may inspire the next generation of collectors who are so important to the future of the art market and today’s working artists. Keep up with CGN to read more collector stories and interviews.</h3><h3> </h3><h3>– CGN</h3> <h3>To purchase a copy of the fall print edition&nbsp;<a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" target="_blank">click here.</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053838/ilejyrbklvlzzhicregw.jpg">Sally Schwartz with her prized gold lighter that found its way back to her after making the right match. “Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by four cool sculptural cigarette lighters that were on my grandparents’ coffee table. They were such fun. One was a tall gold and rhinestone studded cupid that you could wind and it played music. My grandmother smoked Benson &amp; Hedges, but I don’t remember her ever using one of these lighters.&nbsp; Some years later I gave my high school boyfriend a gold Dunhill lighter engraved with “Love, Sally” for his graduation.&nbsp; More years followed and I ended up with all four original lighters from my grandparents’ coffee table, plus I’d started collecting my own and the collection had grown nicely. In the meantime, I successfully set up my long-since-graduated high school boyfriend with a girlfriend of mine, and it turned out to be a real love match. They got married! When I was congratulating them on their wedding day, they made a little presentation to me of the same Dunhill lighter, which has been a highlight of my collection ever since.”

CGN Collecting Stories: Sally Schwartz

<h3>At its heart CGN is a unique resource devoted to&nbsp;exploring and supporting the contemporary art market by listening to collectors and gallerists, promoting living artists and by educating new and future collectors.&nbsp;</h3><h3> </h3><h3>One of the ways we keep this exploration interesting is to regularly examine the various art collections in our midst. No collection is the same and each is as unique as its steward. CGN has conducted dozens of interviews over the years with collectors who have generously shared their stories, homes and treasured pieces with us.&nbsp;Collecting art is fulfilling pursuit, but there are bound to be delightful moments as well as inevitable challenges. We asked a handful of collectors to share their own stories or lessons learned, as well as some insight into what has kept them going and what may inspire the next generation of collectors who are so important to the future of the art market and today’s working artists. Keep up with CGN to read more collector stories and interviews.</h3><h3> </h3><h3>– CGN</h3><h3> </h3><h3>To purchase a copy of the fall print edition&nbsp;<a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://835ba3.myshopify.com/" target="_blank">click here.</a></h3> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1772053761/iw592bbgf9yggp03lfvi.jpg">At left: The Peterson children engaging with art in Andi Crist’s studio. “Our family’s most recent acquisition is a ceramic sculpture by Andi Crist that she made as part of a benefit sale, with proceeds going to the Chicago Artists Coalition. CAC is an incredible resource for artists in our city and an important space for the art-curious to connect with creatives who are living and working here.&nbsp; We bought one of her pieces for ourselves and two as gifts for friends–I highly recommend considering artwork when you are seeking an extra-ordinary present for someone special.&nbsp; As a bonus, Andi let us come for a studio visit when we organized our pick-up. It was an absolute treat for our family to explore materials and ideas with Andi.&nbsp; We’re all looking forward to seeing her upcoming show, Live Laugh Labor, at the Cleve Carney&nbsp;Museum of Art (opening October 16).”