The Driehaus Museum is proud to presentBrendan Fernandes: In the Round as the next iteration of its A Tale of Today series that places contemporary art in dialogue with the art, architecture, and design of the Museum. The Museum’s first artist-in-residence, Fernandes will transform the Museum’s 1926 Murphy Auditorium into a dynamic site for sculptural installation, movement, sound, and dance. Conceived as an evolving, episodic residency, In the Round will unfold throughout 2026 with performance dates and public programs announced at intervals across the year. Organized by guest curator Stephanie Cristello, Brendan Fernandes: In the Round takes place at the Driehaus Museum,50 E. Erie Street, from April 9 to November 14, 2026.
Inspired by the pioneering spirit of New York City’s Judson Dance Theater and theirConcerts for Dance, Fernandes will create and present a program of newly commissioned performances called Scores for the Murphy Auditorium. Dancers will interact with minimalist site-specific installations developed in collaboration with AIM Architecture (Antwerp, Shanghai, Chicago) and textile-based works by the Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia), echoing the multidisciplinary ethos of Judson Dance Theater. Fernandes will invite Chicago’s independent dance community for additional performance activations throughout his residency.
Executive Director of the Driehaus Museum Lisa M. Key says, “A Tale of Todayreflects a main tenet of the Driehaus Museum mission: sparking dialogue between contemporary art and ideas, and the art, architecture, and design of Chicago’s Gilded Age. We are delighted to welcome Brendan Fernandes to be the Museum’s first artist-in-residence, where history and the present come full circle.”
“In the Round invites us to experience contemporary art and dance as a shared architectural and social space—one shaped by bodies moving together through history,” says Guest Curator Stephanie Cristello. “Reactivating the radical spirit of the Judson Dance Theater within the Murphy Auditorium, Brendan Fernandes asks us to see history itself as something lived, collective, and continually re-made.”
The Judson Dance Theater was an influential collective of choreographers, composers, filmmakers, and artists in 1960s New York who revolutionized dance by rejecting classical technique in favor of everyday gesture and shared experimentation. Initially staged in the sanctuary of Judson Memorial Church between 1962 and 1966, the group’s early performances offered a radical blueprint for creative freedom. Decades later, Fernandes reimagines this legacy for the present, re-situating its spirit in the Driehaus Museum’s 1926 Murphy Auditorium, which was modeled after a church in Paris. Brendan Fernandes: In the Round collapses past and present, revealing a shared lineage of artists transforming unconventional spaces into places of expression, experimentation, and community.
Designed in partnership with AIM Architecture, Fernandes transforms the Murphy Auditorium with a site-specific, circular platform and mirror-finish benches that echo the Museum’s iconic rotunda. Made from repurposed steel and paired with newly-commissioned textile works Fernandes developed at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the installation places modern minimalism in dialogue with the Museum’s Gilded Age ornamentation, creating an interactive stage setting for visitors to experience history, performance, and space from multiple perspectives.
Lead support for Brendan Fernandes: In the Round is provided by Cari and Michael J. Sacks.
Major support is provided by the Driehaus Trust Company, LLC and Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based in Chicago, his practice addresses issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. Constantly seeking to create new spaces and forms of agency, Fernandes’ work often takes on hybrid forms: part ballet, part queer dance party, part political protest always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity. Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Robert Rauschenberg Residency Fellowship (2014), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020), an Artadia Award (2019), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant (2019), and most recently, the Platform Award (2024). In 2024, he was also honored with the Creative Voice Award by Arts Alliance Illinois. His work has been presented at prestigious venues such as the 2019 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Chicago), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), among many others. Fernandes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University. He is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and Susan Inglett Gallery in New York. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO), the Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia, PA), and Prospect.6 (New Orleans, LA).
ABOUT THE DRIEHAUS MUSEUM
The Driehaus Museum engages and inspires the global community through exploration and ongoing conversations in art, architecture, and design of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions are presented in an immersive experience within the restored 1883 Nickerson Mansion, and the 1926 Murphy Auditorium. The Museum’s collection reflects and is inspired by the collecting interests, vision, and focus of its founder, the late Richard H. Driehaus. For more information, visit driehausmuseum.org and connect with the Museum on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
