West Town, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Kinzie Corridor, Humboldt Park

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

Evanston, The North Shore, Northern, Western and Southern Suburbs

Suburbs

Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, Lincoln Square, Ravenswood, Uptown, Edgewater, Andersonville, Rogers Park

North Side

Michigan Avenue, Streeterville, The Gold Coast, The Loop, and South Loop

Michigan Avenue

Pilsen, Bridgeport, Chinatown, plus Hyde Park, Jackson Park/Dorchester, and Bronzeville

South Side

Superior and Franklin streets, West Chicago Ave, and down to Merchandise Mart and the River

River North

A conversation with Industry of the Ordinary (IOTO) Founders Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson will take place on Friday, September 19th from 6–7:30 pm at SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art. Refreshments will be served. The discussion will be moderated by Molly K. O’Donnell, co-curator at SoNa Chicago. This will be a discussion of the IOTO Summer Residency in the larger context of Industry of the Ordinary’s broader work. This event is being held in conjunction with Chicago Exhibition Weekend. Industry of the Ordinary&nbsp;is a two-person conceptual art collaborative, made up of Chicago- based artists and educators Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson. Their work is often performative or sculptural, incorporating audience participation and interaction with the artists. For over 20 years, they have used performance, installation, objects, and interventions to explore and celebrate “ordinariness” and to challenge and elevate the everyday experience into an endeavor worthy of study and veneration. Since its founding in 2015, the IOTO Summer Residency has cultivated a space for radical questioning and creative rigor. This year’s exhibition at SoNa Chicago continues that tradition, inviting visitors to witness the unfolding of new artistic voices engaged in both&nbsp;personal narrative and public discourse&nbsp;— and to be part of a conversation that extends well beyond the gallery walls. Come to SoNa Chicago on September 19th to view the exhibition and participate in the conversation with the IOTO founders.&nbsp;&nbsp;www.industryoftheordinary.com Image: Akemi Nomo,&nbsp;LifeTime ( 人间，人間 )Photo credit: Industry of the Ordinary

Conversation with Adam Brooks and Mat Wilson, Industry of the Ordinary

<h1>Friday, Sep 19, 2025 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM</h1><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/organizations/sona-chicago-contemporary-art" target="_blank">SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art</a> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="tel:+17735134436" target="_blank">+17735134436</a> 1527 N. Ashland Chicago, IL 60622 A conversation with Industry of the Ordinary (IOTO) Founders Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson will take place on Friday, September 19th from 6–7:30 pm at SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art. Refreshments will be served. The discussion will be moderated by Molly K. O’Donnell, co-curator at SoNa Chicago. This will be a discussion of the IOTO Summer Residency in the larger context of Industry of the Ordinary’s broader work.This event is being held in conjunction with Chicago Exhibition Weekend. Industry of the Ordinary&nbsp;is a two-person conceptual art collaborative, made up of Chicago- based artists and educators Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson. Their work is often performative or sculptural, incorporating audience participation and interaction with the artists. For over 20 years, they have used performance, installation, objects, and interventions to explore and celebrate “ordinariness” and to challenge and elevate the everyday experience into an endeavor worthy of study and veneration. Since its founding in 2015, the IOTO Summer Residency has cultivated a space for radical questioning and creative rigor. This year’s exhibition at SoNa Chicago continues that tradition, inviting visitors to witness the unfolding of new artistic voices engaged in both&nbsp;personal narrative and public discourse&nbsp;— and to be part of a conversation that extends well beyond the gallery walls. Come to SoNa Chicago on September 19th to view the exhibition and participate in the conversation with the IOTO founders.&nbsp;&nbsp;Contact: Laura Botwinick, Phone: (773) 513-4436,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(150, 96, 125);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:lkbotwinick@gmail.com" target="_blank">lkbotwinick@gmail.com</a>&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(150, 96, 125);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.industryoftheordinary.com/" target="_blank">www.industryoftheordinary.com</a> Image: Akemi Nomo,&nbsp;LifeTime ( 人间，人間 )Photo credit: Industry of the Ordinary

Conversation with Industry of the Ordinary Founders

The Newberry Library kicks off its fall programming season on Saturday, September 20, with <a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/chicago-storytelling-2025" target="_blank">Chicago Storytelling</a>, a celebration of the Windy City featuring conversations among award-winning authors. Scott W. Berg, Sandra Steinbrecher, and Larry A. McClellan, discussing their works on topics as varied as the great Chicago fire, the renovation of the Salt Shed, and the Underground Railroad in northeastern Illinois. Berg will receive the&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/the-pattis-family-foundation-chicago-book-award" target="_blank">2025 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award</a> for his book,&nbsp;The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul. Longtime journalist Rick Kogan will serve as emcee, and the Chicago History Museum’s Paul Durica will join the conversation as well.&nbsp; Chicago Storytelling has its roots in the Bughouse Square Debates, an event created in 1986 by the Newberry at the urging of Studs Terkel, Arthur Weinberg, and Lila Shaffer Weinberg. Bughouse Square, as Washington Square Park is famously known, was once a cow pasture where farmers would bring their cattle for water. Over the years, it transformed into a dynamic gathering place that encouraged freedom of expression. The Newberry will build on that legacy by inviting authors to share their stories as part of this free event that begins at 1pm on the 20th. The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award, launched in 2021, is open to writers working in a variety of genres, including history, biography, social sciences, poetry, drama, graphic novels, and fiction—all relating to Chicago.&nbsp;The Burning of the World&nbsp;is a gripping and deeply researched account of our city’s most destructive catastrophe and the long process of rebuilding in its wake. Berg’s book has been lauded by&nbsp;The New Yorker,&nbsp;The Wall Street Journal, and&nbsp;Publishers Weekly. Mark and Lisa Pattis, founders of the award,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recently spoke to WGN TV</a>&nbsp;about what went into developing—and funding—a celebration of books about Chicago. In addition to honoring Berg, who will receive a $25,000 prize, the juried panel also recognizes McClellan, author of&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.siupress.com/9780809339259/onward-to-chicago/" target="_blank">Onward to Chicago: Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois</a>,&nbsp;and Steinbrecher and&nbsp;The Salt Shed: The Transformation of a Chicago Landmark.&nbsp;Both McClellan and Steinbrecher will receive awards of $2,500. The public may register for the event, which takes place in-person and via Zoom, at&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/chicago-storytelling-2025" target="_blank">https://www.newberry.org/calendar/chicago-storytelling-2025</a>

Chicago Storytelling 2025

moniquemeloche&nbsp;is pleased to present&nbsp;To Translate is to Move Across,&nbsp;a solo exhibition of new works by Lagos-born Luke Agada.&nbsp;Agada’s&nbsp;work&nbsp;investigates&nbsp;the forces of globalization, migration, and cultural dislocation, situating them within a postcolonial context to explore how they shape the emergence of new cultural forms.&nbsp;Heavily inspired by&nbsp;the&nbsp;writings of Homi Bhabha and his concept of the “third space”–a psychological realm of cultural hybridity and negotiation where&nbsp;identities are not fixed but constantly changing–Agada’s&nbsp;surrealist paintings hover between form and fluidity.&nbsp;The&nbsp;Bhabhaian&nbsp;concept states that individuals in the third space constantly&nbsp;navigate&nbsp;between&nbsp;different cultural&nbsp;influences and adapt their identities&nbsp;to their&nbsp;new environment–something alto familiar&nbsp;to&nbsp;Agada who emigrated to&nbsp;the US&nbsp;in 2021&nbsp;to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his MFA.&nbsp;Agada, who now&nbsp;resides&nbsp;in Chicago, contends with how home has come to mean more than one place.&nbsp;For the artist’s first full solo exhibition with the gallery since graduating in 2023,&nbsp;the works in&nbsp;To Translate is to Move Across&nbsp;articulate a vision of movement that defies rigid categorization, exposing the hybrid, unstable, and fluid nature of meaning and belonging.&nbsp;&nbsp;Agada’s&nbsp;paintings inhabit the in-between,&nbsp;rendering&nbsp;translation as both subject and&nbsp;practice. His&nbsp;compositions&nbsp;draw&nbsp;from abstract expressionism and surrealism;&nbsp;his color palettes&nbsp;blend&nbsp;the sun scorched&nbsp;tones&nbsp;of his native&nbsp;landscape with the rich&nbsp;color palettes of the Old Masters and Baroque painters; his forms materialize&nbsp;memory, imagination, and&nbsp;observed&nbsp;reality. Yet, as a whole, they&nbsp;align&nbsp;not to one source or&nbsp;fidelity,&nbsp;but rather&nbsp;encompass&nbsp;a visual form of&nbsp;displacement, where elements migrate, meanings shift, and identities fracture and recombine. However, translation is not seamless. It is uneven, unstable, and often ruptured. Agada examines these occurrences through his process by in which texture and surface tension&nbsp;straddle representation and&nbsp;spatial ambiguity. Paint is layered–sometimes with dry brush application–shifted, removed,&nbsp;and reworked&nbsp;revealing earlier strata. But while the artist invites spontaneous influence and unexpected forms, he&nbsp;ultimately retains&nbsp;a sensitive control over the compositions&nbsp;– a delicate struggle between figurative elements and abstraction.&nbsp;&nbsp;As an extension of&nbsp;Agada’s&nbsp;painting practice, a series of new charcoal drawings on canvas offers a quieter, more intimate counterpoint. Stripped of color and painterly texture,&nbsp;Agada’s&nbsp;drawings trace&nbsp;elusive, interconnected lines that resemble neural pathways, visualizing a more internal, psychological terrain and are&nbsp;perhaps the&nbsp;core&nbsp;structures that underpin his exploration of identity in flux.&nbsp;&nbsp;In a time&nbsp;marked by&nbsp;escalating cultural and political fragmentation,&nbsp;Luke&nbsp;Agada’s&nbsp;work invites&nbsp;thoughtful engagement with the politics of shared spaces–those fraught, often contested zones shaped by histories of movement, displacement, and transformation. Here,&nbsp;Agada frames&nbsp;translation not as a neat resolution, but as survival, adaptation, and reimagination.&nbsp;To Translate is to Move Across&nbsp;asks us to linger in ambiguity, not to resolve it,&nbsp;and to consider how&nbsp;art becomes a means not of closure, but of continual negotiation.&nbsp;

Gallery Talk: Luke Agada

Mac Pierce Artist Talk Saturday September 20, 3-5 pm

Mac Pierce Artist Talk

Elizabeth McGovern | Life on Stage and Screen: A Conversation with Chicago Tribune Critic Chris Jones&nbsp;Join Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy Award–nominated actor Elizabeth McGovern in conversation with Chris Jones, Chief Theater Critic for the Chicago Tribune.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://driehausmuseum.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=32343bbcd4e3063e18cdf64bf&amp;id=331dcec599&amp;e=d1db3f815c" target="_blank">MORE INFORMATION + TICKETS</a>

Elizabeth McGovern | Life on Stage and Screen: A Conversation with Chicago Tribune Critic Chris Jones

The Art Center Highland Park, in partnership with Oliva Gallery, proudly announces&nbsp;Facades, a powerful new exhibition opening August 8, 2025, that foregrounds three influential voices in contemporary Midwestern art: Nikki Renee Anderson, Aaron Becker, and the late Molly Schiff. Through sculpture, color, and dynamic form,&nbsp;Facades&nbsp;confronts themes ofidentity, visibility, and public space, inviting audiences to consider how we construct, obscure, and reveal ourselves in a constantly shifting social landscape. These three Chicago-based artists—each rooted in a distinct material language—deliver an experience that is visually compelling and emotionally resonant, shaped by Midwest sensibilities and a commitment to community dialogue.Nikki Renee Anderson, known for her ceramic sculptures and immersive installations, brings a tactile intimacy to the exhibition. Her works challenge static notions of femininity and identity, drawing on personal history to create forms that are at once soft and assertive, playful and deeply psychological. Anderson’s practice reflects a career of national and international acclaim, with exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, Hyde Park Art Center, and the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy. A professor and leader in ceramic education, Anderson’s work reclaims the domestic and decorative as spaces of feminist resistance and self-exploration.Aaron Becker&nbsp;engages viewers with a sculptural language that distorts familiarity. Trained in ceramics, Becker constructs imagined environments through abstract form and geometric composition, asking us to examine the energies that shape our perception of place. His work, which often pairs the functional with the conceptual, explores the thresholds between domesticity and disorientation. His installations provoke questions about presence, interiority, and what it means to occupy space.Molly Schiff&nbsp;(1927–2018), a visionary Chicago modernist, rounds out the exhibition with vividly colored paintings that channel emotional immediacy through abstraction. A lifelong creative force who began painting after a career in the garment industry, Schiff earned multiple degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and exhibited widely across Illinois. Her works exemplify a blend of expressive form, bold palette, and open invitation to interpretive intimacy. She remains a cherished figure in Chicago’s art history and her legacy continues to influence new generations. Together, Anderson, Becker, and Schiff present a multi-generational conversation on form, identity, and the surface tensions that define civic life.&nbsp;Facades&nbsp;is more than an exhibition, it is a reflection on visibility, vulnerability, and the connective power of art in public discourse.

Artist Talk: Facades

William Blake: Brothers’ Bones BesideOpening Reception, Friday, October 3, 5-8pmArtist conversation with Donato Loia, Thursday October 16, 6pm

Artist Talk: William Blake

What is the relationship between an artwork and its maker? Can we confidently link the two, or do they diverge in meaning and intention?In this keynote lecture, Alexander Nemerov (Stanford University, Department of Art &amp; Art History) will reflect on these enduring questions. Drawing from his acclaimed biography&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=4b0069d16a&amp;e=ec81127d70" target="_blank">Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York</a>, Nemerov will invite audiences to consider how chance, abstraction, and artistic identity intersect in Frankenthaler’s work and legacy.&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=61c7046ef0&amp;e=ec81127d70" target="_blank">RSVP FOR KEYNOTE</a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=713205aa33&amp;e=ec81127d70" target="_blank">EXPLORE ALL FALL 2025 PROGRAMS</a>

Alexander Nemerov on Helen Frankenthaler’s Diversions

ARTIST TALK:&nbsp;Saturday, Nov. 15th, 2025 – 3-5pm Timeless Bodies interprets the human form through sculptural realism and abstraction. Throughout history, the human form has been symbolized as a container of life, emotion, and spirit, reflecting both fragility and resilience. How does the body hold and convey our stories, memories, or cultural history? Artists were encouraged to celebrate the interplay of form and storytelling in clay.&nbsp;Juror &amp; Curator:&nbsp;Nancy Pirri is an artist from Chicago, working primarily in ceramics and creating figures of all sizes. Pirri has won awards from the Beverly Arts Center and the Rockford Art Museum, including work published in ‘500 Figures in Clay’ V2. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including SOFA in Chicago representing women's rights anniversaries, and has acquired collectors from all over the world.&nbsp;She has exhibited with numerous galleries in the Midwest and is currently represented by Oliva Gallery, J. Petter Galleries (MI), Design at 329/Primitive/The Stalls, and Inner Haven Gallery.&nbsp; Image: Linda Marcus

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