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

Ivan Le Lorraine Albright,&nbsp;Bernece Berkman-Hunter,&nbsp;Oscar Bluemner,&nbsp;Aaron Bohrod,&nbsp;Philip Evergood,&nbsp;David Fredenthal,&nbsp;Childe Hassam,&nbsp;Joseph Hirsch,&nbsp;Frederick D Jones, Jr.,&nbsp;&nbsp;Reginald Marsh,&nbsp;Lawton Parker,&nbsp;Jules Pascin,&nbsp;Edna Reindel,&nbsp;George F. Schultz,&nbsp;William S. Schwartz,&nbsp;Everett Shinn,&nbsp;John Sloan,&nbsp;&nbsp;Jack Keijo Steele,&nbsp;Harry Sternberg,&nbsp;Anthony Thieme, and&nbsp;Abraham Walkowitz&nbsp;

From the Archives: Works on Paper

Join us&nbsp;tomorrow (Thursday, May 14, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm)&nbsp;as we celebrate the new show at the Kavanagh Gallery!&nbsp;Art 2026 showcases the work of artists who have taken classes at Fine Line.Meet some of the artists and other members of your Fine Line community and view the incredible art.This reception, like all Fine Line receptions, is free and open to everyone. Light refreshments will be served.

Art 2026

Exhibiting Artists:&nbsp;&nbsp;Jacob Futhey, Glen Gauthier, Kate Hendrickson, and Kara Cobb Johnson&nbsp;Madron Gallery presents&nbsp;Tell Me What You See, a group exhibition featuring four contemporary Chicago artists; Jacob Futhey, Glen Gauthier, Kate Hendrickson, and Kara Cobb Johnson. On view March 26 through June 12, 2026, with an opening reception on Thursday, March 26th, 5:30 – 8:30 pm. The reception and exhibition are free and open to the public.Paper: a flat plane of existence where boundaries are created by set dimensions defined by the physicality of the sheet; a reality where flat or irregular edges, hot or cold press, color, and weight are determining factors in not only the construction of an artwork, but also its presentation. In an age where artists are discovered by endless scrolling through social media, websites, online publications, and videos - the choice of paper - a physically often subtle support structure seems poignant. A quiet call to slow down, look closely -and explore the unknown. These four Chicago artists are creating artworks that challenge the viewer to look beyond the surface of the paper and discover the emotions that lie within their creations of photography, collage, and printmaking. Each artist has a dramatically different approach to their use of paper, but all four artistic practices are bound together by experimentation and multi-layered creative processes that reexamine each medium.<a href="https://www.jfuthey.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jacob Futhey</a>&nbsp;(b. 1983)&nbsp;has described his artwork as “quiet companions, portals for pause.”&nbsp;Abstracting a composition in camera, it is only after the image is printed does Futhey begin to transform a piece. Archival ink jet photographs act as the base of his mixed media artworks, with the artist often using paint, pastels, colored pencils, grommets, and other materials in his artistic process. Futhey has exhibited his work at Second Story Studio, Chicago, Storm Print Studio, Evanston, IL, and Filter Photo, Chicago, IL.<a href="https://www.glengauthier.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Glen Gauthier</a>&nbsp;(b. 1965)&nbsp;uses a wide range of printed ephemera in creating mixed media collages that address both personal childhood memories and ideals, as well as universal truths.&nbsp;Gauthier’s visual aids that are reflective and often sourced from 1950s Americana, include images of architecture, automobiles, tools, scientific ledgers, and books.&nbsp;A graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Gauthier has exhibited his work in Dallas, Texas, Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, and Chicago, IL.<a href="https://www.katehendrickson.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kate Hendrickson</a>&nbsp;(b. 1952)&nbsp;combines the art forms of drawing and photography, creating digital compositions by layering and editing hand drawn color pencil illustrations in Photoshop, resulting in giclée prints on archival cold-press paper.&nbsp;Henrickson holds an MFA from the University of Denver, and has taught at Barat College, Forest Park, IL and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Her work has been exhibited at the Heller Museum, New York, NY,&nbsp;SPAACES, Sarasota, FL, Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, Chicago, IL, as well as&nbsp;in Print Fairs at the McNay Fine Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, the Minneapolis Institute of Art ,Minneapolis, MN, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.&nbsp;<a href="https://karacobbjohnson.com/home.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kara Cobb Johnson</a>&nbsp;(b. 1976)&nbsp;is a Chicago-based artist, curator, and educator.&nbsp;Dedicated to creating conceptual pieces, Johnson uses everyday objects in all forms of her artistic practice, including installations, sculpture, and printmaking.&nbsp;&nbsp;Experimenting with the process and properties of screen printing, Johnson’s new work on paper explores the materiality and use of a paper bag.&nbsp;Johnson received a BA from Northeastern Illinois University and studied at the University of Chicago –Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. In July 2023, Johnson was awarded a Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Individual Artist Grant to create, curate, and coalesce new work for 2024. This is Johnson’s second group exhibition at Madron.

Tell Me What You See

John Stezaker, the British artist known for his groundbreaking conceptual collage cycles,&nbsp;debuts a new body of work&nbsp;at GRAY Chicago this spring. Titled&nbsp;Raft, the exhibition features a series of uncanny landscapes that mend together two images from the artist’s archives to create a single composition. Sourced from nineteenth-century British books—ostensibly about world travel, but flaunting the geographic extent of the empire—Raftis a continuation of the radically incisive collage techniques Stezaker has been pursuing for nearly six decades.The exhibition opens at GRAY Chicago on Saturday, March 28 with an artist walkthrough at 2:30 PM and a public reception from 3-5 PM.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-atiikhl-tjjiiihhyu-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a>

John Stezaker: Raft

Grey James’ latest works are concerned with his personal experience as a trans man, having experienced significant harassment and defamation. These works have become supercharged with emotion and defiance in response to being targeted by anti-trans individuals. PJOB is an acronym for “Pink Jerkoff Boy,” the title of a painting sold in 2017 that was used by James’ tormentors as evidence of his depravity. James has repurposed this title to reclaim his power.

Grey James: PJOB

GRAY is pleased to announce&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane, the first monographic exhibition at the gallery dedicated to Brown since announcing exclusive representation of the artist’s estate.&nbsp;Opening at GRAY Chicago on March 19,&nbsp;Weathervane&nbsp;explores the artist’s vision of an emotionally charged contemporary life set at the tense border between the built environment and the natural world.Featuring eleven paintings from the 1980s and 1990s, the exhibition reflects Brown’s clarity of vision as an artist both unafraid to face sociopolitical headwinds and unable to ignore ecological destruction.The exhibition opens with a public reception from 5-7 PM on March 19 and remains on view through June 13.&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane&nbsp;will travel to GRAY New York for a presentation at the gallery’s Madison Avenue space opening on July 8.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-ajdujlt-sykijfhl-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a> Installation view of&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane, GRAY Chicago, 2026. Artwork © The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown Family.

Roger Brown: Weathervane

Corbett vs. Dempsey is delighted to present Nicola Florimbi,&nbsp;Rooms. This selection of new paintings is the gallery's first exhibition with the artist.In Nicola Florimbi's paintings, domestic interiors are transformed into staged environments, solemn spaces of everyday&nbsp;intrigue, where exterior views appear sometimes vertiginously close, a mere step or two away from ritual interactions enacted by expressionless figures. These players and the curiously still moments in which they are suspended circumvent clear narrative, their distant gazes trapping tropes of family and school like bees in amber. Drawing on traditions of still life, genre painting, and psychological realism, Florimbi's canvases include references – both direct and oblique – to other artists, from Pieter de Hooch and Jean-August-Dominique Ingres to Balthus and Christina Ramberg. A kind of social geometry is plotted in these scenarios, relationships organized as positions in space, the incarnation of a system of power and knowledge, emotional inflection provided by means of a painterly hand.&nbsp;Nicola Florimbi (b. 1994) received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied at Rhode Island School of Design and Otis College of Art and Design. She has participated in numerous group shows, most recently&nbsp;Master Class, Secrist/Beach, Chicago.&nbsp;Rooms&nbsp;is Florimbi's solo debut. Nicola Florimbi,&nbsp;Room,&nbsp;2026,&nbsp;acrylic on canvas,&nbsp;54 x 67 inches.&nbsp;﻿

Nicola Florimbi: Rooms

In the North Gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey is proud to present Suellen Rocca,&nbsp;Buy More Diamonds: Selected Drawings. This is the gallery's second exhibition with the artist and the first presentation of her work in Chicago since her death in 2020.One of the original Imagist artists, Suellen Rocca (1943-2020) was among the great originals in Chicago's contemporary art history. A member of the Hairy Who, Rocca exhibited with the group at the Hyde Park Art Center in the second half of the 1960s, activities that were given a detailed revisiting in the Art Institute of Chicago's 2018 exhibition&nbsp;Hairy Who? 1966-1969. Rocca's approach to composition, which often revolved around typological grids or scatterings of disparate, icon-like images, was one of Imagist art's most radical contributions. Even on canvas, these images were linear, drawn, as it were, in paint. Rocca's parallel drawing activities were central to her practice, and her works on paper, often very elaborate, are among her most incisive achievements. Full of humor, sometimes with a baudy, maudlin, or grotesque overtone, her "catalogue" compositions did indeed draw on commercial gazettes like the Sears catalog, but also on the cellular structure of comic strips and the multiplicitous spatial inventions of Hieronymous Bosch. In this rare roundup of some of Rocca's most outstanding drawings, CvsD presents a selection of works on paper from 1965-1991. It is an honor to collaborate with the Rocca family and Matthew Marks Gallery in this exhibition, which is especially meaningful for us as it hearkens back to the two-person show CvsD mounted in 2007 with Suellen and Art Green,&nbsp;Imagist Hits, Vol. 1.Suellen Rocca,&nbsp;Buy More Diamonds,&nbsp;c. 1968,&nbsp;ink on glossy paper,&nbsp;25 x 18 inches,&nbsp;33 1/2 x 26 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches, framed.&nbsp;

Suellen Rocca | Buy More Diamonds: Selected Drawings

Architect / Artist&nbsp;Wallace Bowling&nbsp;assembles numerous&nbsp;constructs&nbsp;in a&nbsp;10’ X 10’ X 10’&nbsp;Boxx&nbsp;at Bert Green Fine Arts, 8 South Michigan Avenue,&nbsp;concurrent with Expo Chicago 2026.&nbsp;The title&nbsp;Ensemble&nbsp;- individual components regarded as single and complete,&nbsp;forming a larger, more complex whole - is ideal.&nbsp;Ensemble opens Saturday, 11 April and runs through Saturday, 13 June.&nbsp;Opening Reception is on Saturday,&nbsp;11 April&nbsp;from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.&nbsp;Artist Talk is on Saturday,&nbsp;9 May&nbsp;from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.Closing Reception is on Saturday,&nbsp;13 June&nbsp;from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.The artist will be present at all events. “An artwork is not complete until it is viewed.”Marcel Duchamp, 1957&nbsp;

Wallace Bowling: Ensemble

Zolla/Lieberman Gallery is proud to announce&nbsp;Golden Vision: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery Celebrates 50 Years, a landmark anniversary exhibition honoring five decades of commitment to contemporary art, collecting, and the enduring relationship between artist, audience, and community. Featuring works by 150 artists spanning the gallery's history, the exhibition offers a sweeping reflection on a legacy that has helped define Chicago's cultural landscape.&nbsp;Established through the leadership of Roberta Lieberman and Bob Zolla in 1976, the gallery was founded on the conviction that contemporary art should be publicly accessible and integral to the cultural life of the city. Over the decades, Zolla/Lieberman became one of Chicago's longest-running contemporary galleries and among the first to establish itself in Chicago's now-historic River North neighborhood, helping transform it into one of the country's most vibrant gallery districts.&nbsp;Golden Vision&nbsp;traces ZLG's remarkable journey through a wide-ranging presentation of painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, and mixed media by artists whose work has shaped the gallery's identity from its earliest years to the present day. Historic figures and long-standing gallery relationships appear alongside emerging voices, creating a dynamic conversation across time.&nbsp;Today, under the leadership of William Lieberman and Director Brian Gillham, the gallery continues to evolve while remaining rooted in the values that shaped its founding. As the gallery enters its next chapter,&nbsp;Golden Vision&nbsp;stands as both a celebration of what has been built and what is still to come. Explore The Exhibition: Golden Vision Read CGN's spring 2026 article about Zolla/Lieberman's 50th Anniversary <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/articles/zollalieberman-a-golden-vision-for-a-50th-anniversary" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>

Golden Vision: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery Celebrates 50 Years

Juried Group ShowHarmony is often hard to achieve. But let's be honest: Do we always want harmony? How tensions are resolved, make peace with, or completely defy opposition can be more enlightening.&nbsp;We want the clash. We want the contradiction. Let's see the fight!CONFLICT OF INTERESTS is about friction. It is about using the “wrong” material on purpose. It is about the disconnect between what something looks like and what it says.ShadowBoxX Gallery has asked 50 talented artists from across the country to show us what that disconnect looks like.

Conflict of Interests

John Stezaker, the British artist known for his groundbreaking conceptual collage cycles,&nbsp;debuts a new body of work&nbsp;at GRAY Chicago this spring.Titled&nbsp;Raft, the exhibition features a series of uncanny landscapes that mend together two images from the artist’s archives to create a single composition. Sourced from nineteenth-century British books—ostensibly about world travel, but flaunting the geographic extent of the empire—Raftis a continuation of the radically incisive collage techniques Stezaker has been pursuing for nearly six decades.The exhibition opens at GRAY Chicago on Saturday, March 28 with an artist walkthrough at 2:30 PM and a public reception from 3-5 PM.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-atiikhl-sykijfhl-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a>

PATRON presents&nbsp;She is sitting on her own shadow, our first solo exhibition with Mexico City-based artist Manuela García (b. 1982, Mexico City, Mexico). García employs subtle adaptations of natural materials to hone physical perception of human space. Through her sculptural and painting practice García shapes intimate encounters between material and the human body–manipulating and repurposing architectural and physical elements to challenge understandings of reality and solidity.Raised in Medellín, García’s memories of an ever present threat of violence in an unstable socio-political terrain laid the conceptual ground for a visual language seeking to establish stability through material presence. García’s debut exhibition with PATRON centers a site-specific installation, an extension of&nbsp;Lineas, her large-scale sculptures, made from coils of metal wire, wrapped by hand in layer upon layer of felted black and white wool. Their soft, textile exterior belies their rigid, internal skeletal structure. Responding to the surrounding architecture, García unfurls and manipulates the form, catalyzing and releasing material tension against itself, allowing the line to cascade downward from a fixed point in the wall and organically weave through space. Her&nbsp;Lineas&nbsp;are both deliberation and liberation; at once drawings and sculptures that challenge the viewer to reconsider our own relationships to material, reality, and solidity.&nbsp;Emerging from García’s attempt at capturing the physical nature of memory are her painting series,&nbsp;El dolor en la mirada, encaustic paintings of dreamlike landscapes and amorphous figures. Through a reverse layering of wax and pigment, boundless, abstract forms emerge and dissipate within the 24”x 28” surfaces. Light filtering through the top layers of translucent wax illuminate and imbue the paintings with mystical presence the artist likens to “souls.” García’s mist-like compositions reveal themselves the way the memory of a dream might be recalled, and explore our own perception with and relation to physical spaces, offering no stable point of reference in which to orient oneself.&nbsp;By playing on the tensions between light and shadow, form and material, García examines our relationship to our physical surroundings and the ephemeral manifestations that offer evidence to presence.

Manuela García: She is sitting on her own shadow

The Hairy Who: Selections from the Chicago Imagists

I would have to say that what art gives me is awareness. Awareness of this short period of time that we have, on one hand, and on the other hand, a way of understanding reality. It may sound corny or dramatic, but for me art is a form of salvation.- Liliana Porter* SECRIST | BEACH is pleased to announce a solo presentation for New York-based gallery artist Liliana Porter. Titled The Strange Task, this exhibition will feature a variety of media including painting, works on paper, sculpture and video all featuring Porter’s coterie of endearing inanimate found objects, toys and figurines. This exhibition is presentedconcurrently with UNREAL, an invitational survey featuring a group of artists exploring contemporary anxieties and the surreal dimensions of everyday life.Both exhibitions open Friday, April 10 from 5–8 PM at SECRIST | BEACH and remain on view through June 13, 2026.Born in Argentina in 1941 and based in New York since 1964, Liliana Porter has developed a enigmatic multidisciplinary practice spanning more than six decades. Working across video, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, small-scale installations, and theatre, her work incorporates everyday found objects to investigate themes of identity, labor, and time, with an idiosyncratic blend of poetic metaphor and humor. Porter constructs situations in which ordinary objects are transformed into agents of reflection on the human condition.Porter is widely recognized as an important figure in conceptual, Latin American and feminist art. Her uniquely personal visual language is rooted the theory of surrealism highlighting not only our relation to objects, but the very nature of objecthood itself. By placing these toys and figurines in a specific context where they are either connected to each other or, conversely, directly connected to the viewer, the fidelity of emotional connection is enhanced. Works included in the exhibition - such as To Get There, To Hold the String, To See a Bird, and To Do It Again - stage moments of quiet action and contemplation.Objects and protagonists develop a narrative that is as approachable as it is meaningful, creating a reconsideration of our own everyday actions.As co-founder of the influential New York Graphic Workshop (1964), Porter also produced prints for the Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Although their artistic practices diﬀer in both method and context. significantly, both artists share a commitment to distorting reality as a method of inquiry. This conceptual aﬃnity situates Porter within a broader lineage ofSurrealist experimentation, where altered perception functions as a means of probing psychological, cultural, and symbolic structures. Highlighting Porter’s connection to this artistic movement, The Strange Task is presented alongside UNREAL, an exhibition featuring a group of artists whose work engages with contemporary manifestations of surrealism. Thesimultaneous presentation of these two exhibitions establishes a dialogue of contemporary approaches to the surreal, highlighting the relevance of imaginative distortion as a strategy for interrogating collective consciousness.____Liliana Porter’s (b. Argentina, 1941, resides in New York since 1964) recent solo exhibitions include those at Dia Beacon in New York, Les Abattoirs in Toulouse France, El Museo de Barrio in New York City; The Perez Art Museum in Miami; Galería Luciana Brito in São Paulo, Brasil; ART OMI in Ghent, NY; Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA; El Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo; Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Franklin Rawson in San Juan, Argentina; Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, MexicoHer most recent institutional exhibition took place at Dia Bridgehampton in 2025. Porter's most recent theatrical performance, THEM was co-directed with Ana Tiscornia with music by Sylvia Meyer and debuted in New York at The Kitchen in 2018. Image: Liliana Porter, Woman Sweeping with Gold, 2025, Glitter and figurine one a pedestal, Dimensions variable

Liliana Porter: The Strange Task 

PATRON announces&nbsp;Garden of Prayer, our second solo exhibition with New York-based artist Nour Malas (b. 1995, Cannes, France). Borrowing its title from a 1971 song by Max Roach and The J.C. White Singers, the exhibition invokes jazz’s improvisational exploration of form and gospel’s devotional intensity, through a series of expansive paintings and pastel works on linen, paper, and silk fabric. Over the past five years Malas has developed a physical, poetic practice, driven by an inert impulse to give form to the emotional states of being alive. Spending her formative years between Europe and the Middle East, before studying in London and Chicago, Malas’s work is informed by her experience of cultural hybridity, transforming diverse legacies of song, poetry, music, and visual culture into abstraction.&nbsp;Shaped memories of place, mood, architecture, and drawing on an intimate knowledge of art history,&nbsp;Garden of Prayer&nbsp;marks a considerable shift in Malas’s practice over the past year. Developed over the last five months, the work in the exhibition results from a perspective of turning inward, holding, honoring, and communing with personal history and familial lineages, as spaces in which possible realities may be lived. The result is a corpus of expansive landscapes of alternative states, transcendent yet accessible, outside shared human experiences of suffering, otherworldly, yet deeply familiar.&nbsp;In&nbsp;L’âme de L’âme&nbsp;(2026), the first painting Malas completed of this body of work, celestial bursts of pigment unfurl in gestural swirls. Deep purples, blues, reds, and greens gather into a spiritual atmosphere recalling the spiritually evocative scenes of 16th century Italian painters such as Titian. Barely perceivable, spectral silhouettes appear and recede. The painting is a space of ascension, where earth meets spirit. The title, French for “soul of the soul,” also echoes the Arabic phrase Ruh al-Ruh, suggesting an innermost essence—something tender, sacred, and inseparable from love.At the heart of Malas’s work is the spirit of her grandmother, who the artist attributes as being her spiritual guide. A continued embodiment of a childhood sense of nature, care, and safety, Malas’s ancestor personifies a space within the real world in which the artist, as a child, could retreat. In speaking to how she continues to communicate with her grandmother through dreams, Malas suggests how paintings can be portals into parallel, spiritual worlds. Conjuring new spaces with pigment, Malas is compelled to create sites of care, where imagination and magic can exist. In&nbsp;Sweetness and Light&nbsp;the artist’s grandmother, mother, and sister appear in turn as spectral figures or, as in the expansive landscape of&nbsp;Spiritual Wasteland, as memories, or personified emotions. A return to her roots as a sculptor, Malas’s world building unfolds into the gallery’s architecture through an installation of painted silk,&nbsp;Long Division&nbsp;(2026). Suspended six-foot panels of fabric envelop the viewer, undulating as one passes through the space. Embracing and enveloping the viewer,&nbsp;Long Division&nbsp;creates an impermeable space out of time, where we can, at least temporarily, be held.Claiming “there is a sense of duty in painting a different picture,” Malas’s practice emerges from her own ineffable impulse to channel the emotional weight of existence. Considering how her own experience of revolution and war was in part channeled through the lives of family members, Malas’s practice relies on our ability to transport through time, and feel, viscerally alternative aspects of the same reality. This impulse transforms pigment into emotional, social residues, giving form to sites that exist on the other side of grief, in which we can escape and imagine a different present, and future.

Nour Malas: Garden of Prayer

Enter the world of photographer Sandro Miller with a unique exhibition coming to The Art Center Highland Park from May 8 to June 14. “Steppenwolf 50: Through the Eye of Sandro Miller” is an intimate portrait of the historic Steppenwolf theatre through the lens of a celebrated photographer and visual artist. This series will debut for a first-look at The Center’s Spring Benefit on May 8.Join us for the free public reception on May 15, with a special performance from musical guest Kahil El’Zabar.

Steppenwolf 50: Through the Eye of Sandro Miller

An exhibition exploring how images of luxury obscure the labor and extraction behind consumer culture.Sammy Baloji’s monumental diptych&nbsp;Raccord #1: Cite de Kawama&nbsp;stages a sharp visual contrast between a Congolese temporary mining settlement and an advertisement for an idealized resort. The advertising image is not merely decorative, but is part of an economic system that manufactures longing, offering miners and their families a fantasy of leisure and mobility even as they remain excluded from the wealth it fuels.Building from Baloji’s photograph, recently acquired by The Block Museum of Art, this exhibition reminds us that beneath the surfaces of leisure, consumption, and profit lie histories of exploitation and environmental damage.&nbsp;Beneath the Surface&nbsp;brings together artworks and advertising from The Block&nbsp;collection and the&nbsp;<a href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=31838cac8b&amp;e=ec81127d70" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Herskovits Library of African Studies</a>&nbsp;to make us think about how extractive industries rely on visual strategies to promote consumption, obscure labor, and elevate luxury. By presenting these works side by side, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how our own desires, shaped by photographs and advertisements, are linked to hidden processes of extraction, exploitation, and environmental harm.Beneath the Surface&nbsp;is presented in conversation with&nbsp;<a href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=b8f5be7060&amp;e=ec81127d70" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Teresa Montoya’s Tó Łitso (Yellow Water): Ten Years after the Gold King Mine Spill,</a>&nbsp;on view in the main gallery. Together, the projects underscore how the impacts of extraction link distant communities.<a href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=0a7ea9386c&amp;e=ec81127d70" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">READ MORE</a> The exhibition is curated by Uche Okpa-Iroha, 2025‒2026 Art History Graduate Fellow, in consultation with Corinne Granof, Academic Curator. It is generously supported by the Illinois Arts Council Agency and The Graduate School (TGS), Northwestern University. Additional in-kind support is provided by Northwestern University Libraries. Image:&nbsp;Sammy Beloji,&nbsp;Raccord #1, Cité de Kawama, 2011. Digital inkjet print on Baryta paper. Copyright of the artist.

Beneath the Surface: Labor and Consumerism

The storied city of Djenné, a center of Islamic learning, study, and scholarship since the twelfth century, is the hometown of Bamako-based photographer&nbsp;Hamdia Traoré&nbsp;(b. 1992, Mali).&nbsp;The thirty portraits in Traore’s series&nbsp;Des marabouts de Djenné (Marabouts of Jenne)&nbsp;reflect his intimate connections to the city’s people and deep history. Learned and devout, marabouts teach in Djenné’s over 50 Qur’anic schools, offer spiritual guidance, and treat ailments through their knowledge of the Qur’an.Made during a time of political and social upheaval in Mali, these portraits reflect enduring cultural resilience. Each image depicts a marabout seated with the tools of his practice—books, Qur’an boards, amulets, and prayer beads—framed by the architecture and atmosphere of Djenné. The consistent format underscores their collective identity, while individual poses and captions highlight personal roles and neighborhoods.Traoré’s work will be shown alongside mid-20th-century black-and-white portraits of marabouts by Malian photographers&nbsp;Mamadou Cissé, Abdourahmane Sakaly, and&nbsp;Tijani Sitou. Drawn from the Archive of Malian Photography, these earlier images share visual parallels and deepen the historical context.&nbsp;Together, these images illuminate evolving perspectives on spiritual authority, identity, and visual representation in Mali.This exhibition is developed in collaboration with the artist and professor Candace Keller, co-founder of the&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://amp.matrix.msu.edu/" target="_blank">Archive of Malian Photography</a>.

Hamdia Traoré’s “Des marabouts de Djenné” and Muslim Portraiture in Mali

Ann Toebbe’s ongoing series,&nbsp;Cooler by the Lake,&nbsp;is set in Hyde Park. For nearly two decades, Toebbe has lived in this Southside Chicago neighborhood with her husband, working and raising her two daughters and stepson. Toebbe’s domestic paintings explore the people, places, culture, and climate that are woven into her daily routine as a working artist and mother—home, garden, studio, grocery store, bakery, park, and local school. Her densely composed multi-point-of-view vignettes capture the sensory impressions and memory layers accumulated in hours and days spent in Hyde Park, meditating on the realization that this is the neighborhood her children know as home and where Toebbe and her husband will grow old.

Ann Toebbe: Cooler by the Lake

On August 5, 2015, the rupture of the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, released more than three million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Animas River, turning its waters a shocking shade of yellow. In the following year, artist and anthropologist&nbsp;Teresa Montoya&nbsp;(Diné, born 1984) embarked on a road trip from Silverton to Shiprock, New Mexico, retracing the path of the contaminated water and documenting its ongoing cultural, spiritual, and material effects on the Navajo Nation and other Indigenous communities downstream.Marking the ten-year anniversary of the disaster, The Block Museum of Art partners with Montoya to revisit this journey.&nbsp;Tó Łitso (Yellow Water)&nbsp;explores the enduring consequences of the Gold King Mine spill through photography, sound recordings, water samples, and cartographic data.&nbsp;Combining documentary photographs with scientific data and poetic reflection,&nbsp;Tó Łitso&nbsp;invites viewers to consider water not only as a life-sustaining resource but also as a conduit for histories, stories, and harm. In doing so, the exhibition challenges extractive frameworks of land use, centering Indigenous knowledge and resilience. Through Montoya’s interdisciplinary practice,&nbsp;Tó Łitso (Yellow Water)&nbsp;offers a powerful meditation on environmental and cultural justice in the Southwest and beyond."The 2015 spill had discharged more than three million gallons of acidic mine waste fluid into Cement Creek before joining the Animas River and eventually into the San Juan River, which flows directly across the Navajo Nation. Through my photographic journey, I make explicit the enduring presence of toxicity across multiple landscapes and territories. Sometimes it appears beautiful, other times haunting.&nbsp;The images highlight the relationships that various communities sustain through water/tó&nbsp;despite the occurrence of repeated and enduring contamination from upstream locales.&nbsp;The Gold King Mine Spill shows us this, even in that, which cannot be readily seen." – Teresa MontoyaPronounce:&nbsp;<a href="https://navajowotd.com/word/to/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tó</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://navajowotd.com/word/litso/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Łitso</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;Teresa Montoya’s Tó Łitso (Yellow Water): Ten Years after the Gold King Mine Spill&nbsp;was curated by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Marisa Cruz Branco (Isleta Pueblo/Portuguese), Terra Foundation Fellow, in collaboration with the artist. It was supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Ahéhee' (thank you) to Janene Yazzie, John Hosteen, Wade Campbell, and Andrew Curley for Diné language and curatorial guidance. Image: Teresa Montoya (Diné, born 1984), Tó Łitso #22 (Yellow Water #22), from the series Tó Łitso (Yellow Water), 2016, Inkjet print. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Block Board of Advisors Endowment Fund purchase. Image courtesy of the artist

Teresa Montoya’s Tó Łitso (Yellow Water): Ten Years after the Gold King Mine Spill

Each spring The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is pleased to present the work of the Masters of Fine Arts candidates in the&nbsp;<a href="https://art.northwestern.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(78, 42, 132);" target="_blank">Department of Art Theory &amp; Practice</a>. Th 2026 exhibition,&nbsp;We can make any two stories touch, showcases the diverse accomplishments of five international artists: Lamia Abukhadra, Pegah Bahador, Gabby Banks, naakita f.k. and Przemek Pyszczek. Reflecting the intensive research undertaken during their two-year residency at Northwestern, the thesis projects brought together in&nbsp;We can make any two stories touch&nbsp;encompass a range of material and methodological approaches, posing fresh lines of inquiry into the conditions giving shape to the present moment. The exhibition marks an early milestone in these artists' careers, and also offers a glimpse into the future of contemporary art. Opening Reception, Thursday, May 7, 5PM-8PM&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/opening-celebration-we-can-make-any-two-stories-touch-tickets-1985590581881?utm-campaign=social&amp;utm-content=attendeeshare&amp;utm-medium=discovery&amp;utm-term=listing&amp;utm-source=cp&amp;aff=ebdsshcopyurl?_eboga=false?_eboga=false" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(78, 42, 132);" target="_blank">(RSVP)</a>&nbsp;This exhibition and the associated events are co-organized by the Department of Art Theory and Practice and the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. The Block acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council, the Norton S. Walbridge Fund, the Myers Foundations, the Jerrold Loebl Fund for the Arts, and the Alsdorf Endowment.

We can make any two stories touch: 2026 Art Theory and Practice MFA Thesis Exhibition

<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0vFfmz2MVVacIXQRtQtK_wXksMklY-uC4lbOEXaJeYqrTsini80rxdgP9JZxLyus684o_vaFbyfpsiAnL2xnwZ_k9-Q4qvZ-C2oxXoEwlCCdJ5fBJ3IF5TVskUoSHEDrCcSlAerCTl4-wO1VnKgWrRg==&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">homeward (un)bound</a>, a three-person exhibition by 2024-26 Artist Residents&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0yFe07UT3uphqVJ1u3870CL8eInpBZMfGfaDz_DEV0dxzTybaYiFjnn5m3iCsGCG-jhPwlN_ANpDheiu7lahv_AXVSNYWREYlxVW5sf7tRRiyLtr1El432S7PNaREMoCBi0q3AFQIHQiz90TEO-LjwscqYHjPXhDLxlYBqwxvg8cfj-hiB34faNKnJKNhe_08vm73ALPg03hxqVnL_QTgpRL41Ghmsjc1tu7E-ETs5oAhFTToEmwF62EHO24IWROMnQGOLSzkMuylqkcyf7D5hroSJM9UWQQAdc9QUoqeVsVhejwqJkNgRsrbD0P8Lwksr-OAj0i_Lq633KiuJ7nXRLMtHjug75hpSa5eXJS4tN9ScgBZc6eeaO0Uzf2IYNHV&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Maryam Faridani</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0eKweQiPtinscmzTgSMitOzVhWCeYSEKOATs4K4zql7bbSn5nJ7S-t1Tlb6Nbm_RR4a1-tp4pCOIzjrKASQGrxfICOgb2PNgZ&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Jairo Granados-Cardenas</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0aTg_hjekkcPOnbPEqrlF1G3u2UL3Dn5UAMzfDHOGT9RrpVnTirk5emY6FPxL1a7LQNY7_AbcS4rfQSP-wBhx0NdhcFqcYKoy&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Martha Osornio Ruiz</a>,curated by 2024-26 Curatorial Resident&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0lPvnA0KwECcQmoagxOzk-mg2BEeGMSxpih3-lonaQ6Ce7VvFME2Ko2mrKQKjLoGtcQ9mkM5Hk8z6dKRgFYa8xOao89yZSzORpBSeUs143Dr0K4x7aIFKcJ-0b2cqPDY2iN1TzvIZ_H-JWk9_vA6kM3UgmFrVZs9sDNRMPprHYc1HYNrxLR-b7xjxQapc-uBqo3YjtrlGsgdBae4ZuANs-l_-j0wsVu4k62Y-z8F3rmq8kcGHjbVsHn22kmDBI9mswDjZ_mLJbCrGuZUuIPbe1W_oI6xq5CxjHJT3W3-vXOTPVln2Vw4wNv1oF7C0P1rsQDfCWFkA6e8B9Q-roC1PqLsyxa3pY39_mXAKIrOm5yRzwaI3gVgeKdJM6LvynH5Yyr_KlNfBg08=&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">gordon fung</a>. Gallery Hours:Wednesdays from 11am-4pmSaturdays from 12-4pmBy advance appointment

homeward (un)bound

Our spring show, New Works: A Group Show, opens today! Stop in to see a dynamic collection of new works by several of our gallery artists, including Pamela Crady, Ruth Hamill, Takefumi Hori, Fontaine Scarelli, Charles Shotwell and Cat Tesla.New Works will be on view through June 20th.

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