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

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to Outta Here“The work in this show explores the need to rise up and escape from the troubles below. Following the impulse to hide away. The sculptures imply the ability to move away as needed for protection. Branches, gestural and twisted, rise up the woven vessels of safe enclosure. The vessel form represents a refuge for the human consciousness. The state of this refuge speaks to the condition and needs of the consciousness within. I have been creating sculptural works exploring our relationship with Nature since the early ’90s. I have attempted to share my ideas about our need to create a better relationship with Nature as a way to find peace within ourselves and with each other.”Outta Here will be exhibited in the Second Floor Gallery of the Art Center. The opening reception is free and open to the public. This exhibition is partially funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the EAC’s general membership.

Outta Here

Hyde Park Art Center announces a group exhibition curated by&nbsp;Dr. Rikki Byrd&nbsp;from its first Radicle Curatorial Residency. Inspired by Toni Morrison’s canonical text&nbsp;Beloved, the exhibition’s title&nbsp;Mark Me, Too&nbsp;reflects on how the marks of legacy and heritage are imprinted on the identities of five Black femme/nonbinary artists, told through their personal histories. Spotlighting works by Lisa DeAbreau,&nbsp;Ciarra K. Walters,&nbsp;Lex Marie,&nbsp;Natasha Moustache, and&nbsp;Lola Ayisha Ogbara, the exhibition runs from&nbsp;August 9 through December 14&nbsp;in the Kanter Family Foundation Gallery on the second floor of the Art Center. Admission is free.Drawing on their connections to Nigeria, Seychelles, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and the United States, these artists bring a diasporic point of view to mining the marks imprinted on their respective identities. While artists such as Lex Marie and Natasha Moustache offer distinct perspectives to tracing maternal connections and African American histories of motherhood, respectively, Ciarra K. Walters offers an exploration of what she calls "daughterhood," and how it informs her own self-making. Lola Ayisha Ogbara stretches this further in her work, drawing on adornment practices of Black girls and femmes, using acrylic nails, mannequin heads, and jump ropes, offering Black beauty as a form of critique, as well as an art form. Continuing the consideration of maternal lineage, Lisa DeAbreau draws on motifs of respectability and architecture to reflect on memory-making and archival encounters.Taken together, the artists' responses to the tradition of mark-making are twofold: through the representation of their own hand in the work, as well as marks of migration, movement, hybridity, legacy, and identity. By extending brushstrokes, threads, and unlikely materials––from birthing blankets to egg shells––the artists repurpose materials to reflect on how they carry these marks through their practice. The final works leave seams visible, overturn popular emblems, or obscure materials only to make them palpable under the surface, bringing forth the ways the past is never the past, what Morrison called "rememory."An opening reception will take place on&nbsp;Saturday, August 9, 2 - 4 p.m., free and open to all with no registration required.Mark Me, Too&nbsp;and Dr. Rikki Byrd’s residency are made possible due to the generosity of the Guida Family Fund for Creativity. The Radicle Curator is rooted at the Art Center for a sixteen-month period to participate in programs with the cohort of resident artists, conduct studio visits with artists around Chicago pertaining to their curatorial interests, and be in critical dialog with the Exhibitions and Residency team to curate an engaging group exhibition that addresses pressing civic issues of the time. ABOUT THE CURATORDr. Rikki Byrd is a writer, educator, and curator. She is the founder of Black Fashion Archive and the co-founder of the Fashion and Race Syllabus, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Culture Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Art and Art History.&nbsp;Across&nbsp;her writing, teaching, and curatorial projects, she draws connections between Black aesthetic practices, including 20th and 21st century art, fashion studies, and performance.

Mark Me, Too: Five Artists

This fall, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University presents&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=80aae993fa&amp;e=ec81127d70" target="_blank">Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper</a>, on view September 17–December 14, 2025. The exhibition explores how artists have used printmaking—and works on paper more broadly—as a site for experimentation, improvisation, and aesthetic risk. The exhibition centers on the pioneering print practice of&nbsp;Helen Frankenthaler(American, 1928–2011). Known for her signature “soak-stain” technique in painting, Frankenthaler brought a similar sensibility to printmaking, embracing fluidity, chance, and the variable interaction of materials in her works on paper. Her lithographs, etchings, and woodcuts reflect a dynamic, process-oriented approach—what she has described as “pouring, flooding, spilling, bleeding.” The presentation marks the debut of a recent gift of 34 works from the&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://northwestern.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=904f932038284b4d9eea69636&amp;id=4e47ecce69&amp;e=ec81127d70" target="_blank">Helen Frankenthaler Foundation</a>, part of the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative. In 2023, The Block was one of ten university art museums nationally to receive a portfolio of Frankenthaler’s prints and working proofs, along with funding to support interpretation and public engagement.&nbsp; Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding&nbsp;places this new acquisition in dialogue with over 30 works from The Block’s permanent collection, highlighting artists who have similarly challenged the boundaries of control and gesture in their artwork. Prints, drawings, and watercolors by artists of Frankenthaler’s close circle, including&nbsp;Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell,&nbsp;and&nbsp;David Smith, provide a broader&nbsp;context for Frankenthaler’s contributions to postwar abstraction and printmaking. The conversation expands beyond the historical frame of Frankenthaler’s contemporaries, bringing in artists who have since drawn inspiration from Frankenthaler’s approach—Lynda Benglis&nbsp;and&nbsp;Amy Sillman—as well as artists who have welcomed chance and the unexpected in their artistic practice, such as&nbsp;John Cage, Max Gimblett,&nbsp;and Frankenthaler’s studio&nbsp;assistant&nbsp;Kikuo Saito. Curated by&nbsp;Stephanie S.E. Lee, 2024–25 Block Museum Graduate Fellow in Art History, and&nbsp;Corinne Granof, Academic Curator, the exhibition draws from in-depth research, including time spent in the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation archives. There, the curators uncovered visual and textual documentation of Frankenthaler’s collaborative print process, insights that shape the presentation of&nbsp;Divertimento&nbsp;(1983), shown alongside a full suite of working proofs. "In many ways, these working proofs show what the editioned print cannot: they are traces of decision-making, experimentation, and artistic dialogue between Frankenthaler, her circle, and the print workshop. That is what we wanted to bring to life in the exhibition,"&nbsp;said Stephanie S.E. Lee.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1757532227/camxlmonrdqcxz3uud6e.jpg">

Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper

In her first solo exhibition in the Midwest, Lagos-based artist Temitayo Ogunbiyi draws our attention to the medicinal capacities and visual complexities of local flora, showing exquisite drawings, paintings, and sculpture that respond to the social and natural environments of Chicago. While honoring the cancer journey of a close friend who was based in Chicago, Ogunbiyi considers the conventions of botanical documentation and the health trends associated with such North American plants as paw paw, echinacea, and milkweed.In a larger sense, the exhibition considers exchanges of friendship and translations of language by referencing various geographies that the artist has occupied. Thereby, Ogunbiyi aspires to forge new connections. In Chicago, she plans to engage a variety of viewers through community programming, including the manufacture and distribution of a bespoke ice cream flavor, communal food practice, and the incorporation and recirculation of vintage furniture in the exhibition display.For the first time, the Arts Club will concurrently feature a garden commission as part of the gallery exhibition. Taking the rough form of an abacus, Ogunbiyi’s installation on the western exterior wall is composed of cast grinding stones made of melted plumbing fixtures sourced in Nigeria. Through reference to the ancient mathematical tool, the abacus, the artist asks “Who counts?”—considering ‘counts’ as a verb and state of being. She invites all to enter the conversation.The exhibition is curated by Janine Mileaf, Executive Director and Chief Curator at The Arts Club of Chicago. It is made possible by a grant from Conor O’Neil; specific programming is supported by the Goethe-Institut. A version of the exhibition, curated by Rebecca Lowery, will travel to the Wexner Center for the ArtsColumbus, Ohio, in 2026.

Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will have revelations along felled branches and longer roots/routes

The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct is its appeal.”&nbsp;— Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1912&nbsp; Exhibiting Artists : <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.michellebolinger.com/" target="_blank">Michelle Bolinger </a>(b.1981), David Burlick (1882-1967), <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://marisolcervantes.com/home.html" target="_blank">Marisol Cervantes </a>( b.1996), Gerald Coarding (1911-1986), Joseph Friebert (1908 – 2002), <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.marygriffin.net/" target="_blank">Mary Griffin</a> (b.1986), John D. Graham (1881/86/88-1961), <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.staciemayajohnson.com/" target="_blank">Stacie Maya Johnson</a> (b. 1977), William S. Schwartz (1896-1977), Charles Green Shaw (1892-1974), and<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.brucethorn.com/" target="_blank"> Bruce Thorn </a>(b.1952).&nbsp;&nbsp;Madron Gallery presents Conversations in Abstraction, a group exhibition that brings together contemporary and historical artists whose abstract paintings create a visual communication that transcends the barriers of time, geography, and theory. At its core, abstraction invites the viewer to peel back the layers of color, line, shape, and texture, discovering deeper meaning and connection—compositions designed to spark dialogue. The 23 paintings on display serve as markers that span more than a century of artistic creation. Over the past five years, Madron has been collecting artworks produced during the early exploration of abstraction in America. By exhibiting historical and contemporary artworks alongside each other, we not only examine how abstraction has developed over time but also explore how artworks created decades apart remain relevant to one another.&nbsp; Image: Bruce Thorn (b. 1952), Flamingo, 2025, acrylic on linen, 54 x 144 inches.

Conversations in Abstraction

McCormick Gallery is pleased to present Melanie Pankau’s fourth solo exhibition, The Many Are One. The exhibition features a suite of paintings that is grounded in her daily meditation and automatic drawing practice. For over a decade she has studied a variety of meditation traditions and techniques and integrates this parallel practice into her paintings. Every morning, after a 30 minute meditation, she draws in her sketchbook. The drawings are an inner dictation where rough geometric sketches and patterns become the basis for the compositions in the paintings. Through the investigation of geometric forms and an emotive use of color, Pankau translates information from the meditations into images that are containers for quietude, stillness, and our multidimensional nature.&nbsp;The paintings in the exhibition center around the interlacing of repeated geometric patterns. Through the process of making, each shape is meticulously taped and layered with multiple colors creating a relief of lines and brush strokes on the surface of the panels. In their final stages, the woven iterative marks are sanded down to reveal the underlying patterns that sit just below the surface. The crux of this work centers around using the language of abstraction to counter a cultural narrative of separatism, destruction, and polarity. By creating non-hierarchical images, the paintings unveil lattice-like structures that symbolize our innate interconnectedness, reciprocity, and unity.

Melanie Pankau: The Many Are One

<h2>Silver Lining: The Prints of Derrick Adams</h2><h4>Exhibition Dates:&nbsp;October 8–December 19, 2025</h4><h4>Reception:&nbsp;Thursday, October 9, 7–9 pm</h4> Over the past six years, artist Derrick Adams has created nearly twenty vibrant prints in collaboration with Tandem Press. This exhibition highlights the results of that partnership—works that celebrate leisure, domestic life, and personal style through bold color, repeating patterns, and cadenced compositions. Adams first came to Tandem Press in 2019, following a recommendation from artist Mickalene Thomas. His first print with the studio,&nbsp;Self-Portrait on Float, shows him lounging on a unicorn pool float—gold-leaf accents, rainbow details, and all—Adams gazes out at the viewer with his head gently tilted, surrounded by a sea of vivid teal.&nbsp; Throughout these prints, we see a celebration of rest, domesticity, recreation, and style—recurring motifs in his larger body of work—filtered through the medium’s rich graphic possibilities. Working closely with Tandem’s collaborative printmakers, Adams has taken full advantage of the studio’s technical resources and experimental spirit, resulting in prints that pulse with color and rhythm.&nbsp; Silver Lining&nbsp;not only documents a significant chapter in Derrick Adams’s artistic practice but also celebrates the democratic and expansive nature of printmaking. Through these works, viewers are invited into scenes that affirm rest as resistance, leisure as power, and joy as a vital, everyday act.&nbsp; <h2>About the Artist:</h2>Derrick Adams&nbsp;(b. 1970, Baltimore, Maryland) is a multidisciplinary artist who closely considers the influence of popular culture on the formation of self-image. His work also questions how African American experiences intersect with art history, American iconography, and consumerism. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Columbia University. He is also an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio program. He has received multiple notable awards, including a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2019), Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum in Harlem (2016), and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009). Derrick Adams has been exhibiting extensively since 2001, including solo exhibitions at the California African American Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Hudson River Museum, The Gallery in Baltimore City Hall, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. His work has also been included in numerous important exhibitions at institutions such as the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, The Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1, and the Brooklyn Museum. His work is held in many permanent public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Derrick Adams lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. This exhibition is supported by the Anonymous Fund.

Silver Lining: The Prints of Derrick Adams

Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) announces the opening of its fall exhibition&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=9c493825a3&amp;e=62775191de" target="_blank">Channeling: body ← Image → viewer&nbsp;</a>on view from September 2 – December 20, 2025, guest curated by Joan Giroux and Alice Maude-Roxby.This exhibition features eleven international artists whose work communicates through and with the body, positioning the viewer to a consciousness of their body and self, or how bodies channel and defy societal oppression and malevolence. Gestures such as crawling, lying, climbing, kneeling, pointing, running, and walking backward evoke memory, history, and rhetoric. This exhibition situates the body politic and ways in which history imprints upon us as a reminder that we are human, both in and out of the body.Exhibiting artists include Laura Aguilar (American, 1959–2018), Pia Arke (Kalaaleq-Danish, 1958–2007), EJ Hill (American, b. 1985), Susan Hiller (American, 1940–2019), Ketty La Rocca (Italian, 1938–1976), Shari Rothfarb Mekonen (American, b. 1968), Gustav Metzger (German, 1926–2017), Paulo Nazareth (Brazilian, b. 1977), Anna Oppermann (German, 1940–1993), Gina Pane (French, 1939–1990), and Bridget Smith (British, b. 1966).&nbsp;In a statement, the curators relate,&nbsp;“at specific moments in the last half century, these artists have considered how performance and photography can break through overarching conditions, oppressions, rhetorics, and the confines of language.&nbsp;These communications position viewers to experience a heightened awareness of their self and body, and explore how bodies channel and confront societal malaise, oppression, transition, and vulnerability.”<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=5663ab7740&amp;e=62775191de" target="_blank">Channeling: body ← Image → viewer</a>&nbsp;includes photography, video, and installations that memorialize, witness, and bear tribute to our humanity.&nbsp;About the curators:Joan Giroux (American, b. 1961) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and activist, whose work frequently provides context for community and personal reflections on loss, absence, and bereavement through active play and participation. Since 1987, she has performed and exhibited in the United States and abroad, and recently completed a Fulbright-British Library Eccles Institute Scholar Award in London.&nbsp;Alice Maude-Roxby (British, b. 1963) is an artist, curator, and writer based in London, England. Her early publications and exhibitions focused on performance and photography, and feminism included contributions to&nbsp;Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance, (London, Tate Publications, 2003) and her curation of the exhibition and book&nbsp;Live Art on Camera&nbsp;(John Hansard Gallery, 2007).&nbsp;Gina Pane: Actions Through Time, co-edited with Sophie Delpeux, will be published with Routledge, 2025.

Channeling: body ← Image → viewer

Scott Burton: Shape Shift, a&nbsp;critically acclaimed exhibition surveying the seminal—and subversive—art of Scott Burton (1939-1989), opens on Friday,&nbsp;October 3, 2025, at&nbsp;Wrightwood 659 in Chicago.&nbsp;&nbsp; Burton,&nbsp;who once&nbsp;described his work as “sculpture in love with furniture,”&nbsp;was a true American original. By the time of his death at the age of 50 from an AIDs-related illness, he had succeeded as sculptor, public artist, performance artist, social choreographer, art critic, and exhibition curator.&nbsp;This landmark exhibition&nbsp;spans that career,&nbsp;bringing together&nbsp;works from the 1960s to the ‘80s, including some 30 sculptures and more than 40 photographs, drawings, and ephemera.&nbsp;The exhibition is installed on Wrightwood 659’s third and fourth floors.As the most comprehensive survey of the late artist’s work ever mounted in the United States,&nbsp;Scott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;is curated by Jess Wilcox, independent curator, and Heather A. Smith, Assistant Curator, Pulitzer Arts Foundation. It premiered last fall at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis,&nbsp;and is presented at Wrightwood 659 by&nbsp;Alphawood Exhibitions. The ExhibitionRather than progressing chronologically, the installation of&nbsp;Shape Shift&nbsp;responds to the architecture of Tadao Ando, as did the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s presentation in 2024. The Pulitzer Prize winning architect designed both art spaces, the Pulitzer in 2001, and Wrightwood in 2018.Among the highlights of the fourth floor are two groupings of chairs that illustrate Burton’s ideas about community. Placed in front of a curtain glass wall looking out to the street is a tableau of steel chairs—among them two curved chairs installed face-to-face and a solo minimalist take on the wire bistro chair. In another grouping, Wrightwood brings together a variety of Burton’s chairs for visitors to sit on. On the third floor, the visitor encounters&nbsp;Two-Part Chair&nbsp;(1986/2002), a pair of granite polygon slabs balancing one atop the other for mutual support. Although highly abstract, when viewed in profile the sculpture loosely resembles two bodies in a sexual embrace.&nbsp;On the same floor, the sculpture and performance element&nbsp;Bronze Chair&nbsp;(1972/75) is displayed next to a photograph showing it on a cobbled-stone street in New York City’s Soho neighborhood in the early ‘70s. Burton had found the Queen Anne-style armchair abandoned in an apartment, cast it in bronze, and put it outside on the street, where it sat enigmatically against a brick wall. At Wrightwood, this installation is echoed&nbsp;by the brick wall of Tadao Ando’s gallery. Burton’s anthropomorphizing of furniture was linked to his study of proxemics, the inquiry into the relational systems and nonverbal cues inherent in social spaces. As he once said, “You could say that people are like furniture. They take different poses and suggest different genders.” In&nbsp;Shape Shift, this dictum is illuminated in an array of furniture forms, each conveying a distinct character and connotation through form, material, surface finish, scale, and stylistic lineage. Demonstrating Burton’s radical, but elegant, formal inventions is&nbsp;Two-Part Chaise Lounge&nbsp;(1986-87),&nbsp;where&nbsp;a pair of V-shaped pieces of&nbsp;pink Rosa Baveno granite, set flush with each other, transform into&nbsp;stable seating. In an example of the expressiveness of finish, the visitor will find&nbsp;Spattered Table&nbsp;(1974-1977), a simple wooden table that Burton found, splattered with primary colors, and exhibited atop a large horizontal pedestal, transforming it into minimalist sculpture. As Burton intended, Wrightwood 659 will display the work so that visitors will be able to glimpse its white underbelly, which playfully contrasts with its Abstract Expressionist-inspired outer surfaces.&nbsp;Installed nearby is&nbsp;the diminutive&nbsp;Child’s Table and Chair(1978), which could be an example of a Bauhaus playroom set, were it not for its scale and red, blue, and yellow stretchers and splats. Still another play on the formal possibilities of a vernacular form is seen in&nbsp;Onyx Table&nbsp;(1978-1981), a Parsons-style table so massive and heavy that it morphs from a piece of furniture into a work of art. At once opulent in its fine surface and luminosity and humorous in its mixed functionality, it anticipates the materiality and approach of Burton’s later public works. A star of&nbsp;Shape Shift,&nbsp;the spectacularly extroverted&nbsp;Five-Part Storage Cubes&nbsp;(1982), dominates a landing leading from the third to fourth floor. The&nbsp;stack of large yellow, red, orange, blue, and green cubes will be displayed with one of its doors open. The artist continually riffed off the American vernacular, seen here in homages to the Adirondack chair, including one&nbsp;fabricated in yellow Formica and&nbsp;others conceived as abstract experiments—like&nbsp;Aluminum Chair&nbsp;(1980-1981), where the shape echoes the Adirondack sloping form, but the chair is constructed from&nbsp;triangular aluminum plates punctured by large circular apertures. Scott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;features an array of little- or never-before-seen video, photographs, Polaroids, a poster, notes, and sketches related to Burton’s proscenium performances. These include an oak table found and altered by Burton and repurposed as a performance prop; sketches that diagram movement and directions for performances; and&nbsp;Individual Behavior Tableaux&nbsp;(1980), the only known video of Burton’s performance oeuvre, which documents the artist’s last performance before he turned to furniture/object making full-time. Shot at the Berkeley Art Museum, the video captures the glacially slow enactment of a variety of gestures, poses, and behaviors. The poses stem not only from Burton’s study of nonverbal communication but also allude to the bodily cues that signal sexual availability within gay cruising culture.Wall and case displays document Burton’s writings for&nbsp;Art in America&nbsp;magazine and other publications; seminal performances, including his early, site-specific installationFurniture Landscape&nbsp;(1970) at the University of Iowa where he brought pieces of furniture outdoors; the exhibition he organized of works by Brancusi at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (1989); and his own sculpture, installed in MoMA’s sculpture garden (1989).&nbsp;The MoMA garden installation featured his Parallelogram chairs, two of which have been added to the Wrightwood showing.&nbsp;Finally, a slideshow presents views of Burton’s many public art installations, including major works on the grounds of the Des Moines Art Center, Princeton University, the University of Houston, and the Waterfront Plaza at Battery Park City, in New York.&nbsp; The ArtistRemembered as an artist, critic, and curator, Scott Burton was born in 1939 in Greensboro, Alabama, spent his formative years in Washington, DC, and received a BA degree from Columbia University (1962) and MFA from New York University (1963).His critical writing appeared regularly in&nbsp;ARTnews&nbsp;and&nbsp;Art in America&nbsp;and in exhibition catalogues, including that for Harald Szeemann’s landmark post-minimalist exhibition,&nbsp;Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form&nbsp;(1969 Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland).By the early 1970s, Burton was exhibiting in New York City, first with like-minded artists on the street, then in galleries and museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, P.S. 1, and, in a solo exhibition, Artists Space. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Burton created an array of performances, furniture as sculpture, and public art environments inspired by his studies of body language, art history, and design. He also curated the inaugural exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art’s now-lauded Artist’s Choice series. Burton died of an AIDS-related illness in 1989. His work is in dozens of collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate, and the Walker Art Center. Almost all of the archival photographs, diagrams, drawings, and ephemera in the exhibition are on loan from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Archives, which maintains the Scott Burton Papers, its largest single-artist holding. Performances and Special EventsOn October 24 and 25 at Wrightwood 659, the New York-based founder of the Center for Experimental Lectures, Gordon Hall, will present a performance meditating on the condition of waiting and Burton’s legacy.&nbsp;Public programs will also include a talk by art historian David J. Getsy, author of&nbsp;Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art&nbsp;(University of Chicago Press, 2022). Getsy’s lecture will take place at the Art Institute of Chicago at 6pm on October 9. Getsy will co-lead a tour ofScott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;the following day with the exhibition’s curator Jess Wilcox. (Registration to come.) PublicationScott Burton: Shape Shift, the accompanying publication, is expected to serve as an essential source for scholars, artists, and others interested in the intentions and legacy of Scott Burton. The volume features essays by David J. Getsy and Jess Wilcox; writings by the artists Brendan Fernandes and Gordon Hall; contributions by Jeremy Johnston and Heather Alexis Smith; and a never-before-published excerpt from the transcript of a 1988 lecture by Burton.&nbsp; The volume is co-published by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alphawood Exhibitions and distributed by Yale University Press. Price $50. Also on View at Wrightwood 659 The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S.&nbsp;is a large-scale exhibition celebrating the rich history of The Joffrey Ballet and the life of Robert Joffrey. The exhibition premiered at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in 2024, marking the first major retrospective of the company. Drawing from the Joffrey archive, acquired&nbsp;by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in 2017 as the Library’s largest acquisition in a decade, the exhibition offers an in-depth look at the Joffrey’s contributions to ballet in the U.S. Highlights include rare film from the original performance of the groundbreaking ballet&nbsp;Astarte&nbsp;and Anna Sokolow’s&nbsp;Opus 65,&nbsp;as well as costumes, props, pointe shoes, posters, correspondence, and other ephemera from the company and Robert Joffrey’s life.&nbsp;The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S.&nbsp;is organized by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and curated by Dr. Julia Foulkes with assistance from Nicole Duffy. It is presented at Wrightwood 659 by Alphawood&nbsp;Exhibitions. Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is a selection of 15 oil paintings by the American representational painter Ellen Altfest, known for her painstakingly labor-intensive canvases and her observation of things in the world often overlooked in art. From roughly tactile rocks, tangled branches, and tree bark, to the smoothness of houseplants, fabric, and men’s skin—she condenses everyday essences into expressions of absolute clarity and intensity. Her paintings are characterized by surprising pairings of subjects, unorthodox cropping, and, perhaps most notably, scrupulously rendered naturally occurring textures and intricate surface features. Working directly from observation without photographic sources or references, she often spends months—and sometimes more than a year—on a single painting.&nbsp;Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is organized by the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, where it premiered earlier this year, and is curated by Mark Scala, Chief Curator, Frist Art Museum.&nbsp;Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is presented at Wrightwood 659 by Halsted A&amp;A Foundation. About Wrightwood 659Wrightwood 659 hosts exhibitions on socially engaged art and architecture, on issues facing LGBTQ+ communities, and on Asian art and architecture. Located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in a building transformed by Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando, Wrightwood 659 encourages visitors to engage with pressing issues of our time in an intimate and beautiful space.&nbsp;For additional information, please visit<a style="color: blue;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/___https:/wrightwood659.org___.YzJ1Om5ld3N3ZWJsbGM6YzpvOjkxNmUxZTI1MGM2ZWQyZjc3MDI3ZjM5MDk0MDAxNzBjOjY6MjcwMjo2MjhjZDA1ZDgwMzI1MTE5ZDdkNThkYmQ3N2YzYzg1NDQyOTgwMmQyMDlkOTA1ZWM3ZDg4OTYwYmMzZGNlYTFhOnA6VDpG" target="_blank">wrightwood659.org</a>. Hours of Operation and TicketsWrightwood 659 is open Thursdays 12 noon-7 pm; Fridays 12 noon-7 pm;&nbsp;Saturdays 10 am-5 pm.&nbsp;Tickets for the trio of exhibitions opening October 3 go on sale Thursday, September 4. Admission is $20 and is available online only at<a style="color: blue;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/___https:/tickets.wrightwood659.org/events___.YzJ1Om5ld3N3ZWJsbGM6YzpvOjkxNmUxZTI1MGM2ZWQyZjc3MDI3ZjM5MDk0MDAxNzBjOjY6ZTM3NTo1ODVkZTEzMTZkZTNkMTU1ZTU4MTZhNmM5ZjI5N2I3NTQzODExNGFmNjY5MTllMDUzZWZmNWQwNGU5ZDgwMThkOnA6VDpG" target="_blank">https://tickets.wrightwood659.org/events</a>. Please note, admission is by advance ticket only.&nbsp;Walk-ups are not permitted.

Scott Burton: Shape Shift

Scott Burton: Shape Shift, a&nbsp;critically acclaimed exhibition surveying the seminal—and subversive—art of Scott Burton (1939-1989), opens on Friday,&nbsp;October 3, 2025, at&nbsp;Wrightwood 659 in Chicago.&nbsp;&nbsp;Burton,&nbsp;who once&nbsp;described his work as “sculpture in love with furniture,”&nbsp;was a true American original. By the time of his death at the age of 50 from an AIDs-related illness, he had succeeded as sculptor, public artist, performance artist, social choreographer, art critic, and exhibition curator.&nbsp;This landmark exhibition&nbsp;spans that career,&nbsp;bringing together&nbsp;works from the 1960s to the ‘80s, including some 30 sculptures and more than 40 photographs, drawings, and ephemera.&nbsp;The exhibition is installed on Wrightwood 659’s third and fourth floors.As the most comprehensive survey of the late artist’s work ever mounted in the United States,&nbsp;Scott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;is curated by Jess Wilcox, independent curator, and Heather A. Smith, Assistant Curator, Pulitzer Arts Foundation. It premiered last fall at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis,&nbsp;and is presented at Wrightwood 659 by&nbsp;Alphawood Exhibitions.The ExhibitionRather than progressing chronologically, the installation of&nbsp;Shape Shift&nbsp;responds to the architecture of Tadao Ando, as did the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s presentation in 2024. The Pulitzer Prize winning architect designed both art spaces, the Pulitzer in 2001, and Wrightwood in 2018.Among the highlights of the fourth floor are two groupings of chairs that illustrate Burton’s ideas about community. Placed in front of a curtain glass wall looking out to the street is a tableau of steel chairs—among them two curved chairs installed face-to-face and a solo minimalist take on the wire bistro chair. In another grouping, Wrightwood brings together a variety of Burton’s chairs for visitors to sit on.On the third floor, the visitor encounters&nbsp;Two-Part Chair&nbsp;(1986/2002), a pair of granite polygon slabs balancing one atop the other for mutual support. Although highly abstract, when viewed in profile the sculpture loosely resembles two bodies in a sexual embrace.&nbsp;On the same floor, the sculpture and performance element&nbsp;Bronze Chair&nbsp;(1972/75) is displayed next to a photograph showing it on a cobbled-stone street in New York City’s Soho neighborhood in the early ‘70s. Burton had found the Queen Anne-style armchair abandoned in an apartment, cast it in bronze, and put it outside on the street, where it sat enigmatically against a brick wall. At Wrightwood, this installation is echoed&nbsp;by the brick wall of Tadao Ando’s gallery.Burton’s anthropomorphizing of furniture was linked to his study of proxemics, the inquiry into the relational systems and nonverbal cues inherent in social spaces. As he once said, “You could say that people are like furniture. They take different poses and suggest different genders.” In&nbsp;Shape Shift, this dictum is illuminated in an array of furniture forms, each conveying a distinct character and connotation through form, material, surface finish, scale, and stylistic lineage.Demonstrating Burton’s radical, but elegant, formal inventions is&nbsp;Two-Part Chaise Lounge&nbsp;(1986-87),&nbsp;where&nbsp;a pair of V-shaped pieces of&nbsp;pink Rosa Baveno granite, setflush with each other, transform into&nbsp;stable seating. In an example of the expressiveness of finish, the visitor will find&nbsp;Spattered Table&nbsp;(1974-1977), a simple wooden table that Burton found, splattered with primary colors, and exhibited atop a large horizontal pedestal, transforming it into minimalist sculpture. As Burton intended, Wrightwood 659 will display the work so that visitors will be able to glimpse its white underbelly, which playfully contrasts with its Abstract Expressionist-inspired outer surfaces.&nbsp;Installed nearby is&nbsp;the diminutive&nbsp;Child’s Table and Chair(1978), which could be an example of a Bauhaus playroom set, were it not for its scale and red, blue, and yellow stretchers and splats.Still another play on the formal possibilities of a vernacular form is seen in&nbsp;Onyx Table&nbsp;(1978-1981), a Parsons-style table so massive and heavy that it morphs from a piece of furniture into a work of art. At once opulent in its fine surface and luminosity and humorous in its mixed functionality, it anticipates the materiality and approach of Burton’s later public works.A star of&nbsp;Shape Shift,&nbsp;the spectacularly extroverted&nbsp;Five-Part Storage Cubes&nbsp;(1982), dominates a landing leading from the third to fourth floor. The&nbsp;stack of large yellow, red, orange, blue, and green cubes will be displayed with one of its doors open.The artist continually riffed off the American vernacular, seen here in homages to the Adirondack chair, including one&nbsp;fabricated in yellow Formica and&nbsp;others conceived as abstract experiments—like&nbsp;Aluminum Chair&nbsp;(1980-1981), where the shape echoes the Adirondack sloping form, but the chair is constructed from&nbsp;triangular aluminum plates punctured by large circular apertures.Scott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;features an array of little- or never-before-seen video, photographs, Polaroids, a poster, notes, and sketches related to Burton’s proscenium performances. These include an oak table found and altered by Burton and repurposed as a performance prop; sketches that diagram movement and directions for performances; and&nbsp;Individual Behavior Tableaux&nbsp;(1980), the only known video of Burton’s performance oeuvre, which documents the artist’s last performance before he turned to furniture/object making full-time. Shot at the Berkeley Art Museum, the video captures the glacially slow enactment of a variety of gestures, poses, and behaviors. The poses stem not only from Burton’s study of nonverbal communication but also allude to the bodily cues that signal sexual availability within gay cruising culture.Wall and case displays document Burton’s writings for&nbsp;Art in America&nbsp;magazine and other publications; seminal performances, including his early, site-specific installationFurniture Landscape&nbsp;(1970) at the University of Iowa where he brought pieces of furniture outdoors; the exhibition he organized of works by Brancusi at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (1989); and his own sculpture, installed in MoMA’s sculpture garden (1989).&nbsp;The MoMA garden installation featured his Parallelogram chairs, two of which have been added to the Wrightwood showing.&nbsp;Finally, a slideshow presents views of Burton’s many public art installations, including major works on the grounds of the Des Moines Art Center, Princeton University, the University of Houston, and the Waterfront Plaza at Battery Park City, in New York.&nbsp;The ArtistRemembered as an artist, critic, and curator, Scott Burton was born in 1939 in Greensboro, Alabama, spent his formative years in Washington, DC, and received a BA degree from Columbia University (1962) and MFA from New York University (1963).His critical writing appeared regularly in&nbsp;ARTnews&nbsp;and&nbsp;Art in America&nbsp;and in exhibition catalogues, including that for Harald Szeemann’s landmark post-minimalist exhibition,&nbsp;Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form&nbsp;(1969 Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland).By the early 1970s, Burton was exhibiting in New York City, first with like-minded artists on the street, then in galleries and museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, P.S. 1, and, in a solo exhibition, Artists Space. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Burton created an array of performances, furniture as sculpture, and public art environments inspired by his studies of body language, art history, and design. He also curated the inaugural exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art’s now-lauded Artist’s Choice series. Burton died of an AIDS-related illness in 1989.His work is in dozens of collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate, and the Walker Art Center. Almost all of the archival photographs, diagrams, drawings, and ephemera in the exhibition are on loan from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Archives, which maintains the Scott Burton Papers, its largest single-artist holding.Performances and Special EventsOn October 24 and 25 at Wrightwood 659, the New York-based founder of the Center for Experimental Lectures, Gordon Hall, will present a performance meditating on the condition of waiting and Burton’s legacy.&nbsp;Public programs will also include a talk by art historian David J. Getsy, author of&nbsp;Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art&nbsp;(University of Chicago Press, 2022). Getsy’s lecture will take place at the Art Institute of Chicago at 6pm on October 9. Getsy will co-lead a tour ofScott Burton: Shape Shift&nbsp;the following day with the exhibition’s curator Jess Wilcox. (Registration to come.)PublicationScott Burton: Shape Shift, the accompanying publication, is expected to serve as an essential source for scholars, artists, and others interested in the intentions and legacy of Scott Burton. The volume features essays by David J. Getsy and Jess Wilcox; writings by the artists Brendan Fernandes and Gordon Hall; contributions by Jeremy Johnston and Heather Alexis Smith; and a never-before-published excerpt from the transcript of a 1988 lecture by Burton.&nbsp;The volume is co-published by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alphawood Exhibitions and distributed by Yale University Press. Price $50.Also on View at Wrightwood 659The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S.&nbsp;is a large-scale exhibition celebrating the rich history of The Joffrey Ballet and the life of Robert Joffrey. The exhibition premiered at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in 2024, marking the first major retrospective of the company. Drawing from the Joffrey archive, acquired&nbsp;by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in 2017 as the Library’s largest acquisition in a decade, the exhibition offers an in-depth look at the Joffrey’s contributions to ballet in the U.S. Highlights include rare film from the original performance of the groundbreaking ballet&nbsp;Astarte&nbsp;and Anna Sokolow’s&nbsp;Opus 65,&nbsp;as well as costumes, props, pointe shoes, posters, correspondence, and other ephemera from the company and Robert Joffrey’s life.&nbsp;The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S.&nbsp;is organized by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and curated by Dr. Julia Foulkes with assistance from Nicole Duffy. It is presented at Wrightwood 659 by Alphawood&nbsp;Exhibitions.Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is a selection of 15 oil paintings by the American representational painter Ellen Altfest, known for her painstakingly labor-intensive canvases and her observation of things in the world often overlooked in art. From roughly tactile rocks, tangled branches, and tree bark, to the smoothness of houseplants, fabric, and men’s skin—she condenses everyday essences into expressions of absolute clarity and intensity. Her paintings are characterized by surprising pairings of subjects, unorthodox cropping, and, perhaps most notably, scrupulously rendered naturally occurring textures and intricate surface features. Working directly from observation without photographic sources or references, she often spends months—and sometimes more than a year—on a single painting.&nbsp;Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is organized by the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, where it premiered earlier this year, and is curated by Mark Scala, Chief Curator, Frist Art Museum.&nbsp;Ellen Altfest: Forever&nbsp;is presented at Wrightwood 659 by Halsted A&amp;A Foundation.About Wrightwood 659Wrightwood 659 hosts exhibitions on socially engaged art and architecture, on issues facing LGBTQ+ communities, and on Asian art and architecture. Located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in a building transformed by Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando, Wrightwood 659 encourages visitors to engage with pressing issues of our time in an intimate and beautiful space.&nbsp;For additional information, please visit<a style="color: blue;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/___https:/wrightwood659.org___.YzJ1Om5ld3N3ZWJsbGM6YzpvOjkxNmUxZTI1MGM2ZWQyZjc3MDI3ZjM5MDk0MDAxNzBjOjY6MjcwMjo2MjhjZDA1ZDgwMzI1MTE5ZDdkNThkYmQ3N2YzYzg1NDQyOTgwMmQyMDlkOTA1ZWM3ZDg4OTYwYmMzZGNlYTFhOnA6VDpG" target="_blank">wrightwood659.org</a>. Hours of Operation and TicketsWrightwood 659 is open Thursdays 12 noon-7 pm; Fridays 12 noon-7 pm;&nbsp;Saturdays 10 am-5 pm.&nbsp;Tickets for the trio of exhibitions opening October 3 go on sale Thursday, September 4. Admission is $20 and is available online only at<a style="color: blue;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/___https:/tickets.wrightwood659.org/events___.YzJ1Om5ld3N3ZWJsbGM6YzpvOjkxNmUxZTI1MGM2ZWQyZjc3MDI3ZjM5MDk0MDAxNzBjOjY6ZTM3NTo1ODVkZTEzMTZkZTNkMTU1ZTU4MTZhNmM5ZjI5N2I3NTQzODExNGFmNjY5MTllMDUzZWZmNWQwNGU5ZDgwMThkOnA6VDpG" target="_blank">https://tickets.wrightwood659.org/events</a>. Please note, admission is by advance ticket only.&nbsp;Walk-ups are not permitted.

The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S.

Ellen Altfest: Forever

The Evanston Art Center (EAC) is excited to welcome the public to our 23nd Annual Winter Arts &amp; Crafts Expo. The Winter Arts &amp; Crafts Expo will be held in our Main Floor Gallery from&nbsp;November 21 – December 20, 2025.The&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/news/21st-annual-winter-expo" target="_blank">Winter Arts &amp; Crafts Expo</a>&nbsp;includes original, handmade works of jewelry, ceramics, fiber, metal, glass, painting, photography, mixed media, and more. All proceeds from the Expo will benefit the ongoing exhibition, education, and outreach programs at the Art Center. The Winter Expo is also the perfect opportunity for families to shop for everyone on their holiday gift list.9am-6pm Monday – Thursday, 9am-5pm Friday, 9am-4pm Saturdays &amp; Sundays (closed Thanksgiving)The Winter Arts &amp; Crafts Expo includes original handmade works of jewelry, ceramics, fiber, metal, glass, painting, photography, mixed media, and more. All proceeds from the Expo will benefit the ongoing exhibition, education, and outreach programs at the Art Center. The Winter Expo is also the perfect opportunity for families to shop for everyone on their holiday gift list. General Shopping&nbsp;–&nbsp;November 22nd – December 20th, 2025, 9am-6pm Monday – Thursday, 9am-5pmFriday, 9am-4pm Saturdays &amp; Sundays (closed Thanksgiving) Preview Party&nbsp;– November 21st, 6-9pm Shop before the general public!Tickets&nbsp;are&nbsp;$40 for early registration and $50 at the door Silent Auction&nbsp;– November 21st – November 23rd, closes at 4pmFeaturing artworks donated by participating Expo artists EAC Student Expo&nbsp;–&nbsp;December 7th – December 20thHandcrafted items made by our very own Art Center students! The Winter Expo is free and open to the general public from November 22nd – December 20th, 2025. Evanston Art Center, a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization, is dedicated to fostering the appreciation and expression of the arts among diverse audiences. The Art Center offers extensive and innovative instruction in broad areas of artistic endeavor through classes, exhibitions, interactive arts activities, and community outreach initiatives. Evanston Art Center is located at 1717 Central Street, Evanston, IL. Evanston Art Center Gallery Hours:9am–6pm, Monday – Thursday; 9am–5pm Friday; and 9am–4pm, Saturday &amp; Sunday. First and Second Floor Gallery spaces are handicapped accessible. Limited free parking is available.For more information please visit us online at&nbsp;www.evanstonartcenter.org&nbsp;or contact Emma Rose Gudewicz, Director of Development &amp; Exhibitions, at (847) 475-5300. Visit the Evanston Art Centeron Facebook:&nbsp;www.facebook.com/evanston.art, follow us on Twitter:www.twitter.com/#!/evartcenter, or on Instagram: @EvanstonArtCenter.

23rd Annual Winter Arts & Crafts Expo

Buzz Spector is an American artist, writer, and educator whose work explores the relationships between public history, individual memory, and perception. He is known for his sculptural and conceptual use of books as both subject and object, employing stacking, tearing, and reconfiguration to examine how meaning is shaped and transformed through the material presence of language.&nbsp;Spector has presented solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia, Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Qian Juntao Museum in Jiaxing, China, Saint Louis Art Museum, and Rockford Art Museum in Illinois. His work is included in more than fifty museum collections worldwide.&nbsp;In addition to his visual practice, Spector has written widely on contemporary art and culture for publications including Artforum, American Craft, Brooklyn Rail, and New Art Examiner. He is the author of&nbsp;The Book Maker's Desire&nbsp;and&nbsp;Buzz Words, and his experimental writing has appeared in journals such as Benzene, Cafe Solo, Posit, and River Styx. He lives and works in the Hudson Valley of New York, continuing to shape contemporary dialogues around books, memory, and the visual language of text.

Buzz Spector: Recto | Verso

Oh, you’ve got to come back to the city, the place where you belongOh, you’ve got to come back to the city, the place where you were bornOh, you’ve got to come back to the city, the city of dreams&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;—Marvin Tate, “City Promenade” &nbsp;OH, YOU’VE GOT TO COME BACK TO THE CITY is a solo exhibition by Theaster Gates. The exhibition opens at GRAY Chicago with a public reception for the artist on October 16, and remains on view through December 20, 2025. This is Gates’s fourth solo exhibition with GRAY. In&nbsp;OH, YOU’VE GOT TO COME BACK TO THE CITY, Gates brings together a new series of tar paintings, sculpture, and installation to tell an allegory of the city in decay and the potential contained within its ruins. The exhibition’s title comes from a song by Chicago musician and poet Marvin Tate, in which the City, personified as a character, has cleaned up its act and attempts to lure its residents back from the suburbs.&nbsp; Gates’s artistic practice has engaged and reframed the cultural and material history of Chicago as material for the studio. His new installation explores the possibilities that lie within the city’s unattended corners. From his stone repository, Gates has selected a family of marble, granite, scholars’ rocks, and concrete forms that anchor a grid-like installation evoking both the planning logic of cities and the quiet order of memorials. Ceramic works and everyday artifacts rest atop each stone, suggesting the remnants left behind by former inhabitants. Surrounding the sculptural installation is a new series of tar paintings that extend Gates’s patching and bonding strategies. Both sculptural and painterly, these works represent a new direction in the series.&nbsp; In this body of work, Gates wrestles with the burden brought on by aging infrastructure to create new narratives that build on the rich metaphors embedded in his materials—as tools of resistance, signs of excess, and evidence of decline. Developed in conjunction with his exhibition&nbsp;Unto Thee, on view at the Smart Museum of Art through February 22, 2026,&nbsp;OH, YOU’VE GOT TO COME BACK TO THE CITY&nbsp;offers a profound reflection on Gate’s life as a craftsman, urban planner, and pedagogue. Theaster Gates:&nbsp;OH, YOU’VE GOT TO COME BACK TO THE CITY&nbsp;to the City opens at GRAY Chicago (2044 West Carroll Avenue) with a public reception on Thursday, October 16, from 5-7 PM, and will be on view through December 20, 2025.&nbsp;&nbsp;ABOUT&nbsp;THEASTER GATESTheaster Gates (b. 1973) currently lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates works that engage with space theory and land development, sculpture and performance. Drawing on his interest and training in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of art world capital, Gates’s practice focuses on the possibility of the “life within things.” His work contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise—one defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. Gates has received numerous awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2025), Crystal Award (2020), Nasher Prize (2018), Kurt Schwitters Prize (2017), American Academy of Arts &amp; Sciences Award (2016), and the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Social Progress (2015). His work can be found in public collections worldwide, including the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ontario; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois; Tate Gallery, London, England; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California. Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts and the Harris School of Public Policy.

Theaster Gates: OH, YOU'VE GOT TO COME BACK TO THE CITY

DOCUMENT is delighted to present&nbsp;Things change quickly, Luísa Jacinto’s first solo exhibition in the US. Jacinto’s artistic practice engages with the protocols of the image, narrative fragmentation, and the tension between excess evidence and obscuration. Working with materials such as rubber membrane, thread, fabric, metal, spray, watercolor, loose pigments, she creates works that establish an increasingly fluid boundary between painting, sculpture and installation. For her inaugural exhibition at DOCUMENT Chicago, Luísa Jacinto modifies the viewer’s perception of light and space through an installation of works from two recent series,&nbsp;Strangers&nbsp;and&nbsp;Work in Space. Together, these bodies of work imbue the gallery with layers of colors, bleeding into one another and influencing their surroundings.Suspended from the ceiling, taking over the middle of the space and set against the surrounding walls, several works from the&nbsp;Strangers&nbsp;series—made up of synthetic rubber membranes, folded and draped over suspended LED tubes that act as both support and light source—sway as visitors approach and walk between them.&nbsp;Work in Space&nbsp;is a series that bridges the gaps between drawing, sculpture and installation: colored threads, arranged in a grid-like composition, run across the gallery wall, as if tracing lines with colored pencils.In&nbsp;Things change quickly,&nbsp;Jacinto’s works form a polychromatic cloud where transparency, layering, and spatial relationships are interdependent of the viewer’s trajectory and attention, constantly shifting. Luísa Jacinto (b. 1984, Lisbon, Portugal) lives and works in Lisbon. Her artistic practice engages with the protocols of the image, narratives, fragmentation, and simulation, as well as the tension between excess evidence and obscuration. Jacinto uses different materials – rubber membrane, thread, fabric, metal, spray, watercolor, loose pigments – and supports, which establish an increasingly fluid boundary between painting, sculpture, and installation.

Luísa Jacinto: Things change quickly

Volume Gallery is pleased to announce&nbsp;What we knew before knowing, a meditation on memory by OOIEE after RO/LU w/ Matt Olson, an exhibition of design to be experienced not as a fixed object but as a transitory state, opening November 7, 2025, from 5 to 8 p.m. There are moments when perception softens and we can sense an object is more than itself.&nbsp;What we knew before knowing&nbsp;is an invitation to perceive in the direction of post-judgement. Here, design can behave more like memory itself: unstable, flickering, and alive in transition. Something is developing. Matt Olson has an “open practice” in which making is thinking, where objects are not invented but found through a sort of inverted dialogue, recognizing, extracting, and recontextualizing—linking and joining concepts, problems, theories, and forms that remain unassuming yet unmistakably charged. Rather than proposing definitive forms, the exhibition assembles an atmosphere of objects in flux. Materials typically associated with utility—stacked cribbing blocks, parking stops, lighting, Plexiglas, and aluminum—behave as memory conductors. Found photographs appear decontextualized, while seating hovers between invitation and apparition. The exhibition seeks relational attention. Each form leans toward the next, resonating with and accompanying one another, which together create a “WE”. Certain motifs emerge from memory, quotations from experience not to be interpreted, but to be felt. A reproduction of a found, signed photograph of Laura Dern from the 1985 film Mask is a gesture of true perception. In the film, her blind character falls in love with a boy who is suffering from a disfiguring genetic condition—not by overlooking his difference, but by perceiving him more clearly than those with sight.&nbsp;More simulacra, a print of a PDF of the books&nbsp;Bunker Archaeology&nbsp;by Paul Virilio and&nbsp;The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger&nbsp;by Luce Irigaray appears—not to be read, but as a living material and conceptual presence. Virilio’s study of wartime bunkers becomes a lens for thinking about how design, function, and strategy differ from experience. These texts resonate with the exhibition’s attention to objects as carriers of memory and thought, existing between use and perception, presence and imagination.&nbsp;After Scott Burton Chair&nbsp;w/ Eric Timothy Carlson and RO/LU is almost 15 years old and has never been shown publicly.&nbsp;Fleabane (Erigeron annuus), a wildflower often dismissed as a weed, helped shape the ideas here. Though cast aside in most landscapes, it holds medicinal value in its stems, revealing usefulness where none was assumed. Like fleabane, the materials in the exhibition—stacked lumber, found images, provisional structures—are invited not to prove themselves, but to be encountered anew.&nbsp;These objects are in a state of becoming—layered and alive. A network rather than a statement, a fog of associations thick enough to move through, but never fully grasp. What emerges is not a collection of things, but a rehearsal of perception itself.&nbsp;This will be the artist’s third exhibition with Volume Gallery, having previously exhibited with various collaborators and under different names.&nbsp;What we knew before knowing&nbsp;will be on view through December 20, 2025&nbsp;OOIEE (Office Of Interior Establishing Exterior)&nbsp;was founded in 2016 by Matt Olson to work on a wide array of projects involving contemporary art and design ranging from furniture, gardens and sculpture and extending to teaching, writing and research. It is a cross-disciplinary, open practice. Previous to founding OOIEE and OOIEE Landscape Office, he was co-founder of RO/LU from 2002-2015 during which time he oversaw work ranging from residential landscape design to residencies in museums. His work has been shown internationally and is in the permanent collection at the Walker Art Center and many esteemed private collections. He was artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Captiva FL and has been a visiting artist/lecturer at SCI-Arc, the School of the Art Institute Chicago, the Cranbrook Academy of Art and others. He’s also an on and off Professor in Practice, Architecture at the College of Design at the University of Minnesota.

OOIEE after RO/LU w/ Matt Olson: What We Knew Before Knowing

The Kim Storage Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition&nbsp;Mostly Stripes: Assemblages and Collages&nbsp;featuring Madison Artist&nbsp;Kevin Henkes.&nbsp;Kim Storage Gallery is pleased to present Mostly Stripes – Assemblages and Collages, a solo exhibition featuring a striking body of paper collages and wooden box assemblages by acclaimed artist and author Kevin Henkes. In this exhibition, stripes emerge as a recurring visual language—sometimes bold and rhythmic, other times subtle and understated. Whether appearing as cut paper elements in collages or as linear structures within wooden box assemblages, stripes anchor Henkes’s explorations of space, repetition, and variation. The title Mostly Stripes reflects both the prevalence of this motif across the works and the artist’s playful acknowledgement of its quiet insistence.Known internationally for his award-winning career as a children’s book author and illustrator, Henkes here extends his visual practice into new material realms. His collages, assembled from cut and layered papers, embody a delicate interplay of line, shape, and color. The wooden box constructions, by contrast, explore depth, texture, and spatial composition, creating intimate environments that feel at once playful and contemplative.Drawing upon a lifetime of storytelling through images and words, Henkes’s fine art reflects the same clarity, restraint, and emotional resonance that distinguish his books. Influences range from modernist abstraction and collage traditions to the narrative sensibility honed across more than four decades of bookmaking. Together, these works offer a glimpseinto the artist’s evolving exploration of form, material, and imagination.Kevin Henkes is the celebrated creator of over fifty books for young readers, spanning picture books, beginning readers, and novels. He is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for Kitten’s First Full Moon and a Newbery Honor for Olive’s Ocean, among numerous other distinctions including Caldecott Honors, Geisel Honors, and the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. His work has been translated into many languages and cherished by generations of readers worldwide.Beyond his literary acclaim, Henkes has long pursued drawing and painting as part of his daily practice. His collages and assemblages—now presented publicly in this exhibition—extend that visual language into a new and surprising register.He lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife, Laura Dronzek, a renowned artist and illustrator.Image: Cathedral, Mixed Media, 9 x 6.75 x 2.5"

Mostly Stripes: Assemblages and Collages: Kevin Henkes

In the North Gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey is delighted to announce&nbsp;Shape Acts, an exhibition of new ceramic sculptures and drawings by Magalie Guérin. This is Guérin's fourth solo show at the gallery and her first presentation primarily focused on ceramics. In the domain of linguistics known as speech act theory, language is considered more than just a conveyor of information, it is an action. Speech not only&nbsp;says, it&nbsp;does. So, too, with the forms and textures and colors of Guérin's work. Known initially as a painter, the Marfa, Texas-based artist has been making 3-D work avidly since the start of the pandemic, and this fresh group of tabletop sculptures finds her pushing the limits on morphological invention, introducing new shapes into her vast vocabulary. These pieces are segmented, often with a totemic composition – juxtaposed parts are stacked together and resolve in impossible seeming ways, all within the space of a 12-inch tower. Varying textures are emphasized with different glazes, applied with a painter's hand and eye. Passing references to figures or vessels or creatures or landscapes may appear, but these are equally offset by an overall sense of abstract delight, the surfaces a joy and a mystery, the flashes of bright color intimating something possibly naughty, the crevices and buttes a juicy question mark. Guérin's formal ingenuity allows these talismans a kind of transformative mojo that might spur us to coin "shape act theory" as a new art historical domain. As a 2-D point of comparison with her ceramics, Guérin has chosen to show a suite of drawings made during a 2021 summer ceramic residency at the University of Arkansas.These drawings for Guérin were a playful daily practice done as a way to discover shapes without the pressure of gravity, resulting in vividly colored marker works, hovering like a paper flock of imagined kinfolk for the dimensional works.

Magalie Guérin: Shape Acts

Andy will be in the gallery on Friday, November 21st from 6-8 pm.&nbsp;Newman’s journey to professional artistry is as compelling as his paintings. After spending over 15 years practicing law in Washington, D.C., he discovered his true calling when a friend gifted him painting tools. The choice became clear: he much preferred creating art to office life. At 36, Newman made the leap to become a full-time artist.Working primarily in oil while also exploring pastels, acrylics, and colored pencils, Newman specializes in landscapes, abstracts, and figures—often combining them in striking and creative ways. His artistic vision draws from diverse influences spanning 19th and 20th century American and European masters, including Giorgio Morandi, Edward Hopper, and Maurice de Vlaminck, alongside classical Baroque pioneers Georges de La Tour and Caravaggio. Represented in over ten galleries across Europe and North America, Newman maintains his studio at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, Massachusetts.&nbsp;Whether you’re seeking your first gallery piece or adding to a growing collection, or looking for the best holiday gift ever, these small wonders remind us that profound beauty can come in small proportions. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Bright Lights, Small Treasures

This blockbuster exhibition brings together three distinctive artistic voices, each exploring the natural world through their unique lens and personal journey.&nbsp;From the intimate botanicals of Pierce to the expansive landscapes of Groves and the Eastern-influenced abstractions of Saffer, “Nature’s Voice” celebrates the diverse ways contemporary artists interpret and respond to the beauty of our environment.Christopher Groves brings a profound connection to nature born from his early years exploring the Louisiana bayous and Colorado mountains. Born in Boulder and raised between Louisiana and Colorado, Groves developed his love for the outdoors through countless adventures in forests, waterways, and mountain ranges. His formal training at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy and his role as Lead Landscape Instructor at the Colorado Classical Academy have shaped his masterful approach to plein air painting. As a signature member of both the Oil Painters of America and the American Society of Marine Artists, Groves captures the essence of natural landscapes with both technical precision and emotional depth, creating works that transport viewers directly into the wilderness he knows so intimately.Christopher Pierce is a nationally recognized artist whose stunning florals and still lifes emerge from the bounty of his own gardens. Pierce’s work demonstrates a mature sensitivity and panache that transform everyday botanical subjects into commanding artistic statements. His large-scale floral compositions are particularly renowned for their bold presence and sophisticated handling of light and color. Beyond his celebrated florals, Pierce’s versatility extends to portraiture, figures, and intimate interior scenes, all painted with the same level of technical mastery and artistic vision. Based in Shushan, New York, Pierce’s work reflects a deep understanding of both classical techniques and contemporary sensibilities, making him one of the most sought-after painters in the realm of contemporary realism.H.M. Saffer II presents perhaps the most internationally diverse artistic journey of the three. Beginning his public art career at just six years old in Philadelphia, Saffer’s path led him to Temple University and then to Paris, where he simultaneously pursued economics, performed with legendary French musicians like Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour, and operated restaurants in both Paris and Madrid. His artistic evolution took a distinctive turn in the 1980s when he began studying Sumi-e, the Japanese art of black ink painting, eventually traveling to Japan to work with master practitioners. This unique fusion of Eastern and Western techniques defines his current work, creating paintings that blend oriental philosophy with Western artistic traditions. His studies at L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts and his multifaceted career as musician, chef, and artist have culminated in works that reflect a truly global artistic perspective, making him a singular voice in contemporary art.

blockbuster

Solo Exhibition

Faceted Fiber, curated by Marci Rubin, showcases art involving diverse discourse and techniques of fiber or textile-based artworks. Focusing on the materials and process as part of the artworks’ significance, this exhibition emphasizes the artistic and aesthetic value of a fiber-based project over its utility.By reclaiming and celebrating textile arts in the 1970’s, feminist artists challenged the established art/craft binary. These inspiring artists employed techniques and actions such as sewing, quilting, macrame, crocheting, knitting, embroidery, rug-making, and basket weaving into their work, thrusting them into the realm of fine art. Artists such as Sheila Hicks, Bisa Butler, Judy Chicago, Faith Ringold, and Magdalena Abakanowicz, paved the way for the acceptance of non-traditional artistic practices and perspectives.Image: Lacy Bohannon – White Bird, Cotton, Polyester, Embroidery Thread, 36 x 24, 2024

Faceted Fiber

Marshall Allen, 99, Astronaut&nbsp;is centered around Marshall Allen, world renowned free and avant-garde jazz musician and current leader of the legendary&nbsp;Sun Ra Arkestra, of which he has been a continual member since 1958. Ari Benjamin Meyers composed two original scores for Allen to interpret, inviting him to engage, through music, in an intimate conversation about the spontaneity of music-making, the rigors of rehearsal, and the potentiality of collaboration. On the brink of his one hundredth birthday, he interprets Meyers’ composition on the alto saxophone, and turns the occasional memory lapse into prompts for improvisation, exposing both his frail age and his brilliant virtuosity. Telling a musical and visual story of transformation from the earthly to the otherworldly, the work transcends temporality and place and pays homage both to Allen’s century-long life lived through music and to Sun Ra’s revolutionary musical vision and utopian politics, which saw in the unknown of sonic experimentation and the vastness of the universe the possibility of a transformed present and radically different future. –Text courtesy&nbsp;Esther Schipper Berlin and&nbsp;Fondazione In Between Art Film&nbsp;

Ari Benjamin Myers Marshall Allen, 99, Astronaut

In the North Gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey is delighted to announce&nbsp;Shape Acts, an exhibition of new ceramic sculptures and drawings by Magalie Guérin. This is Guérin's fourth solo show at the gallery and her first presentation primarily focused on ceramics.\In the domain of linguistics known as speech act theory, language is considered more than just a conveyor of information, it is an action. Speech not only&nbsp;says, it&nbsp;does. So, too, with the forms and textures and colors of Guérin's work. Known initially as a painter, the Marfa, Texas-based artist has been making 3-D work avidly since the start of the pandemic, and this fresh group of tabletop sculptures finds her pushing the limits on morphological invention, introducing new shapes into her vast vocabulary. These pieces are segmented, often with a totemic composition – juxtaposed parts are stacked together and resolve in impossible seeming ways, all within the space of a 12-inch tower. Varying textures are emphasized with different glazes, applied with a painter's hand and eye. Passing references to figures or vessels or creatures or landscapes may appear, but these are equally offset by an overall sense of abstract delight, the surfaces a joy and a mystery, the flashes of bright color intimating something possibly naughty, the crevices and buttes a juicy question mark. Guérin's formal ingenuity allows these talismans a kind of transformative mojo that might spur us to coin "shape act theory" as a new art historical domain. As a 2-D point of comparison with her ceramics, Guérin has chosen to show a suite of drawings made during a 2021 summer ceramic residency at the University of Arkansas.These drawings for Guérin were a playful daily practice done as a way to discover shapes without the pressure of gravity, resulting in vividly colored marker works, hovering like a paper flock of imagined kinfolk for the dimensional works. <a style="background-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:sophie@corbettvsdempsey.com?subject=Preview%20Request%3A%20Magalie%20Gu%C3%A9rin%2C%20Shape%20Acts" target="_blank">PREVIEW REQUEST</a>

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