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

“Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue” is an exhibition of select works from Chicago artist Ben Foch that span the past 20 + years of his making. Some works are from the early 2000’s, never before exhibited seminal beginnings. Some works are from the 2014-2018 era, created after the 1st and 2nd incarnations of his artist-run project space New Capital, and of course, something new from 2026 will be selected.Cinderella, Dracula, Raiders Logo, Scotch Tape Plaid, Newport cigarettes, Tupac Shakur; these are some of the source content(s) that generate an origin narrative for the painting practice of Ben Foch. It could appear to be a contemporary interpretation of a Pop Culture narrative in art, and in the sense that Foch is engaged in discovering and/or defining an avant-garde in the 21st century, it is. Yet, his work, now in its mid-career mature phase, finds its roots in the 1960’s and 70’s Conceptual practices of On Kawara, Roman Opalka and Olivier Mosset. The only difference being the veneer.This exhibition is a meditation on and a celebration of life dedicated to making. It’s important to tell our stories; to ourselves, so we can know who we are, to each other, so we can know one another, and to share them with the world at large, so we can manifest our being through shared acknowledgements of time and space. Stories can be told in many ways. This exhibition is an accounting that reflects one artist through a curated look of their past in the present.We are the stories we tell ourselves.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mleblancchicago.com/ben-foch" target="_blank">Ben Foch</a>&nbsp;(b. 1977) is an artist based in Chicago. He grew up in Park Forest IL., attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 1995-2000), co-founded the artist-run exhibition space New Capital (2010-2017) and is represented by M. Leblanc.&nbsp;Recent solo exhibitions of Foch’s work include Proof Of Werq (2024) and Hood Ornament (2021) at M. LeBlanc in Chicago, IL, Haiku (2019) at Selenas Mountain in Brooklyn, NY, Full Grown (2018) at Efrain Lopez Gallery in Chicago, IL, and Of Human Bondage (2018) at Roots and Culture in Chicago, IL. Foch’s work has been recently included in group exhibitions such as The Highest Level of Listening (2025) curated by Olivia Swider at Gure, Chicago, IL., Miniotics (2025) curated by Trinity Bavaria and Gunner Dongieux at Weatherproof, Chicago, IL., Tricky Passage (2022) curated by Ben Gill at Rhona Hoffman in Chicago, IL, Ugly Feelings (2016) curated by Karolina Gnatowski at Side Car Gallery in Hammond, IN.

Ben Foch: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 7th, 2026 from 2 to 5 PM&nbsp; The Women Painting Women Exhibition expands upon our collective identities as figurative artists. In this exhibition of figure paintings, we challenge the male gaze by exploring alternative topics such as our individual selfhood, archetypical figures and Surreal depictions of the human form. Our focus on our own authentic, complex bodies provides a vehicle for change and elevates our position as artists.&nbsp; Saturday, April 4th at 2 PM: Gallery Talk with Joanna Pinsky, Artistic Director and Cofounder of Art Encounter. Artists: Melissa Arostegui, Pochis Bank, Gaby Bozeman, Kate Citrin, Jennifer Cronin, Karen Fike, Nicole Gordon, Ellen Holtzblatt, Sarah Kaiser, Victoria Loeb, Joanna Pinsky, Lea Pinsky, Mary Porterfield, Patti Ray, Nancy Rosen, and Eleanor Spiess-Ferris.

Women Painting Women

Food for ThoughtKimberly Viviano March 13 - April 26, 2026 During her 2025 Artist Residency at the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago-based artist, design director and educator Kimberly Viviano interrogates how everyday food choices affect our bodies in uncomfortable ways. Drawing on personal experience and research, her installation investigates the tension between foods labeled “healthy” and how differently individual bodies can respond to them. <a style="color: rgb(47, 55, 37); background-color: rgb(155, 191, 106);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://zpzl839y.r.us-west-2.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fsqclick.com%2Foutreach%2Ft%2F6iFkeySaxzhQ%2Fhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fimss.org%25252Fkimberly-viviano-food-for-thought%25252F%25253Futm_source%25253Dsqmktg_email%3Fs=qfBtUgTbeJ0G29A6LQinnFs8rYXjPA-Bkj1017zPtzI/1/0101019cc44e31ce-376117fd-ade0-416d-9862-f278044627da-000000/HIb81s-xlz354jnYXtq2QUApStg=469" target="_blank">MORE INFORMATION</a>

Food for Thought: Kimberly Viviano

Since 1964, The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has collected and preserved modern and contemporary art in order to exhibit it and provide transformative experiences. These objects, MMoCA holds in trust for everyone to learn from and be inspired by all for free.&nbsp;In 2025, MMoCA added over 80 artworks to the permanent collection, including works on paper, large-scale paintings, and sculptures from both local and international artists.&nbsp;Recent Acquisitions&nbsp;displays some of these art objects, showcasing the breadth of contemporary art practice and connecting Madison to the global dialogue through visual art.&nbsp;

Recent Acquisitions

This Winter, the&nbsp;Elmhurst Art Museum&nbsp;presents&nbsp;Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell.&nbsp;Presenting two series by the Chicago-based artist, Connell’s nationally traveling exhibition&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;responds to the iconic photographs of Highland Park-born artist&nbsp;Edward Weston&nbsp;through a queer, feminist lens. Her second major body of work—Double Life—explores the evolution of intimate relationships shaped by the changing nature of identity over time, and features new commissions responding to the architecture of the&nbsp;Mies van der Rohe-designed McCormick House. The exhibition marks the largest presentation of Connell’s work in Chicago, placing queerness, power structures, and shifting ecologies in the twenty-first century in conversation with two giants of modernism. The exhibition is curated by&nbsp;Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director and Chief Curator, and will be on view at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst, from&nbsp;January 24 to April 27, 2026. Peters Quinn says, “The Elmhurst Art Museum is honored to present the arresting photographs of nationally acclaimed photographer Kelli Connell in the Chicagoland area, where she has rooted her art practice and mentored dozens of artists for over a decade. Following its extensive US tour, we have expanded the&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;exhibition to include an additional series,&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;by Connell. Connell’s commitment to exploring the everyday moments in relationships with ourselves and loved ones encourages us to cherish both the beautiful and the difficult times in our lives. Chicago is a crucial center for contemporary photography, and we are proud to highlight this through&nbsp;Living with Modernism.” An exhibition in two parts, Connell explores the psyche of human relationships and our connection to nature and architecture. The main galleries will feature 45 photographs from her series&nbsp;Pictures for Charis, a tender and emotional sequence of work placing Connell in dialogue with one of the most innovative American photographers of the 20th Century, Edward Weston (1886-1958). For this body of work, Connell revisited the sites of Weston’s black-and-white landscapes and portraits of his partner of 11 years, writer Charis Wilson, in&nbsp;California and the West&nbsp;(1934-45), to photograph her own former longtime partner, artist Betsy Odom. Connell’s work is presented alongside 48 original prints by Weston on loan from the Center for Creative Photography (Tuscon) and text excerpts from Charis. Shining new light on Weston’s subject, Charis, the installation bridges eighty years of ecological and social shifts with a feminist perspective.The McCormick House gallery features the latest chapter in Connell’s ongoing series&nbsp;Double Life, which the artist began in 2002. For this series, Connell explores long-term relationships with others and the self. The digital images document the fictional relationship of two women, both played by collaborator Kiba Jacobson. Connell describes&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;as “an honest representation of the fluidity of the self in regard to decisions about intimate relationships, sexuality, gender, family, belief systems, and lifestyle options.” For&nbsp;Living with Modernism, the Elmhurst Art Museum commissioned Connell to respond to the architecture of McCormick House designed by Mies van der Rohe. Connell chose to photograph the site - and incorporate poetry from its former owner Isabella Gardner (niece of the Boston arts patron by the same name) - to generate new works adding to the perpetual&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;narrative. Connell says,&nbsp;“I am beyond thrilled to show&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;and&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;together at the Elmhurst Art Museum. Both projects portray my commitment to uncovering forgotten histories. Making new work in the McCormick House, a space where the work will also be shown, was a unique opportunity for me to think about architecture and its impact on people and the relationships we have with each other in these spaces.” Pictures for Charis&nbsp;is co-organized by the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, at the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; the Cleveland Museum of Art; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Pictures for Charis&nbsp;is curated for each museum by Rebecca Senf, Ph.D., Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, at the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; Barbara Tannenbaum, Ph.D, Curator of Photography and Chair of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art; and Gregory J. Harris, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director &amp; Chief Curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum.This project is made possible by Teiger Foundation. Photographs by Edward Weston are courtesy of the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography. Additional support for&nbsp;Living with Modernism&nbsp;and related programs are provided by the Illinois Arts Council and individual donors. ABOUT THE ARTISTKelli Connell&nbsp;(b. 1974) is a photographer based in Chicago. Through her images, she addresses issues of sexuality, identity, and self-perception. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications include&nbsp;Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis&nbsp;(Aperture and Center for Creative Photography, March 2024),&nbsp;PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice(Aperture),&nbsp;Photo Art: The New World of Photography&nbsp;(Aperture), and the monograph&nbsp;Kelli Connell: Double Life&nbsp;(DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships and residencies from The Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUMThe Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public. The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for adults (ages 18+), $15 for seniors, $10 for students, and $5 for children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org/" target="_blank">elmhurstartmuseum.org</a>.Images Kelli Connell,&nbsp;Surf, Point Lobos, 2015, courtesy the artist.

Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell

The Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory is transformed into a vibrant sanctuary filled with thousands of tropical butterflies, creating the largest temporary tropical butterfly exhibition in the United States and one of Meijer Gardens’ most anticipated annual experiences.

Fred & Dorothy Fichter Butterflies Are Blooming

more information coming soon

Kate Goodvin: MFA Qualifier Exhibition

Perspective Gallery is proud to host “Teaching,” Nelson W. Armour’s ode to classroom teachers. Resulting from a two-year residency with “<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://perspectivegallery.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=04a588cae42ffc5c2d944d823&amp;id=8c7e2f36fa&amp;e=49b9939ea4" target="_blank">Artists in the Public Schools, formerly CPSLIves</a>,” the project examines teaching and what it means to be a teacher. This photographic essay is an homage to the challenges, triumphs, hard work and effort of teaching, from the small details to the big picture.&nbsp;“Teaching” opens on Thursday, April&nbsp;2, 2026&nbsp;with an Opening Reception on Saturday, April 4, 2026 from 5- 7 PM. The exhibit runs through Sunday, May 3, 2026. A Virtual Artist’s Talk will be held on Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 7 PM. To register for the talk, go to Perspective Gallery’s website,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://perspectivegallery.org/april-2026" target="_blank">https://perspectivegallery.org/april-2026</a>.&nbsp;Armour was privileged to follow three teachers over two school years in two Chicago Public Schools, the Lázaro Cárdenas Elementary School in the Little Village area of Chicago (2021-22 school year) and the Michele Clark Academic Prep Magnet High School in the Austin neighborhood (2023-24 school year). This project, sponsored by&nbsp;Artists in the Public Schools, documents how teachers engage and relate to their students as individuals and classes.Above image - Teaching #20

Teaching

Cheryl Pope&nbsp;is an interdisciplinary visual artist&nbsp;who&nbsp;questions and responds to issues of identity as it relates to the individual and the community, specifically&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;race, gender, class, history, power, and place. Her practice&nbsp;emerges&nbsp;from the act and politics of&nbsp;listening and&nbsp;recently introduces&nbsp;a novel&nbsp;material to explore the artist’s memories. Referencing the familiar repertoire of the French Post-Impressionist, Intimist, and Imagist paintings, Pope recreates deeply personal recollections that cinematically compose the silent complexities of beautiful and tragic oscillations between love and loss in our everyday lives. Images of couples are drawn from memory, referencing the artist’s own relationships and moments of disconnect, anxiety, and desire, while beach scenes depicting a mother and child accentuate a tender stillness of caregiving. In these scenes, the figures exist in a nest of choreography–a rotating stage of mystery, tragedy, and poetry of day-to-day living with feelings of presence and absence woven throughout.  &nbsp;Pope (b.1980, Chicago, IL) received her MA in Design (2010) and BFA (2003) from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL, where she is an Adjunct Professor.  Pope has had recent solo exhibitions at&nbsp;Easy Does It Curatorial Space, Los Angeles, CA (2024);&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2022, 2019); The Ulrich Museum of Art,&nbsp;Wichita, KS (2022); Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL (2019); Galleria&nbsp;Bianconi, Milan, Italy (2019); Andres Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2018); and Fort Gansevoort, New York, NY (2017).&nbsp;Notable&nbsp;group presentations include&nbsp;Get in the Game: Sport and Contemporary Culture&nbsp;at&nbsp;SFMoMA&nbsp;(2024) which travels to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Pérez Art Museum Miami&nbsp;(2025; 2026);&nbsp;Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (2024);&nbsp;Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI (2023); The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2023&nbsp;2021); Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY (2023);&nbsp;Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI (2022); Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Chicago, IL (2022); Skin in the Game&nbsp;curated by Zoe&nbsp;Lukov, Chicago, IL (2022); Fountainhead, Miami, FL (2021); Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2021);&nbsp;Virginia&nbsp;MOCA,&nbsp;Virgina&nbsp;Beach, VA (2021); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2020).&nbsp;Pope will present a solo exhibition at&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;in 2026.&nbsp;Pope’s work is in the collections of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary Art&nbsp;Jacksonville, FL;&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;UBS Art Collection, New York, NY;&nbsp;Joan&nbsp;Flasche&nbsp;Artists Book Collection, Chicago, IL; Seattle Art Museum, WA; Honolulu Museum of Art, HI; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL; DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA;&nbsp;Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD;&nbsp;United States Embassy, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; The Jackson West Memorial Hospital, Miami, FL; and The Ulrich Museum of Art,&nbsp;Wichita, KS. She has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Public Artist Award, Franklin Works, Minneapolis, MN (2017); Selected Artist, Year of Public Art, Chicago Cultural Center, IL (2017); Mellon Fellowship, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH (2016); and 3Arts Award, Chicago, IL (2015). Pope lives and works in Chicago, IL&nbsp;and Miami, FL.&nbsp;

Cheryl Pope

Material Memory&nbsp;explores how knowledge, history, and cultural memory are carried through objects and the act of making. Bringing together four artists working in ceramics, fiber, tapestry, and print, the exhibition centers analog processes, material investigation, and the slow accumulation of gesture and meaning.Through hand-built ceramics, bead-encrusted vessels, pony-bead tapestries, and meticulously carved relief prints, the artists in&nbsp;Material Memory&nbsp;examine how culture and personal histories are inherited, learned, and reinterpreted through labor, repetition, and intimate engagement with material. These works ask viewers to consider how objects embody memory, mediate identity, and carry stories across generations.Featuring:Chris Salas&nbsp;(Ceramics)Salas’s hand-built ceramic forms emerge through intuitive, iterative processes informed by personal relationships, historical research, and the ongoing legacy of colonization in the Americas. Clay becomes a vessel for cultural reckoning, holding layered histories through time-intensive making and surface.Katie Mongoven&nbsp;(Fiber, Beading)Mongoven transforms found blue-and-white ceramic vessels with intricate beadwork and embroidery. Her labor-intensive practice explores diasporic memory, identity reconstruction, and the reclamation of Orientalist objects through touch, repetition, and bodily presence.akeylah wellington&nbsp;(Sculpture, Tapestry)Wellington’s pony-bead tapestries and mixed-media sculptures blend humor, endurance, and personal history. Drawing on childhood imagery, early digital culture, and found materials, her work preserves stories of displacement, resilience, and generational inheritance.Ramiro Rodriguez&nbsp;(Printmaking)Rodriguez’s woodblock and linoleum relief prints document familial and cultural narratives rooted in Mexican-American print traditions. Through carving and layered printing, his work embeds memory, transformation, and inherited knowledge into the physical act of making.Together, the artists in&nbsp;Material Memory&nbsp;use material as language—foregrounding slow, analog processes as acts of remembering, learning, and transmission. Their works are deeply personal yet culturally resonant, tracing the invisible threads of inheritance that bind past, present, and future.

Material Memory

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Hyde Park Art Center</a>, the renowned non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is proud to announce&nbsp;Yoonshin Park: Prompt and Prompted, an exhibition highlighting the artist’s, as well as her students’, experimental ways of creating artist books that push the boundaries of what books can be. On view from&nbsp;January 24-May 10, 2026,&nbsp;the exhibition offers hands-on experiences for the audience to make their own artist books on multiple dates throughout the duration. Both the exhibition and the public programs are free and open to the public. An artist book is an artwork that reimagines or transforms the form, function, or concept of a book into an expressive medium. For more than two decades, Park has used artist books as an experimental form and conceptual space to expand what books can be. For Park, the medium offers freedom that invites alternative ways of living other aspects of life, and invites the audience to live their lives as expansively as Park defines artist books. This exhibition presents new works that further her exploration of artist books as spatial, symbolic, and participatory sites capable of engaging notions of memory, marginality, translation, and transformation. More than a creator, Park is an arts educator of the medium. Since 2019, she has been teaching courses on artist books virtually through the Art Center’s Oakman Clinton School + Studios, and has found her practice of teaching to be as generative for her as it is for her students. The title of the exhibition refers to the reciprocal exchange that takes place in Park’s classroom. The exhibition includes artworks by 12 of Park’s students, including Kimberly Bailey, Miriam Bisby, Priya Deb, Devie Dragone, Bryne Hadnott, Rebecca Kelly, John Michael Korpal, Carol Lett, Camille Levi, Sumiah Salloum, Virginia Van Vynckt, and Max Washington. Park shares how this presentation differs from past work: “This exhibition marks a shift in my practice from intimate, book-inspired gestures to spatial and communal forms, allowing me to explore how books can extend beyond the page. I hope visitors experience the work as an invitation to engage with their own stories and with spaces—both in books and in the gallery—in new ways, noticing how meaning and connection can emerge through shared interaction.” Free public programs include the following:Wednesday, January 28, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, February 11, 1pm Artist-led workshopThursday, February 19, 6pm Artist talk with Yoonshin Park and curator Mariela AcuñaWednesday, February 25, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-throughWednesday, March 4, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, March 18, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-throughSaturday, April 4, 1-4pm Center Day workshop led by one of Park’s students, John Michael KorpalWednesday, April 8, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, April 22, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, May 6, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-through This exhibition was curated by Mariela Acuña, art center Director of Exhibitions and Residency, and produced by Tran Tran and Liang-yu Huang, with fabrication support provided by Huang.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1771018610/l1mhn1jbmv7qkttusjfz.png"> ABOUT THE ARTISTBorn in Seoul, Korea, Park now resides in Chicago. She has participated in residencies including the HATCH Residency at the Chicago Artists Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program. She teaches at both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Hyde Park Art Center, and in 2024, served as curator and facilitator for the Hyde Park Art Center’s Bridge Program. Park has exhibited at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Northeastern Illinois University Fine Arts Center Gallery, Beverly Arts Center, Evanston Art Center, Riverside Art Center, Pablo Center and the AIR SPACE at Saint Kate Hotel in Wisconsin, and Simyo Gallery in Seoul, Korea, among others. She is represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. ABOUT THE HYDE PARK ART CENTERHyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering, production, and exhibition space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of artists to establishing a strong legacy of risk-taking and experimentation, emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. Today, the Art Center offers a diverse suite of programs for artists and art lovers of all backgrounds, ages, and stages in their careers including: contemporary art exhibitions in six galleries; an open-access community-based school with 2,000 annual enrollments; weekly arts education to 1,000 elementary school students in public schools; weekly and summer teen programs for 100 teen artists; professional-advancement programs for artists; a local and international artist residency; and public programs that connect residents with Chicago art and artists. The Art Center’s Oakman Clinton School + Studio is the nation’s first fully contribute-what-you-can visual art school for all ages. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for creative voices of today and tomorrow, providing the space to cultivate new work and connections. For more information, visit<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">&nbsp;www.hydeparkart.org</a>.

Yoonshin Park: Prompt and Prompted

Krasl Art Center presents&nbsp;Malcolm Taylor: Prologue, The State of Play, on view February 7 through May 10, 2026 in the ArtLab. The exhibition opens with a free public reception on Thursday, February 6, from 6 – 8 PM.The State of Play&nbsp;marks Benton Harbor–based photographer Malcolm Taylor’s first gallery exhibition, offering an adventurous exploration of storytelling through action figure photography. Taylor stages intricate miniature sets and captures them in vivid, cinematic photographs that blur the line between play and narrative. Featuring characters drawn from comics, video games, and popular culture, the works are infused with humor, nostalgia, and imagination, inviting viewers into fully realized worlds at a toy-sized scale.

Malcolm Taylor: The State of Play

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/a-beautiful-experience/?utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_TAgiwr9CcUCqp8PARBnetZDmy4oA4M6rKVEblEJGj0fYaKmL0n8Naot67z_PVofiAcW7Sb0wnbX5AHJQODsWXa0U2UYeyKUnYSDhaHXxDMn2lHxQ&amp;_hsmi=343424237&amp;utm_content=343424237&amp;utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Details</a> A Beautiful Experience: The Midwest Grotto Tradition&nbsp;takes its title from a slogan found on years of brochures, maps, and swag from the Dickeyville Grotto in Wisconsin. It is one of several grottoes found throughout the region. These sites began to inspire pilgrimage, tourism, reflection, and community gathering during the 1910s. This exhibition looks at their continuing influence on artists and visitors alike. Materially, midwestern grottoes often reflect local industries, decorative trends, and an area’s geological makeup. Grotto architecture mainly comprises concrete embellished with objects including shells, marbles, colored glass, toys, figurines, fossils, and geodes. This accumulation, as well as the objects incorporated, creates a documentation of the maker’s life, faith, and home. Madeline Buol is one of the few known women grotto builders. The materials she utilized include figurines and stones gathered during her travels. She had a special affinity for shells of all shapes and sizes. The exhibition is the first public showing of Buol’s monumental thirteen-piece grotto since it was saved from the artist’s yard in 2011 by the Kohler Foundation, Inc. It was then gifted to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. In addition to Buol’s grotto,&nbsp;A Beautiful Experience&nbsp;includes objects related to the Midwest grottoes that directly inspired her, such as the Dickeyville Grotto, Jacob Baker’s “dream houses,” the Rudolph Grotto, and the Wegner Grotto. The exhibition illustrates the material histories of these grottoes and strategies for their conservation. Visitors are offered opportunities to learn about the legacy and care of Midwest grotto sites. A Beautiful Experience&nbsp;also includes new work by Stephanie Shih and E. Saffronia Downing, each responding to the grotto tradition. Shih presents a work inspired by Jacob Baker and Chinese immigration in the U.S. Downing shares her explorations of clay and material foraging throughout the Midwest, providing insight into material studies for the concrete and construction materials often invented and improvised upon by grotto builders. Image: Madeline Buol, Buol Grotto and Sculptures (site view, n.d.), Dubuque, IA, 1946–c. 1960. Photo courtesy of Pam Mendenhall.

A Beautiful Experience: The Midwest Grotto Tradition

The annual&nbsp;High School Area Show&nbsp;is a juried exhibition featuring the artwork of high school artists from Kalamazoo and its surrounding counties. This show provides students opportunities to not only show their work in a museum, but also the chance to win prizes and scholarships. The KIA is proud to host this annual exhibition committed to nurturing emerging talent and expanding access to meaningful arts experiences for young people.The 2026 juror is Ginger Owen-Murakami. Owen-Murakami’s artwork reflects narratives of family history, race, gender, and culture. Her practice includes installation, sculpture, and various photographic methods. She is currently a Professor of Photography at Western Michigan University’s Gwen Frostic School of Art.The show is open to high school students residing in Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties. Students can&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=16611" target="_blank">submit up to two works online through CaFE (callforentry.org)</a>. Submissions will be accepted January 6 through February 10.﻿

2026 High School Area Show

Photographer of the Year 

Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) announces its next exhibition,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mocp.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9e4250b7536dc23e9352b28ee&amp;id=1157c0cf86&amp;e=58cea278c7" target="_blank">MoCP at Fifty: Collecting Through the Decades</a>, on view January 22-May 16, 2026. As we enter the new year, MoCP celebrates its 50th anniversary. Since opening in 1976 and initiating collecting in 1979, MoCP has acquired over 18,000 objects by more than 2,000 artists, representing a broad scope of aesthetics, technologies, and processes. The variety of artworks collected has allowed the museum to engage in conversations across political, social, and cultural landscapes. To celebrate this milestone,&nbsp;MoCP at Fifty&nbsp;examines the evolving practice of building a dynamic collection, presenting a range of objects, from the rarely exhibited to newly acquired works. Together, these selections question and reflect on the role cultural institutions play in shaping the photographic canon. Each of the museum’s five galleries represents a decade of collecting, beginning with the most recent acquisitions (2016-2026) in the first gallery, then moving backwards through time. “Over five decades, the MoCP has built a collection that traces shifting cultural, political, and visual histories. This moment allows us to look back with reflection and celebrate our holdings, knowing that every photograph we steward becomes part of a larger conversation about how images shape our understanding of the world.” Karen Irvine, Chief Curator and Deputy Director Looking at MoCP’s collection decade by decade is as much an archive of history as it is of art. Collections are fluid, often evolving in ways that mirror the values and trends of society at large. The first decades are noticeably missing many women and artists of color, not because such artists were not making work at the time, but because cultural institutions had yet to fully consider the value of varied perspectives and forms of practice. The later decades were collected with intention, not only of addressing gaps in representation, but to embrace conceptual works and works that push the boundary of what defines “photography,” in the process expanding, innovating, and redefining what a photography museum can offer the public. This exhibition displays over 100 objects from the MoCP collection. Featured artists include: Joel Sternfeld (American, b. 1944), Barbara Crane (American, 1928–2019), Matthew Finley (American, b. 1972), Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953), Yasuhiro Ishimoto (Japanese American, 1921-2012), Dayanita Singh (Indian, b.1961), Bob Thall (American, b. 1948), Carlotta Corpron (American, 1901-1988), and various others. Uta Barth, Field #3, 1995; printed 2021. 2021:244

MoCP at 50: Collecting Through the Decades

Opening Reception: Friday, April 17 from 5 to 8PM Artist Talk: Saturday, April 18 starting at 1PM 207 E Buffalo St, Suite 404, Milwaukee, WI 53202 (Marshall Building, 4th floor) Kim Storage Gallery is pleased to present Reflections and Undercurrents, a solo exhibition of new&nbsp;paintings by Katherine Steichen Rosing that immerses viewers in the invisible forces shaping forests and watersheds amid&nbsp;climate disruption. Rosing’s work reveals both the resilience and fragile balance of ecosystems under stress, asking what&nbsp;persists—and what quietly disappears—beneath the surface of the landscapes we love. In this body of work, she abstracts hidden ecological processes into vividly hued, densely layered surfaces, merging the&nbsp;visible and invisible through inscribed marks that are later veiled by color, like root systems and currents we cannot fully&nbsp;see. Reflections and Undercurrents introduces submerged forests of yellow-green trunks rising through ultramarine&nbsp;floodwaters, holding the tension between visual allure and the unsettling question of whether we witness temporary&nbsp;inundation or irreversible transformation. Grounded in long-term observation, environmental research, and collaborations with scientists, Rosing’s practice&nbsp;addresses extreme weather cycles—drought, deluge, and intensifying storms—that leave forests stressed and&nbsp;vulnerable, from local neighborhoods to distant northern ecosystems. She understands painting as a way to convey the&nbsp;felt experience of environmental change, creating a contemplative space where beauty and unease coexist and where&nbsp;subtle shifts in color, light, and texture echo broader ecological transformations. Born in Appleton, Wisconsin, Rosing is known for environmentally engaged paintings and immersive installations&nbsp;exploring relationships among forests, watersheds, and climate. She has exhibited in over one hundred solo and group&nbsp;shows in museums and galleries, including the Rockford Art Museum, Amos Eno Gallery (New York), the Arts Club&nbsp;(Washington, DC), and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, and she holds an MFA from Northern Illinois University. She received the 2022 Forward Art Prize. Image: Blue Damselflies Flitting About My Kayak, Acrylic on canvas, 44 x 55"

Reflections and Undercurrents

Uncertain HistoriesJune 14, 2025 - May 24, 2026Chicago Cultural Center, Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Hall Cases, 2nd Floor North Everything in history, once it has happened, looks as if it had to happen exactly that way. We can’t imagine any other. But I am convinced of the uncertainty of history, of the possibility of surprise, of the importance of human action in changing what looks unchangeable.—Howard Zinn (US Army veteran), 1994* The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall was built as a memorial to the sacrifices of Union Civil War veterans and their families. According to the renowned American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, their sacrifices were for freedom and a testament to the most profound declaration of human rights in history. Yet, Douglass also argued in a 1877 speech to the GAR, that the task of fully realizing this freedom remained unfinished. In the face of this unfinished task, and the current challenges to freedoms,&nbsp;Uncertain Histories&nbsp;reveals entanglement between past military actions and today’s state repression, between historic declarations and the current struggle for freedom. The creative practices of contemporary veteran artists&nbsp;Darrell W. Fair,&nbsp;Eric J. Garcia,&nbsp;Monty Little (Diné), and&nbsp;Amber Zora&nbsp;draw throughlines that complicate legacies of colonialism and militarism while seeking a more peaceful future. These creative acts of hope transform violent histories into stories of survival and resistance. As celebrated historian and World War II veteran Howard Zinn writes, “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.”* Uncertain Histories&nbsp;is curated by Aaron Hughes in affiliation with the emerging Veteran Art Movement, with support from the DEMIL Art Fund, DCASE, and the City of Chicago.* Howard Zinn,&nbsp;You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times&nbsp;(Beacon Press, 1994).

Uncertain Histories

Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present our fifth solo show with&nbsp;Marshall Brown,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bdZTE3r3YzLqzbr6etCtDNKv_LTwOueZmCJitPDVOy-uIiKEHlGdtQO8GGXVCjGw2taS7eDgoDtRjzTUDmqIK23VMANarfWZo6Ym_17wOpJhKGTvsajrXXq1sGdBy49z6CCPDlkARdNOJ3Z9zpCLGgw==&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">Palaces and Prisons</a>, a two-part exhibition presenting collages from Brown’s new&nbsp;Palaces of Industry&nbsp;series in Gallery 1 and in Gallery 2, never-before-shown works that continue his ongoing&nbsp;Prisons of Invention&nbsp;series. Marshall Brown, an artist and architect, collapses reality and fiction with collage, a loophole between he shared territories of art and architecture. In these Palaces, he builds utopian visions from pure abstraction. In these Prisons, he constructs paradoxes from reality’s ruins.&nbsp; The show opens on&nbsp;Friday, March 27&nbsp;with a public reception from 5 to 8pm, and will run through June 6, 2026. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.In Gallery 1,&nbsp;Palaces of Industry&nbsp;is a new series of large-scale collages on panel that returns to Brown’s earliest influences: the floating geometries and dynamic equilibrium of Suprematism, Constructivism’s photomontage tradition and layering, Giacometti’s surrealist structures, Duchamp’s readymades. He appropriates images from contemporary artists who make architecture their subject, reconstructing them as monumental collages. These are imagined futures inspired by great industrial palaces built at the birth of modernism: the Crystal Palace, factories that housed new collective labor, the production sites that promised transformation. White space floods the compositions. Fragments hover. The scale creates immersive worlds you can step inside—flatness expands into depth. Building utopian space from contemporary art’s fascination with architecture, Brown turns art’s gaze at architecture back on itself. These are not pictures. They are visions.In Gallery 2, these never-before-shown works continue his ongoing collage-on-paper&nbsp;Prisons of Invention&nbsp;series, named for Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione. Brown constructs these paradoxical, labyrinthine spaces from fragments of recent architectural photography, just as Piranesi built his imaginary dungeons from the ruins of Rome. Multiple viewpoints collide and diverge within a single composition. Light and shadow emerge from hidden sources. Fragments layer and overlap, creating perspectives that can’t belong to the same space. These are visions of many moments struggling to coexist—each piece holds multiple experiences that refuse to settle into one.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy561SuiGEWT4MhT4Os8jhBUeey3LFQ4aZ6T5uQJkYTmbYW6LkgBDGUUKHAh6iVHDti2zkaGpFn12vZDwprvXG2S2UsSIeK0AHHDg5xV_sTOC-ik1fHySs-dJq9--xAUe_lrzLix_xp92&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">Marshall Brown</a>&nbsp;is an architect, urbanist, and futurist whose work creates new connections, associations, and meanings among disconnected architectural and urban remnants. His 2022-23 show,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy2uuD0m8_rbJNz6t6FMZhku_YBtgfqVqv6lv3AzCA1pJHdc69fTCPz9wq3yYc6OKDI1qdwsupA_d7f6syVyEl8cGbtwKSiHhO6nLuLUTAM_HSeLxzhzD_GTG_CbHgG0Wcw==&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">The Architecture of Collage</a>&nbsp;at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, was Brown’s first solo museum exhibition and most comprehensive presentation of his collages to date. Works from the show, exploratory essays, and additional pieces are published in a book of the same name, available at the gallery. Brown’s work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography and the University Club, both in Chicago. Brown has exhibited at the&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bI9Z7lobUZF4W_f2F8Fi4g9BDBfQ1J7ECDtmdtVb3cQg5FJTXuEYKopHphEXBpnTBdu-iwEOLy1uiLqfN8_lLU3OzE50o-ArwsLj_5QNYrvubhwCmA7VQ9RdxLK6LYRca&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">2016 Venice Architecture Biennale</a>, the&nbsp;2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial,&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit,<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bjPnSRNnkqaHNQdckV1jNouRizwqncz3HG7uoyanPGCHtMMFgntkGZCp9cy03nQ2jthdXSW2ob5r5F-NlRfd6ZdO_2GUMW0f-7dL2mAGyCluR_DCaiv3gh6a8y5Bl6anJmY9LpnX_jxxofbRm900emuGK46Mk17NktrMmZjTmV3AWbSfTQ9tEu_4WKXi3rOpE&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">&nbsp;</a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bjPnSRNnkqaHNQdckV1jNouRizwqncz3HG7uoyanPGCHtMMFgntkGZCp9cy03nQ2jthdXSW2ob5r5F-NlRfd6ZdO_2GUMW0f-7dL2mAGyCluR_DCaiv3gh6a8y5Bl6anJmY9LpnX_jxxofbRm900emuGK46Mk17NktrMmZjTmV3BtWSd6D6EhGNBWjcqDjYCa&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">The Arts Club of Chicago</a>, the Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles, and in a 10-year survey,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bnZplywff9dtv64hK1sygeYVTet5MW28aeYa2mWbJilpfcGIegsKRgzHPd3Fw3INFhZuhPTMyGYiSx3oM54bg-6PxmE5piljEp70XQEQoZVWE9ZW5QqSTyvtgWKniyo2PxYmvaVt2Y9TeXThJX4Zss0x6kjNMpy7SU7fIBeUIBn_H1wzSvuTVuz6UPKMjVo7bq4mvbAEVonnH1Mh6YAXWv6Ca1gCMBk17&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" target="_blank">Recurrent Visions: The Architecture of Marshall Brown Projects</a>, at the Princeton University School of Architecture. Marshall Brown received his masters degrees at Harvard University. He is a full professor with tenure at the Princeton University School of Architecture, where he directs the Princeton Urban Imagination Center. Marshall Brown lives in Princeton, NJ and Philadelphia, PA.

Marshall Brown: Palaces and Prisons

Dispossession—the deprivation of land, culture, language, or all three—has been a defining and enduring condition across the Americas, initiated by the expansion of European colonialism.&nbsp;Dispossessions in the Americas:&nbsp;The Extraction of Bodies, Land, and Heritage from La Conquista to the Present&nbsp;brings&nbsp;together&nbsp;more than 40 works by 36 contemporary artists from across Latin America whose work broadly seeks to critique and unsettle the long-standing politics of dispossession. Curated by&nbsp;Jonathan D. Katz, Associate Professor of Practice, History of Art and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, University of Pennsylvania, and Eduardo Carrera, the exhibition is presented by Alphawood Exhibitions.Dispossessions in the Americas&nbsp;features&nbsp;photographs, videos, installations, performances, sculptures, and paintings&nbsp;produced between 1960 and 2025.&nbsp;A selection of these artworks circulated in Latin American museums from 2021 to 2025 as part of the&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/dia.upenn.edu/en/___.YzJ1Om5ld3N3ZWJsbGM6YzpvOjFjOGQzMDUxNWM3Yjg5ZWRkNWM0ZTU0ZWM5MWRmNTQ1Ojc6MmRiNzoxYmE1NzM5MWExMGQxNjdjMTdkZGVmMDk2Y2E2MGExN2FlNTZlNDg2YTZmMDQwYTJhNGQ5M2M0Njc4ZGJiN2Y0OnA6RjpG" target="_blank">Dispossessions in the Americas&nbsp;project</a>, a transdisciplinary research project, teaching initiative, and community engagement program led by the University of Pennsylvania with support from the Mellon Foundation. Organized around three constellations — Territory, Body, and Cultural Heritage — the exhibition explores the colonial legacies in the Americas as territories marked by dispossession (of land, culture, and language) and their continued effect on Indigenous, Afro-descendant, queer, and trans communities, while also fostering resistance and reimagined forms of belonging.Featured artists include:&nbsp;Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, Colectivo Ayllu, Colectivo Tawna, Deborah Anzinger, Carlos Arias, Archivo de la Memoria Trans, Purita Pelayo, Felipe Baeza, Tania Bruguera, Saskia Calderón, Seba Calfuqueo, Javier Cardona Otero, Wilson Díaz, Frau Diamanda/Héctor Acuña, Augusto Falconi, Ani Ganzala, Frank Gaudlitz, Camilo Godoy, Regina José Galindo, Thomas Locke Hobbs, David Lozano, Cinthia Marcelle, Laryssa Machada, Carlos Martiel, Ana Mendieta, Joiri Minaya, Lulu Molinares, Lizette Nin, Kiván Quiñones, Madorilyn Crawford, Miguel Ángel Rojas, Deborah Thomas, Gihan Tubbeh, Javi Vargas Sotomayor, Antonio Wong Rengifo, Rember Yahuarcani, and Luis Fernando Zapata.

Dispossessions in the Americas

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is excited to announce the Chicago presentation of&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=01546b90d5&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">Firelei Báez</a>, the first North American survey exhibition of the artist (b.1980, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York) running from November 15, 2025, to May 31, 2026. Spanning two decades of Báez’s spirited practice, this landmark exhibition showcases her vibrant and captivating paintings and installations. Through a bold visual language that blends folklore, fantasy, mythology and science fiction, Báez constructs layered worlds that challenge dominant historical narratives and unsettle the often-fixed categories of race, gender and nationality. In this exhibition, Báez also emphasizes resilience and creative agency, especially among marginalized communities who have always found ways to create refuge and power in defiance of systems of repression.Known for her richly pigmented, multidisciplinary approach, Báez combines saturated colors, intricate patterns and expressive figuration with abstract gestures, architectural plans, colonial-era maps and culturally resonant symbols. Her work draws deeply from Afro-Caribbean traditions and acts as a cultural and historical crossroads for the enduring legacies of colonialism across the Americas, the African Diaspora and the cultural nexus of the Caribbean. This major exhibition reaffirms Báez’s place as one of the most compelling and visionary artists of her generation.In addition to her dynamic paintings, the exhibition will feature one of her more immersive pieces,&nbsp;A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways)&nbsp;(2019), which will occupy an entire gallery at the MCA. This large-scale work consists of paintings, mesh, papier-mâché, cutout tarp and plants that, together, transport visitors into one of Báez’s created worlds. Chicago is also highlighted in the exhibition:&nbsp;The trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other’s breathing)&nbsp;(2019) features a ciguapa (a feminine, trickster creature from Dominican folklore) bending over an architectural plan of the Illinois Central Railroad, uniting both sides of the tracks, which run between New Orleans and Chicago, to restore the divisions left by colonial trade.Firelei Báez&nbsp;is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and curated by Eva Respini, Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs, Vancouver Art Gallery (former Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston), with Tessa Bachi Haas, Assistant Curator, ICA/Boston. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presentation is organized by Carla Acevedo-Yates, former Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, with Cecilia González Godino, former Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, and Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate. ABOUT THE ARTISTFirelei Báez (b. 1980, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York)&nbsp;was born to a Dominican mother and a father of Haitian descent. Her upbringing between Hispaniola’s two countries, which have a longstanding history of tension predicated on ethnic difference, informs her concerns with the politics of place and heritage. She currently lives and works in New York City.Báez received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union’s School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is the subject of her first major US survey, which originated at the ICA/Boston, curated by Eva Respini, and is now traveling. Her work has been presented in many significant international exhibitions, including the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed, Boston (2021), curated by Eva Respini, which traveled to The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas; and The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani. Recent solo presentations of Báez’s work include exhibitions at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami. The artist has recently participated in a number of group exhibitions at major institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of many awards, most recently the Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022), Artes Mundi Prize (2021), and Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021). Báez’s work is held in many significant private and public collections; the latter include the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda,Angola; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. SUPPORTMajor support for&nbsp;Firelei Báez&nbsp;is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.This project is supported in part by Karen and Brian Conway, David and Jocelyne DeNunzio, Mathieu O. Gaulin, The Kotzubei-Beckmann Family Philanthropic Fund, Lise and Jeffrey Wilks, and an anonymous donor.Lead support for&nbsp;Firelei Báez&nbsp;at MCA Chicago is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, the Zell Family Foundation, Cari and Michael Sacks, and R. H. Defares.Major support is provided by Laura and Tony Davis and Linden Capital Partners, Newcity, Robin Loewenberg Tebbe and Mark Tebbe, and Charlotte R. Cramer Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III of Wagner Foundation.Generous support is provided by Nickol and Darrel Hackett, Hauser &amp; Wirth, the Margot and W. George Greig Ascendant Artist Fund.This exhibition is supported by the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative, a philanthropic commitment to further equity across gender lines and promote the work and ideas of women artists ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGOThe Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The MCA interweaves exhibitions, performances, collections, and educational programs while providing a place for audiences to contemplate and discuss contemporary art in pursuit of a creative and diverse future. The MCA believes in the values of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) as a platform to enact structural change. The museum is generously supported by its Board of Trustees; individual and corporate members; private and corporate foundations, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and government agencies. The MCA is a proud member of Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=91a06bd7c9&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">The MCA is located at 220 E. Chicago Avenue</a>&nbsp;and is open 10 am to 5 pm Wednesday to Sunday and Tuesdays from 10 am to 9 pm. Tuesday evenings (5-9 pm) are free for Illinois residents. The museum is closed on Mondays.&nbsp;Admission is free for all youth 18 and under, members of the military and veterans, and MCA members. Free admission for anyone 18 and under is generously provided by Liz and Eric Lefkofsky, and Northern Trust. Find more information about MCA's exhibitions, programs, and special events at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=0649146eaa&amp;e=4ba592fe2a" target="_blank">mcachicago.org</a>&nbsp;or at 312.280.2660.

Chicago Presentation of Firelei Báez

Sculptor Angie Seykora repurposes fibers, vinyl, beads, plastics, wire, and found objects to create site-specific installations and sculptures. "These types of materials combined with intuitive approaches and responses to making result in non-representative works that incite the visual and tactile senses." Our gallery space will be activated by these large, compelling sculptures that are refined through this exploration of material.&nbsp;

Geometries In Light

Soft Evidence is a solo exhibition by Mami Takahashi that brings together video, textile-based installation, performance documentation, and collaborative works to explore how women’s bodies communicate, resist legibility, and carry memory within everyday life. Rooted in attentiveness rather than spectacle, the exhibition considers the body as both a site of expression and a surface onto which social expectations, histories, and perceptions are projected.

Soft Evidence

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://qvrzaq.clicks.mlsend.com/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjM4NzU1NixcImxcIjoxNzMyNDE4MTEyMDcxOTM2NjMsXCJyXCI6MTczMjQxODIzMzYxMjM4NTIwfSIsInMiOiJiODA1ZjgyMzJkOTJmODAxIn0" target="_blank">Sarah Smelser: Sandia</a>Sandia&nbsp;is&nbsp;an ongoing series of monotypes begun in 2023. For Smelser, contemplation of the situational experience of being in&nbsp;a specific physical space is central, and to this end she seeks out impactful landscapes. Her daily ritual of walking becomes a method of attuning to the shifting qualities of light, smell, sound, and the subtle rhythms of a place; the unpacking of these sensory perceptions into visual form is the basis of her practice.Though the works in the "Sandia" series were born of a particular place, they do not attempt to describe it. Instead, the visual and physical experience of place—its memories, impressions, and contrasts to familiarity—feeds Smelser’s abstract sensibility. Fifteen works from the series are shown in this collection.The "Sandia" prints emerged from the artist’s lifelong love of the high desert environments of the American Southwest and, more specifically, from several weeks she spent at an artist residency in Albuquerque, NM, in 2022. Albuquerque sits on land that slopes from the Sandia Mountains down to the Rio Grande. The Sandias—Spanish for watermelon—were named for their warm pink-red color at sunset. The city presses up against the mountains, and harsh desert conditions permeate the urban environment. The intersection of the urban and natural landscapes became a particular focus for Smelser during her daily plantigrade perambulations.

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