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

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

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

Suburbs

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

North Side

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

Michigan Avenue

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

South Side

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

River North

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/familiar-texture/?utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz--3ltRN229IYW6amwf9BwlVoynj9P-wWQnCqcp7iqRNGTlfMqSkuurGL0gvDRvyto79NLfEDi-NC3vxrvl6oHLkgUth4KUD_YekpyhDAXRiMjpD1io&amp;_hsmi=343424237&amp;utm_content=343424237&amp;utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Details</a> Childhood memories of home are reconstructed in the form of textiles and fibers by artists Hangama Amiri, Keith Jackson, Yvette Mayorga, Tressa Prisbrey, and Dalila Sanabria. Each artist presents interior settings such as a bedroom inspired by fantasies, a living room of communal gatherings, or a storage space that marked the passage of time. Each of these sites memorialize social and environmental influences that shaped the future of an individual. The use of or reference to textiles and fibers, such as clothing, blankets, boxes, carpet, or upholstery, imbues memories and feelings with a tactile quality found in the rooms re-created by each artist. Importantly, they do not depict themselves or others in these scenes. This anonymity encourages imagined conversations, interactions, sounds, or scents of homeland to emerge from a variety of perspectives. By relying on textures—both literally and figuratively—the exhibition provides context for domestic spaces where an origin story is found, and a familiar emotional weight is recognized. Together, the works celebrate the right to choose from narratives of the past and how these stories inform and enrich the fiber of one’s being. Image: Yvette Mayorga, Bedroom After 15th (detail), 2022; acrylic piping on Disney TV, purses, shoes, lotion, wooden shelves, lamp, ceramic, bookbag, sneakers, Hello Kitty bubble blower, clock, faux books, mirrors, wood, pillows, wall paintings, nightstand, acrylic piping on bike, acrylic piping on canvas, and video; 9 x 9 x 10 ft. Courtesy of the artist.

Familiar Texture: The Fibers of Childhood and Home

Kim Storage Gallery is pleased to present Snack Shop, a solo exhibition featuring paintings created at a pivotal moment in Gabrielle Marie Stone's practice. At a time when continuing her painting practice felt uncertain, the artist considered converting the front exhibition space of her studio into a snack shop—a practical solution to keep the lights on and sustain her creative work.While the snack shop concept never came to fruition, the paintings in this exhibition are the first pieces that occupied that never-to-be retail space. Intimate and episodic, they offer entry points rather than resolutions, inviting viewers into a world that sits somewhere between necessity and indulgence. Like little snacks, these works provide sustenance in quieter ways—not essential, yet deeply nourishing.Snack Shop names both the space and practice as it almost was, honoring the conditions in which the work was made: adaptive, provisional, and hopeful. The paintings retain their inherent dreamlike and atmospheric qualities, yet the exhibition grounds them in the real economies and lived decisions of making art today—a reflection on vulnerability, resilience, and the creative impulse that persists even in uncertainty.Gabrielle Stone (b. 1990) is a contemporary abstract painter based in Chicago, IL. Her work explores the nature of place using color, form, and materiality to depict environments that are whimsical in their reimagining. Influenced by her deep attachment to physical spaces, Stone’s paintings communicate geometry and structure while embodying its very dissolution.Stone holds a Bachelor of Arts in studio art and creative writing from Carleton College where she studied under artists Fred Hagstrom and David Lefkowitz, art historian Ross Elfline, and curator Margaret Pezalla-Granlund. The late artist, Larry McKim, was also a significant mentor in her early years before leaving the east coast.Location: 207 E Buffalo St, Suite 404, Milwaukee, WI 53202 (Marshall Building, 4th floor)Image: Sound of Satin,&nbsp;Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 46"

Snack Shop

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://experience.mcachicago.org/7252/7259" target="_blank">Get Tickets</a> Admission is free to Family Day attendees. Make yourself big and make yourself little, play with perspective and scale. Join us for a smaller-than-usual Family Day while the rest of the museum opens a new exhibition.Designed for children under 12 and their grown-ups, MCA Family Days invite our youngest visitors to be the museum’s artists, thinkers, and collaborators. Image: Family Day | It’s Alive!, MCA Chicago, April 12, 2025. Photo: Natasha Moustache, © MCA Chicago.

Family Day | Mini Mundo

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 2026, 2pm — 4pm&nbsp;(the gallery will be open 10am — 4pm)Artist Talk: 4pm About the exhibitionLeah Ke Yi Zheng’s upcoming exhibition presents a complete series of 64 paintings based on the hexagrams of the&nbsp; I Ching (Book of Changes), a foundational text in Chinese philosophy that offers insights into the changing nature of existence. Each painting reflects on a hexagram not through literal representation, but through an evolving visual language shaped by abstraction, intuition, and the interplay of light and material. As she works with silk and hand-built hardwood stretchers, in continual difference, the exhibition becomes a meditation on change itself: how it is read, made visible, and experienced through painting.Zheng’s practice brings together traditional Chinese materialities and conceptual art methodologies to explore transformation, multiplicity, and the logic of variation. It is rooted in a dialogue between Eastern and Western modes of thought and influenced by thinkers such as John Cage and Yuk Hui. In this project, the&nbsp;I Ching&nbsp;is not only a reference, it is a method, a structure, and a philosophical companion. This is a one-work exhibition: Zheng considers the full sequence as a total and single work in itself, with every painting still an individualized piece.&nbsp;For&nbsp;Change, I Ching (64 Paintings), Zheng has also subtly reshaped the exhibition architecture. The transformation is understated rather than dramatic, but carefully calibrated to heighten the play of light throughout the space, and, at times, to redirect it in dialogue with the paintings. By covering certain windows, adjusting the proportions of select walls, and building a new rhythm around the room’s perimeter, Zheng creates conditions that privilege what she calls “the light of the here and now.” As daylight shifts over the course of the day, the silk paintings shift with it, their surfaces absorbing and reflecting minute changes in color and brightness. In turn, these variations reveal the altered space itself, making the architecture and the paintings co-responsive, changing together in real time.&nbsp;Curated by Myriam Ben Salah and Karsten Lund. About the ArtistLEAH KE YI ZHENG (b.1988, China) lives and works in Chicago. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include&nbsp;Machine(s)&nbsp;at Layr, Vienna (2025);&nbsp;I-Ching/Machineat Mendes Wood DM, New York (2025);&nbsp;Leah Ke Yi Zheng&nbsp;at Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2024);&nbsp;John Cage, Leah Ke Yi Zheng: The Grasshopper Lies Heavy&nbsp;at Castle Gallery, Los Angeles (2024);&nbsp;Leah Ke Yi Zheng&nbsp;at David Lewis Gallery, New York (2023); and&nbsp;Currency @ Swiss National Bank, Zurich&nbsp;at Soccer Club Club, Chicago (2021). Recent group exhibitions include New Museum, New York (2025); Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2023); and Caffé Centrale, Monte Castello di Vibio (2022) among others. She was awarded a 2019 – 2021 Fellowship from The Arts Club of Chicago. CreditsLead support for this exhibition is provided by Murat Ahmed &amp; Katherine Mackenzie and School Museum Fund, The Hees Family. Principal support is provided by Gay-Young Cho and Christopher Chiu.Major annual support for the Renaissance Society is provided by the Mellon Foundation. Renaissance Society programs are supported by Teiger Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Annual support is provided by The Provost’s Discretionary Fund at the University of Chicago.All Renaissance Society publications are made possible by The Mansueto Foundation Publications Program. EventsOpening Reception&nbsp;Sat, Jan 10, 2-4pm&nbsp;&nbsp;With artist talk at 4pm PerformanceEli KeszlerSun, Feb 15, 2pm Eli Keszler is a Grammy-nominated artist, composer, and percussionist based in New York. Whether performing an improvised solo set at the drum kit or writing an electro-acoustic score for a film, he brings an agile experimentation to his work. For this site-specific appearance, Keslzer performs live in the gallery space in the afternoon light. Within this unique architectural and acoustic setting, he offers his own take on some of the dynamics at play in Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s exhibition, including change and variation, iterative multiplicity, and logics of impermanence. DiscussionSpecial Guests of the ArtistWith Danny Bredar, Gaylen Gerber, and Oscar ZhengSun, Mar 22, 2pm For this informal discussion in the gallery space, Leah Ke Yi Zheng is joined by three people from her close circle: artists Danny Bredar and Gaylen Gerber, and her son Oscar Zheng. Each of them brings an intimate familiarity with her practice and a deeply personal perspective on her work. In an impromptu, unscripted exchange, they surface aspects of Zheng’s exhibition that might not emerge in a formal artist talk. Their conversation mirrors the spirit of the&nbsp;I Ching&nbsp;itself, which, according to Zheng, absorbs all aspects of life. Visit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://renaissancesociety.org/" target="_blank">renaissancesociety.org</a>&nbsp;for more information.

Leah Ke Yi Zheng: Change

Now in its 59th year,&nbsp;Watercolor Wisconsin&nbsp;was started in 1966 to honor the depth and breadth of watercolor in the state.Jurors Jessica Cochran and Peggy Macnamara will select work for the 2025 exhibition. Jessica Cochran is the Deputy Director of the Renaissance Society, an independent contemporary art museum on the University of Chicago campus. She has worked as a curator, administrator, consultant, and educator in the realm of contemporary art for 20 years. Peggy Macnamara has served as the Artist-in-Residence at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History since 1990 and as an Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2001. Image: Carlotta Miller, Soaring Renovation, 2024, Watercolor, 34 1/4 x 23 1/4 inches, Racine Art Museum, Helen Rusk Memorial Purchase Award from&nbsp;Watercolor Wisconsin 2024, Photography: Tyler Potter

Watercolor Wisconsin 2025

Beginning April 1, 2026,&nbsp;the&nbsp;Racine Art Museum (RAM) will&nbsp;present&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK-2B1GaexiNjzR3MVijOd55ua0qY6FxfgoA3PTJvBp91mffztEZOBpPQwZkCFIO2tFyE-3DiQWA_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLQij9mq4AdTVgAgcfJX-2F-2FPTu332zUjMMqljcxl9w9r3D05K4mfLxUOgZYVRxvaxIW02kdGTI-2BPwZJXgH3pCRyhb8BKwZW2NXkVIJHADga4H8TX-2FV0zJg5lNtHfy1CDRB4HUgtMGCCrmiFpy-2FHogfhl5QdsT8o5iNvIMA8KtP4Ks6Ghb95coJw-2BaeO1DYKdhEV0bVsUpggLW0ZkwLyDdBO42cP1O5REmNKguJ6hi6bGzUO9ibrJ0oXtPRqoPTnTC5jdkMYc9SAztBFIfNcSd7fmwpk9diTH603se-2BuMAmwXKIgKc-2FKAp-2BUj0LcQCGOwf8w-3D-3D" target="_blank">RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2026</a>, the 17th edition of a popular annual exhibition featuring art made from or inspired by colorful PEEPS®&nbsp;Brand marshmallow candy. Since its inception in 2010, this signature experience has captured worldwide attention by inviting artists of all ages and skill levels to work with a new creative medium or subject matter. New in 2026, the exhibition will expand into a larger gallery space and include a specially commissioned installation inspired by the theme.&nbsp; Curating an exhibition of PEEPS®-inspired artwork is somewhat unexpected for a museum. However, the concept of working with nontraditional media is supported by RAM’s focus on collecting contemporary craft and material-based art. Artists consistently push material boundaries, which is apparent in many works within the museum’s permanent collection that utilize materials produced for purposes other than art-making. RAM’s beloved exhibition has become a melting pot of creative expression since it encourages artists to step out of their comfort zones and work with a material unlike anything else, or push themselves to incorporate the iconic PEEPS® Brand shapes in their chosen medium. Taking inspiration from pop culture, famous artists, sports, and everything in between, artists have combined PEEPS® with such art-making mediums as painting, ceramics, screen-printing, woodworking, papier mâché, glass fusing, and 3-D printing. RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2026&nbsp;will be the first iteration of this show to be presented in one of the museum’s first-floor permanent gallery spaces. This highly requested move will enhance the overall experience by increasing visibility of the creative display and improving visitor traffic flow. Entry to&nbsp;RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2026&nbsp;is free and open to individuals and groups across the globe.&nbsp;Awards in multiple categories will be judged by a panel of experts based on creativity and the best use or representation of PEEPS®. Continuing a much-loved tradition, museum visitors are invited to vote for their favorite piece in the exhibition for the coveted PEEPles Choice Award, which will be announced after the end of the show.&nbsp; Works may be delivered in person at RAM on March 13 and 14, 2026, 10:00 am ­– 4:00 pm. Shipped entries must arrive at the Racine Art Museum, 441 Main Street, Racine, Wisconsin 53403, between March 9–13, 2026. All submissions must include a completed&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK-2B-2Fnax-2F1N9bJdX-2FU52fZ19M-2BBLnGgnX5aZpN-2BicPOE5W8OCR-2B-2BbXmscewyaG4Q3VcvX8vEzuF-2BOdhTp0abqyLpwFg6-_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLQij9mq4AdTVgAgcfJX-2F-2FPTu332zUjMMqljcxl9w9r3D05K4mfLxUOgZYVRxvaxIW02kdGTI-2BPwZJXgH3pCRyhb8BKwZW2NXkVIJHADga4H8TX-2FV0zJg5lNtHfy1CDRB4HUgtMGCCrmiFpy-2FHogfhn4maalMF-2BHncoNexCIdIn8N-2FI5BIS6TWMc4eUMgxNc13YQ-2FsbY8uDXNNDazid-2BxwK1clif3kEbXmhK-2BQRmgdLVyL61Ljy27i7WFCa-2BYcm3Ey7upQzKbIpL3JC5o6Tl1BfEbGEpzmqUKycUseeCpwZLoFc7L2IFxl7gw6-2F9VngilQ-3D-3D" target="_blank">entry form</a>. In addition to regular submissions for&nbsp;RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2026, the museum is seeking proposals for a large-scale, site-specific installation to accompany the reimagined exhibition in its new location. This paid opportunity is open to artists who are 18 years of age or older and reside anywhere within driving distance to RAM. Proposals, which should fit the lighthearted spirit of the exhibition, must be submitted via the museum’s website by 4:00 pm CDT on December 5, 2025. Further information about both artistic opportunities can be found on RAM’s website,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK-2B1GaexiNjzR3MVijOd55ua0qY6FxfgoA3PTJvBp91mfcSkOceErIy11d5tSLPrR14-3Dbsom_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLQij9mq4AdTVgAgcfJX-2F-2FPTu332zUjMMqljcxl9w9r3D05K4mfLxUOgZYVRxvaxIW02kdGTI-2BPwZJXgH3pCRyhb8BKwZW2NXkVIJHADga4H8TX-2FV0zJg5lNtHfy1CDRB4HUgtMGCCrmiFpy-2FHogfhk7oot8zKA6gy-2FhxjgqEmgg7oID3xuOPpR0yVokufuUvQ8T-2BgbBa38AFAq2kj6RCo7NuZX2rmTeVEu7Egwnzp1JrBj27IaOSTFK3BT59XwnPtgVeE2FKciMVXdacDGyfg8F1l5SSm-2FeA3XTVFtjq75wQRCpuKkptxoEBQjyMT1lJw-3D-3D" target="_blank">ramart.org</a>. Pictured: Debby PeckCirque du Soleil—“La Peeps”, 2025PEEPS® Brand marshmallow candy, foam, polymer clay, pipe cleaners, beads, glitter glue, lace, glass, curtain rings, latex paint, and google eyesPEEPle’s Choice Award,&nbsp;RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2025Photography: Rachel Comande&nbsp;

RAM PEEPS® Brand Art Exhibition 2026

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

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/v1767717174/ilfd0yflqur2wkpapnqg.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

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

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

<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.

Sarah Smelser: Sandia (online exhibition)

In partnership with Chicago Housing Authority, during the summer of 2025 Hyde Park Art Center carried out a mural production program. Artist and educator&nbsp;Dorian&nbsp;Sylvain led a select group of young adults to design and complete a mural on the exterior of Hyde Park Art Center’s building. The education of individuals of all ages and backgrounds is core to Sylvain’s practice, with a particular focus on students within the age group of 18 – 25 years old. Sylvain’s teaching and leadership with this group centered on developing artistic skills and professionalism, while working with Art Center community to carry out a design process towards a finished mural. Through hands-on experience, this summer cohort were provided with materials, resources, and instruction to complete a large-scale mural while being exposed to professional artists, public art in Chicago through, and the Art Center’s expansive community.

Nature is Arts Muse

The sun was formed 4.6 billion years ago. It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for its light to travel to Earth. The calendar as we know it, based on cycles of the solar year, was first implemented four and a half centuries ago in 1582. Days still track our planet’s rotation. Years follow our orbit around the sun. Months originally matched lunar cycles. The average human life span equals 26,784 nights or sunrises. In some places, where people have to watch the sky for other reasons, it’s 12,000 less. The oldest person on record lived 122 years. The oldest living now is 115. The clock is a device that constitutes time as it measures it. Time used to be local, based on the sun’s position. That changed on “The Day of Two Noons,” in 1883, when U.S. railroads adopted standardized time zones. Four people who woke up this morning can say they’ve been on the moon. No one has stood there since 1972. Up to 6500 stars are visible to the naked eye at any one location. In most cities around the world, one sees only a fraction of this. Palomar Observatory, on a California mountain, once had the largest optical telescope in the world. It lost the title in 1976, but it’s still used to observe celestial objects, collecting incoming light. Italo Calvino wrote a book about a person, a seeker of the cosmic in the everyday, who shares his name with that place. At 118 pages,&nbsp;Mr. Palomar&nbsp;takes maybe 3 to 4 hours to read. AI doesn’t experience time as a continuous flow, or have a concept for it like we do. Its perception of “now”, if one can say that, will change as its processing speed increases. We can predict where all the stars in the sky will be a hundred years from now. There isn’t a good count for the number of fireflies every summer, but it’s easily in the hundreds of millions, or more. Each one lives for only a few weeks after emerging from the ground. Once there were 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons flying overhead in America. Now there are none. Palomar&nbsp;is a group exhibition in two parts. Curated by Karsten Lund. Friends of Palomar Patron Circle: Maria Christina &amp; Guy-Karim Caland Puymartin. Renaissance Society programs are supported by the Teiger Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Image: Sarah and Joseph Belknap,&nbsp;4 Months of the Sun, 2014

Palomar (Part 1)

With origins dating to 1875, the art collection at the University of Notre Dame is one of the oldest and most esteemed in the United States. To celebrate and share this landmark event, the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art will host a major exhibition highlighting many of the recent gifts it has received to commemorate the 150th&nbsp;anniversary. The gifts range from single works of art to entire collections.

Bridging Time and Place: The 150th Anniversary of the University of Notre Dame Art Museum

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

Ann Toebbe: Cooler by the Lake

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

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

Weeds Grow in All Directions&nbsp;is an exhibition of Cydney Lewis's collage works and large-scale assemblages. Using everyday materials found in her daily life–plastic bags, packing paper, magazine cutouts, as well as rhinestones and textiles–Lewis creates otherworldly landscapes that prompt meditation on the destruction and resilience of the natural world. The works in the exhibition reward close looking—to find the extraordinary in the overlooked, to reconnect with energies around us, and to feel the pulse of our shared ecology through playful wonder and poignant reflection. In this body of work, the resilient weed is both metaphor and guide, challenging our perceptions of the disregarded and revealing the quiet spirit inherent in all natural matter. In Lewis's work, the material world intersects with the realm of elemental spirits, creating a layered tapestry of human emotion and urgent ecological awareness.

Cydney M. Lewis: Weeds Grow in All Directions

The Paradox of Inaction&nbsp;is a new site-specific installation composed of over 160 cast ceramic forms. The ceramic pieces, arranged in low-lying platforms throughout the 2300 sq ft gallery, appear abstract at first glance, but when seen collectively, create the illusion of a submerged suburban neighborhood. The installation recreates a catastrophic scene that has become increasingly common in coastal communities as a result of global warming. Placing the viewers at the center of the scene, the installation invites reflection and a deeper understanding of the threat of current and future natural disasters.&nbsp;Throughout her career, Ruttan has endeavored to create visual representations of massive traumatic events that defy the human capacity to comprehend fully. For Ruttan, the process of representing these events by spending countless hours rendering them visible is an attempt to make them feel more real for herself as well as others. Her hope is that this work serves as a call to action for others to shift habits and prevent further inaction.&nbsp;This exhibition is generously supported by the Graham Foundation. Ruttan is a project-based artist whose work focuses on topical investigations. Her work has been exhibited at Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Chicago Cultural Center, Crystal Bridges Art Museum (Bentonville, AR), The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), Kent State University Art Museum (Kent, OH), The Frist Museum (Nashville, TN), Sweeney Art Gallery (Riverside, CA), Document Gallery (Chicago, IL), Galerie Wit (Netherlands), Rocket Gallery (London), The Drawing Center (New York City, NY). Awards include recognition from The Illinois Arts Council; Jerome Foundation, Art &amp; Technology Residency; Wexner Museum, Artists Residency; and Wild Animal Park.

Alison Ruttan: The Paradox of Inaction

The sun was formed 4.6 billion years ago. It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for its light to travel to Earth. The calendar as we know it, based on cycles of the solar year, was first implemented four and a half centuries ago in 1582. Days still track our planet’s rotation. Years follow our orbit around the sun. Months originally matched lunar cycles. The average human life span equals 26,784 nights or sunrises. In some places, where people have to watch the sky for other reasons, it’s 12,000 less. The oldest person on record lived 122 years. The oldest living now is 115. The clock is a device that constitutes time as it measures it. Time used to be local, based on the sun’s position. That changed on “The Day of Two Noons,” in 1883, when U.S. railroads adopted standardized time zones. Four people who woke up this morning can say they’ve been on the moon. No one has stood there since 1972. Up to 6500 stars are visible to the naked eye at any one location. In most cities around the world, one sees only a fraction of this. Palomar Observatory, on a California mountain, once had the largest optical telescope in the world. It lost the title in 1976, but it’s still used to observe celestial objects, collecting incoming light. Italo Calvino wrote a book about a person, a seeker of the cosmic in the everyday, who shares his name with that place. At 118 pages,&nbsp;Mr. Palomar&nbsp;takes maybe 3 to 4 hours to read. AI doesn’t experience time as a continuous flow, or have a concept for it like we do. Its perception of “now”, if one can say that, will change as its processing speed increases. We can predict where all the stars in the sky will be a hundred years from now. There isn’t a good count for the number of fireflies every summer, but it’s easily in the hundreds of millions, or more. Each one lives for only a few weeks after emerging from the ground. Once there were 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons flying overhead in America. Now there are none. Palomar&nbsp;is a group exhibition in two parts. Curated by Karsten Lund. Friends of Palomar Patron Circle: Maria Christina &amp; Guy-Karim Caland Puymartin. Renaissance Society programs are supported by the Teiger Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Image: Sarah and Joseph Belknap,&nbsp;12 Months of the Sun, 2024

Palomar (Part 2)

Lavar Munroe&nbsp;is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the human condition through a blend of immersive travel, cultural research, and material experimentation. Working across mixed media painting, sculpture, and drawing, Munroe&nbsp;operates&nbsp;in the spirit of an anthropologist—integrating into communities across Africa, including Tanzania, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, to engage firsthand with local rituals, ceremonies, and belief systems. These encounters, combined with his upbringing in the Bahamas, fuel a practice rooted in storytelling, folklore, and mythology.&nbsp;Munroe’s richly layered works—often described as hybrids between painting and relief sculpture—combine&nbsp;everyday&nbsp;and symbolic materials such as glass, synthetic flowers, feathers, and&nbsp;newspaper&nbsp;with acrylic, oil pastel, and house paint. These elements, many drawn from his childhood and travels, are woven into fantastical, dreamlike compositions that examine themes of home, utopia, escape, and belonging. His work challenges viewers to navigate multiple narratives that span personal memory, cultural identity, and collective imagination.&nbsp;&nbsp;Munroe (b.1982, Nassau, Bahamas) earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (2007) and MFA Studio Art at Washington University, St. Louis (2013).&nbsp;He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013) and was awarded a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2016), Benny Andrews Fellow from the MacDowell Colony (2016), and The Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity-University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC (2014). Recent solo exhibitions include&nbsp;Larkin Durey, London, UK (2024);&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2023);&nbsp;Jack Bell Gallery, London, England (2022, 2021, 2014); Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2021); NOMAD, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, LA (2018); SCAD Museum of Art and Gutstein Gallery, Savannah, GA (2016); and The Central Bank, Nassau, Bahamas (2010).&nbsp;Munroe’s work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally at&nbsp;The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI;&nbsp;Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben, CH;&nbsp;Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, SA;&nbsp;The&nbsp;National Art Gallery of&nbsp;The Bahamas; Centre Pompidou Metz, FR; Ichihara Lakeside Museum; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; Perez Art Museum Miami, FL; Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC, among others.&nbsp;Munroe will have a solo show with&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;in 2026 and will co-represent&nbsp;The Bahamas at the 2026 Venice Biennale.&nbsp;Munroe’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD;&nbsp;Fondation&nbsp;de France;&nbsp;Fondation&nbsp;Gandur&nbsp;pour&nbsp;l’Art, Genève, Switzerland; The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY; The Central Bank of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; and the MAXXI Museum, Rome, IT. He is the recipient of honors and awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in honor of Robert De Niro, Sr., (2023), the Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist (2021), Distinguished Alums Award from Sam Fox School of Art and Design from Washington University of St. Louis (2018), Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence from the University of North Carolina (2015), Sam Fox Dean’s Initiative Fund (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship (2012), The Kraus Family Foundation Award (2011), and The National Endowment for the Arts Grant (2011). Munroe lives and works between Baltimore, MD, and&nbsp;The Bahamas.&nbsp;

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