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

In 2022, RAM organized a landmark exhibition for its street-facing Windows on Fifth Gallery. With artworks chosen from RAM’s collection,&nbsp;<a style="color: var(--link_color);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ramart.org/exhibit/on-fire-women-glass/" target="_blank">On Fire: Surveying Women in Glass in the Late-Twentieth Century</a>&nbsp;offered a cursory look at how women were shaping glass as an art material in the 1980s and 1990s. The exhibition title alludes to certain techniques of physically working with glass as well as the idea that some artists were innovating and making names for themselves—that they were “on fire” in their art world trajectory. This exhibition, an expanded version of the 2022 show, offers a deeper dive into this vital period in contemporary craft by outlining the concerns of artists who explore the sculptural, visual, metaphorical, and creative potential of glass. Seen through the eyes of women, it reflects developments with the medium as an art material two and three decades after studio glass concepts were being implemented into university programs and contemporary practices. Notably, a portion of the gallery is dedicated to supporting materials, such as images, articles, and books, which offer a broader context for understanding the artists, medium, and field.Glass does not have a single history as it has been used in many different ways. Its usage in a decorative context still exists, but the twentieth century also saw the academic establishment of it as a viable art-making material. This exhibition includes various examples of work produced within the studio glass framework—as self-consciously made art reflecting artistic investigations of materials, processes, and ideas. Artists represented include Sonja Blomdahl, Kimiake Higuchi, Concetta Mason, Flo Perkins, Kari Russell-Pool, Ginny Ruffner, Acquaetta Williams, Ann Wolff, and Toots Zynsky. Expanding on the 2022 exhibition, this iteration also features examples from collaborative teams, such as John Littleton and Kate Vogel and Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott. These artists explore numerous topics, including identity, beauty, color, pattern, nature, abstraction, form, the figure, metaphor, process, and the properties and abilities of glass as a material. There is also a range of techniques represented, including blowing, lampworking, casting, fusing, carving, polishing, pâte de verre, assembling, and various surface treatments. In essence, the exhibition summarizes the experimental nature of the artists and studio glass in general. A critic of another recent all-female glass exhibition lamented about needing to draw attention to the fact that all of the artists were women—are they artists first or women first? These conversations can also be limiting as they sidestep more fluid gender dynamics. Yet, in this particular moment in time, it is indeed important to draw attention to components beyond the objects themselves. Who the makers are and how they move through the world influences the work even if it is not the identifiable subject matter. Image: Ginny RuffnerTempest in a Spoon&nbsp;from the&nbsp;Structuring Beauty Series, 1999Glass and enamel paintRacine Art Museum, Gift of Stanley and Evelyn AsraelPhotography: Jarvis Lawson

On Fire Part II: Surveying Women in Glass in the Late-Twentieth Century

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago&nbsp;is an intergenerational group exhibition that highlights Chicago’s essential, yet often underacknowledged, role in the story of queer art and activism. The exhibition examines this history from the mid-1980s, when activists radically mobilized in response to the US government’s disastrous handling of the AIDS crisis. In this moment of change, activists reclaimed the historically pejorative epithet “queer” as a liberatory term, encompassing all who purposefully deviate from heteronormative society. Drawn from the MCA’s collection and other local collections,&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;follows this paradigm shift in LGBTQ+ history by bringing together work from over 30 artists and collectives working in Chicago from the 1980s to the present.These artists address queerness through diverse media and methods: documenting clandestine queer spaces in photographs, creating sculptures that challenge normative depictions of gender and sexuality, and exploring queer intimacy through drawings, paintings, and videos.&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;also features archival materials related to groups who innovatively combine artistic practices with their activism. The exhibition takes its title from Chicago’s official motto,&nbsp;Urbs in Horto, which translates to “city in a garden.” In the context of this presentation, this motto speaks to the exhibited artists’ and activists’ utopian visions of a metropolitan sanctuary for people of all races, genders, and sexualities. As queer people continue to fight for their lives and livelihoods under ongoing and renewed political threats, these visions remain as urgent today as ever.City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago&nbsp;is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator.

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago

Dec. 13 – Jan. 30, 2026 CSI Project Space: Little, but Bold! CSI Member Benefit Art Auction

CSI Project Space: Little, but Bold! 

Witches are guardians of suppressed forms of knowledge; they channel ancestral wisdom and embodied practices that have long been dismissed or feared. Visionary agents of transformation, spiritual practitioners conjure alternative futures through acts of resistance, imagination, and care.&nbsp;Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment&nbsp;explores the rise of the occult, new spirituality, and magic in contemporary culture, and reads it as a symptom of undergoing social transformations. Featuring contemporary artists who challenge dominant systems of patriarchy and colonialism to reclaim power on their own terms, this exhibition situates the practice of witchcraft into the past, present, and future acknowledging it as a form of feminist and political empowerment, and a radical proposition for a fully decolonial way of being.&nbsp; Witches, Bitches&nbsp;brings together works that engage with the iconography, stereotypes, and active practices of witchcraft to explore themes of spiritual power, collective energy,&nbsp;alternative cosmologies, and environmental consciousness. The exhibition features works spanning from the 1970s to the present by about thirty women-identifying international artists from different generations. Some of them self-identify with witchcraft or draw on practices of magic and spirituality, while others engage these themes through a critical and defiant lens. The exhibition will be accompanied by a robust public program including a talk series with public scholars and authors specializing in witchcraft, workshops in spell-casting with witchcraft practitioners, programming for families, performances, panel discussions with artists from different generations, and film screenings.&nbsp; Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment&nbsp;is co-curated by Ionit Behar, PhD, DPAM Curator, and Magdalena Moskalewicz, PhD, Chief Curator and Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, Sheldon Museum of Art, and organized by DePaul Art Museum. Support for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.&nbsp; <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://resources.depaul.edu/art-museum/exhibitions/Pages/witches-bitches-witchcraft-as-empowerment.aspx" target="_blank">Details</a> Image credit: Tirtzah Bassel,&nbsp;Four Sweepers of the Apocalypse,&nbsp;2025. Oil on canvas. 72 x 96 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Witches, Bitches: Witchcraft as Empowerment

Yupo work by Chicago-based artist&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://vesnajovanovic.com/" target="_blank">Vesna Jovanovic</a>&nbsp;features invented spaces that collapse body and setting in dramatic and humorous measure. Jovanovic considers how we navigate social space and relationships in a post-pandemic culture. Her research led her to read Rabelais, a French medieval writer, who included bodily topics such as food, sex, defecation, and slapstick violence in comical ways in his novels. Some literary theorists claim that his grotesque humor deliberately maintains a tradition from medieval marketplace carnivals where an emphasis on the body—in contrast to the mind or soul—restored a sense of kinship among the masses. These festivals diffused tensions between people from different social positions and created camaraderie, if only for a day. Jovanovic’s seductively dark and funny imagery of candy and other items wedged in fleshy cavities reminds us not to take life too seriously.

Vesna Jovanovic: Carnival

Opening at the Racine Art Museum (RAM) on March 12, 2025,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(247, 143, 57);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK-2FjDPvzcE-2F0N1PM-2BTx4Y3zd7FZ-2Bd1Ua-2FLcgXQzE0mtRbw-3D-3D_2Re_a1zzESVdmgLIQ4rlql6kbXT9QXaGGWYBxHAPtO1QqWO5GLp4idxebnEhHBD62PapFGhVibvX636tV4VNXI9Yc1fC3t6I93nvs128KylNuVSG4w8b6TD-2BSQhnOlpvnvnpFtzUMvSCikhZbhybTpfD-2B0ndfu50xgxCFjZQzQqK1fOcTlhX-2BRrO0O4nAgDPUkTGaehksClVOLINAXSjtnUzXR8ZKWwGh0QTjvG3iPLVYcP1XK0LCRdt1sQ26HiP09DlJp7-2BEeaYHrmf0yLvpEVBeX27-2Bo4o3I15g1nbUfpCnnAFVTVTkMvPT9eRTmr7HrsmEnIs7xUu4UKb0NikvQZYBcM7YnX8adZ3hMT5S-2FGRV2eXnUDwiTvGWMtJfSk2gec7x5dVdBaKQpeUrJDHQPJFhg-3D-3D" target="_blank">RAM Showcase: Bodies</a>&nbsp;features works created from clay or washi paper that explore the human body as form and content. This exhibition will remain on display through February 21, 2026.The human figure is often used to tell stories, symbolize existence, and represent the human condition. Featuring works from RAM’s collection,&nbsp;RAM Showcase: Bodies&nbsp;reflects people’s desire to study, analyze, and respond to the notion of the human body, with pieces on display that underscore the enduring artistic interest in the body as subject. The&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(247, 143, 57);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK9KXaQ6SLoxPqPiJ1ykV514-2B1mdaYq5n3BVmc6w-2B-2FQgWQ-3D-3Df65z_a1zzESVdmgLIQ4rlql6kbXT9QXaGGWYBxHAPtO1QqWO5GLp4idxebnEhHBD62PapFGhVibvX636tV4VNXI9Yc1fC3t6I93nvs128KylNuVSG4w8b6TD-2BSQhnOlpvnvnpFtzUMvSCikhZbhybTpfD-2B0ndfu50xgxCFjZQzQqK1fOcTlhX-2BRrO0O4nAgDPUkTGaehksClVOLINAXSjtnUzXR8ZKWwGh0QTjvG3iPLVYcODwwQL4fAtoF-2Fq7rWfMz4fjDbJH6uf8-2BsEl7BV4h2Gv7UTGoLpb8LGW7ObuWGLPZzA2KwFMqauzqimyjGEyNVrI-2Bb9eBa6z-2B5RT5h4d-2Bqaysd-2Bh1Dnn72ToJnaCvH1mJcLs6EAPT-2BTclF92v-2BlNnPF0uVT7slnEOdQZbLt-2BmZVvA-3D-3D" target="_blank">RAM Showcase&nbsp;exhibition series</a>&nbsp;at RAM and its second campus, RAM’s Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, focuses entirely on the work of contemporary artists of color. The fact that all of the works in&nbsp;RAM Showcase: Bodies&nbsp;were made by artists of color is a significant additional layer to the subject matter and ways it is depicted. This distinction is critical for some contemporary artists of color, as their work adds narratives to art histories that generally marginalized or excluded them.Individually, the artists represented in this exhibition explore a wide range of issues, including social and cultural dynamics, the sensual body, emotions, the connection between human beings and animals, history, and relationships between duality and otherness. Sometimes self-portraits, sometimes not, the subjects portrayed are envisioned or recorded through flat, drawn images or sculpted forms and reflect vibrant voices and engaging perspectives. Exhibitions at Racine Art Museum are made possible by:&nbsp;Platinum Partners—The Estate of Karen Johnson Boyd, David Charak, Judith and David Flegel Fund, Ron and Judith Isaacs, Racine Community Foundation, United Way of Racine County, Windgate Foundation;&nbsp;Diamond Partners—Ruffo Family Foundation, Ruth Arts Foundation, Diane Zebell;&nbsp;Gold Partners—Anonymous, A. C. Buhler Family, Robert E. Kohler Jr. Fund, Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation, Reliance Controls, Trio Foundation of St. Louis, W.T. Walker Group, Inc., Wisconsin Arts Board;&nbsp;Silver Partners—Anonymous, Sandy and Gus Antonneau, Baird, Lucy G. Feller, Ben and Dawn Flegel, Sharon and Tom Harty, Dave and Judy Hecker, Paula Kalke, Horizon Retail Construction, Inc., Johnson Financial Group, Lang Family Foundation, Dorothy MacVicar, Jan Serr &amp; John Shannon, Sandra Shove, Willard and Mary Walker;&nbsp;Bronze Partners—Carol Baylon, Rose and Peter Christensen, Dave’s Wine Garage, Educators Credit Union, Patricia and Richard Ehlert, Express Employment Professionals, Deborah Ganaway, Carol Griseto, Hitter’s Baseball, SC Johnson, Bill and Debbie Keland, Nancy and Nick Kurten, Susan Manalli, Norbell Foundation, JoAnna Poehlman, Rasmussen Diamonds, Harold and Lois Solberg, Kathy Stanghellini, Tito's, Twin Disc, Janna Waldeck, Barbara Waldman;&nbsp;Media Sponsor—Radio Milwaukee. The two campuses of the Racine Art Museum—RAM in downtown Racine at 441 Main Street and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts (Wustum) at 2519 Northwestern Avenue—are located in Racine, Wisconsin, a historic community on the shores of Lake Michigan. RAM is home to the largest contemporary craft collection in North America and has a reputation for its award-winning architecture and nationally recognized exhibition program. Wustum is home to the organization's diverse, award-winning art education programs and has presented significant art exhibitions since 1941. Both campuses of the Racine Art Museum are currently open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Admission rates are $10 for adults; $8 for students, seniors (62+), and veterans; and free for RAM members, children under 12, active military personnel, and NARM, ROAM, and AAM members.

RAM Showcase: Bodies

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago&nbsp;will become the&nbsp;exclusive U.S. venue for "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,"&nbsp;a comprehensive solo exhibition dedicated to the artist, musician, and activist Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo, Japan; currently residing in New York, NY),&nbsp;opening in October 2025. Traveling from Tate Modern in London, where it achieved record-breaking attendance, and developed in close collaboration with Ono’s studio, this&nbsp;groundbreaking retrospective spans seventy years&nbsp;of Ono’s innovative&nbsp;career. The&nbsp;exhibition features over 200 works, including participatory instruction pieces and scores, installations, a curated music room, films, music, photography, and archival materials. The exhibition highlights&nbsp;significant works from throughout Ono’s decades-long career, including the landmark performance piece "Cut Piece"&nbsp;(1964), a foundational work in performance and feminist art; her&nbsp;collaborations&nbsp;with&nbsp;prominent musicians&nbsp;such as&nbsp;John Cage,&nbsp;Ornette Coleman, and her late husband,&nbsp;John Lennon; selected activations of instruction-based artworks from her influential book&nbsp;"Grapefruit"(1964); innovative films from the 1960s and 1970s such as&nbsp;"FLY" (1970–71) and the once-banned "Film No.4 (Bottoms)"&nbsp;(1966–67), which she created as a "petition for peace"; recent works like her ongoing installation "Wish Tree" (1996–present); and public artworks emblematic of Ono’s enduring commitment to peace activism. On Saturdays, Sundays, and select Tuesdays throughout the full run of&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/yoko-ono-music-of-the-mind/" target="_blank">Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,</a>&nbsp;performers from all walks of life will activate Ono's deceptively simple "event scores" from her groundbreaking 1964 book&nbsp;Grapefruit. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/tca-zinefest-2025-the-power-of-prints/" target="_blank">Teen Creative Agency | Zine Fest 2025: The Power of Prints</a>Museum of Contemporary Art ChicagoDec 20, 2025 | 1–6 pm The MCA’s&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.org/learn/youth/tca" target="_blank">Teen Creative Agency (TCA)&nbsp;</a>is celebrating fourteen years (and counting) of DIY publications by teens! This event showcases the original artwork, activism, and social practice of Chicago-area youth in zine form. Join the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Teen Creative Agency for an afternoon of events and activities highlighting the past, present, and future of print making by Chicago teens. Visitors are invited to participate in activities organized by the TCA, such as zine making and on-site merch giveaways.﻿<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/six-scores-for-yoko-ono/" target="_blank">Six Scores for Yoko Ono</a>Kovler AtriumNov 4, 2025 | 6 pm Experience the musical context of Yoko Ono’s early work with performances of five 1960s scores—by Mieko Shiomi, Nam June Paik, Takehisa Kosugi, and George Maciunas—and a new commission by MCA Chanel Fellow, Andrew Hansung Park. The performances track the destruction of a violin, smashing boundaries between everyday sound and music. The&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://visit.mcachicago.org/introducing-the-mca-dna-research-initiative" target="_blank">MCA DNA Research Initiative</a>&nbsp;is a multi-year curatorial program, supported by the CHANEL Culture Fund, that invites early-career curators and writers to the museum for interdisciplinary research projects related to the institution’s collection. Focused on the intersection of visual art and performance, this initiative surfaces overlooked art historical narratives within the organization’s history while foregrounding the cross-disciplinary ethos that has been integral to the museum since its founding in 1967. Image: Yoko Ono with&nbsp;Glass Hammer, 1967, from&nbsp;Half-A-Wind Show, Lisson Gallery, London, UK, 1967. Artwork © Yoko Ono. Photo © Clay Perry.

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind

Opening Day Celebration: October 4th - 5th, 2025 ﻿The Smart Museum of Art presents&nbsp;Theaster Gates's first&nbsp;solo museum exhibition in his hometown of Chicago. A self-designated “keeper of objects,” the artist Theaster Gates investigates the value of things and their potential to hold layered meanings. He has been dedicated to investing in the care of these objects as a way to nurture stories and voices – often Black stories and voices – largely overlooked by history or institutional structures. The exhibition&nbsp;Theaster Gates: Unto Thee&nbsp;is rooted in several core collections of objects that have been part of Gates’s artistic practice which he acquired through the University of Chicago, where he is Professor of Visual Arts. Ranging from the Department of Art History’s glass lantern slides and&nbsp;display vitrines from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (formerly the Oriental Institute), to paint-stained concrete from the floors of Midway Studios and wooden pews made for Bond Chapel, all objects have been discarded and identified as no longer needed. In creating new works with them over the years – and, as will be done again, in new installations at the Smart – Gates challenges that notion of stasis by instead excavating more histories, more stories. These installations will be accompanied by Gates’s more recent work including paintings, ceramics, film, and pieces incorporating the archive of the Johnson Publishing Company. Rooted in materials and Gates’s interest in the process of making,&nbsp;Unto Thee&nbsp;embodies the relationships Gates has fostered within the University of Chicago, local communities, the South Side and broader Chicago. It underscores the artist’s unassailable belief in the potential of art to connect with and transform communities. The exhibition is accompanied by a site-specific installation as part of the Museum’s Threshold Lobby Series, which will be on view through July 2026. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://uchicago.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aba2086a45b4ee8391b89447b&amp;id=6d81ba16bf&amp;e=a6ad3ea4a5" target="_blank">Read the Exhibition Listing</a>

Theaster Gates: Unto Thee

CAB 6 will be open to the public and on view from September 12, 2025 through February 28, 2026. The hub of the Biennial will once again be the Chicago Cultural Center, located in downtown Chicago.

Chicago Architecture Biennial 2025

Over the past decade, the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) has sustained an international forum on architecture and urbanism centered in Chicago and has continued to produce the largest exhibition of contemporary architecture in North America every two years. CAB exhibitions and public programs have engaged over 2.2 million visitors with innovative ideas in design through over 400 original projects created by architects, artists and designers from nearly 50 countries. CAB is excited to celebrate its tenth anniversary with CAB 6, the next iteration of the Biennial to be held in 2025, led by Florencia Rodriguez, a writer, editor and Director of and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Architecture (UIC/SoArch), who will be the Biennial's first Latina Artistic Director.&nbsp; Titled&nbsp;Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, CAB 6 will present an expansive and multi-faceted exploration of the field of architecture and the built environment globally, specifically as they respond to and are remade by a rapidly changing world. In tandem with exhibitions, installations, events and a robust youth education program throughout Chicago, CAB 6 will also produce a series of initiatives, both local and virtual, that will expand the intellectual footprint of the Biennial beyond the city itself.&nbsp; The sixth edition of CAB, which is free and open to the public, will open its central exhibition in the Chicago Cultural Center on September 12, 2025 and run through February 28, 2026. Image: Image: Chicago: How Do You See? by Norman Kelley for CAB 1, 2015. Photo by Nathan Keay.

CAB 6

<a style="color: rgb(237, 125, 49);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK8yW-2BXyw5UQYrM55ZmS7mjePlRYQZlyaKPtMRp0luyHNesq46Np7sE-2F-2FPT2ta0hzX4-3DrDWG_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLQij9mq4AdTVgAgcfJX-2F-2FPTu332zUjMMqljcxl9w9r3NoRmsXeaDJt17yw0Bwdc3Xwn40iqTGYQf4nKFTgHyvqC1JX7YVIcYK01LpLq2CgQ-2FdzxHBkxuepSll1dN5U2zjwahWMisDGxBM-2B2Va361iP-2BPGr0H6PvTvjVGhVJNKfGtNDPbavuE8bnyAogeomoNlnsYTa5SsoMvxvMqQ7JceljQp4sQ4UnA8oE659YoY-2F-2B9NyCYC3qx41foND8EiD9xmT8oA3bL8-2F1HZEEroCpMLEkNlyaB2WuePtkTT6hb4q7csh9U55niPVSACtiVelAng-3D-3D" target="_blank">Monumental: Larger than Life-Size</a>—a new exhibition that invites viewers to explore “oversized” artwork from the museum’s permanent collection—opens at the Racine Art Museum (RAM) on August 1, 2025. This exhibition relates to the question of why human beings are fascinated by “real life” things that are rendered larger or smaller than life-size. Throughout art history, there are many examples of everyday objects that became mysterious or more compelling because of a shift in scale. From oversized body parts and clay vessels to an abnormally large bronze pear, the works on display in&nbsp;Monumental&nbsp;encourage viewers to consider how size affects expectations and opinions of art. RAM Director of Exhibitions and Collections Lena Vigna believes that, depending on a viewer’s perspective, this exhibition could be considered serious, playful, or both:“Oversize fruit, such as the bronze pear and the glass plum, encourages viewers to contemplate complex issues such<s>&nbsp;as</s>&nbsp;the relationship between consumerism, health, and safety. Are bigger and better products good for the environment or our health?” questions Vigna. “At the same time, large ceramic feet and heads are fantastical, calling to mind fairy tales and legends. Reflecting the concerns of contemporary artists who use traditional materials in unexpected ways, the works on display reflect things that are simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar as they blur the boundaries between reality and mystery.”Why are human beings fascinated by “real life” things that are rendered larger or smaller than life-size? Throughout art history, there are many examples of everyday objects that became mysterious or more compelling because of a shift in scale. From oversized body parts and clay vessels to an abnormally large bronze pear, these works from RAM’s collection encourage viewers to consider how size affects their expectations and opinions. On display in RAM’s street-facing Windows on Fifth Gallery,&nbsp;Monumental&nbsp;will be available for continual, free public viewing—24 hours a day, seven days a week. Further information about&nbsp;Monumental&nbsp;is available on RAM’s website,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(237, 125, 49);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.lVpDCVeqdBsS0YynwBNnWsI6uzjI-2B9jc-2BcioV3sOeK8yW-2BXyw5UQYrM55ZmS7mjePlRYQZlyaKPtMRp0luyHNesq46Np7sE-2F-2FPT2ta0hzX4-3D68Mw_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLQij9mq4AdTVgAgcfJX-2F-2FPTu332zUjMMqljcxl9w9r3NoRmsXeaDJt17yw0Bwdc3Xwn40iqTGYQf4nKFTgHyvqC1JX7YVIcYK01LpLq2CgQ-2FdzxHBkxuepSll1dN5U2zjwahWMisDGxBM-2B2Va361iPqPfxW42d4UX-2BEcYUi3JwvltYehZmIc-2BNM5oNTkLrlKdneP79LTAo8eQqYKhBe7ApfubFH63l5xIreTpq4X2-2FLM2OwP2AuroQc26AsyY9i2WBh4Eb25XVgINlB2oaWsOzs2A2G0RTkQXQj35S1rogNT47TPMqCW6apD2KYgQ0yaA-3D-3D" target="_blank">ramart.org</a>.&nbsp;

Monumental: Larger than Life-Size

The&nbsp;Driehaus Museum&nbsp;is proud to announce&nbsp;Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade,&nbsp;an exhibition illuminating the volume and breadth of Louis C. Tiffany’s vast artistic production. From the 1890s to the 1920s, Tiffany Studios created a captivating range of decorative lighting fixtures that embraced the technological shift from oil lamps to electricity and simultaneously met the styles and tastes of nineteenth and twentieth century consumers. Drawn from the expansive collections of the Museum and the private art collection of Richard H. Driehaus (now in the Art Exhibition Lending Foundation), the exhibition explores how the artisans at Tiffany Studios used a range of materials—including bronze, enamel, pottery, and glass—to bring Tiffany’s innovative lighting designs to life. Organized by guest curator Alexandra M. Ruggiero,&nbsp;Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade&nbsp;will be on view at the Driehaus Museum,&nbsp;50 E. Erie Street&nbsp;from&nbsp;September 12, 2025 to March 15, 2026.&nbsp;Executive Director of the Driehaus Museum&nbsp;Lisa M. Key&nbsp;says, “Many Chicagoans and tourists have seen Tiffany lamps in passing but have not had a chance to encounter them in depth or within a richly contextualized narrative. This is a chance to draw people back to the Driehaus Museum by inviting them to see familiar works in new ways. It is an opportunity for the Museum to highlight a core strength and position as a national leader in the complex storytelling of the Gilded Age and the interpretation of design and decorative arts from this time period. In this case, the exhibition will explore the broader context—from design processes, to materials, labor, and the influence of designers like Clara Driscoll—to reframe the narrative around Tiffany Studios. “Building on past exhibitions such as&nbsp;Eternal Light: The Sacred Stained-Glass Windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany&nbsp;(2019-2020) and&nbsp;Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection&nbsp;(2015),&nbsp;Tiffany: Beyond the Shade&nbsp;expands the narrative of Tiffany lamps beyond their iconic glass shades. Guest curator Alexandra Ruggiero&nbsp;says, “I am thrilled to partner with Driehaus Museum and present the&nbsp;extraordinary range of&nbsp;Louis C. Tiffany’s&nbsp;lighting fixtures&nbsp;with a new perspective. The exhibition features objects that exemplify Tiffany’s remarkable ability to marry innovation and outstanding design, enabling museum visitors a chance to marvel at the materiality and incredible artistry of Tiffany lamps.&nbsp;In addition to presenting a range of lamp types and designs, the exhibition will include a selection of decorative objects produced by Tiffany Studios, such as&nbsp;Favrile&nbsp;glass and pottery vases, enamel and bronze boxes, and a leaded-glass fire screen. The exhibition also includes noteworthy works never before exhibited at the Driehaus Museum, including a table lamp with an enameled base and a monumental bronze and Favrile glass chandelier. Within the setting of the Driehaus Museum, the exhibition contextualizes&nbsp;the significant output of Tiffany Studios and provides visitors with a look at the innovation, design, materiality, and business of Tiffany lamps.Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade&nbsp;deepens the natural partnership between the Driehaus Museum and the Richard H. Driehaus Art Exhibition Lending Foundation. By bringing together works from the Museum’s permanent collection and the Foundation holdings, the Museum can offer a broader, richer, and more nuanced presentation of Tiffany’s legacy—one that exemplifies Richard Driehaus’ belief in the power of beauty to inspire. This support deepens the Museum’s role as a cultural steward of the Richard H. Driehaus collection and extends its ability to tell new stories through exceptional design. ABOUT THE CURATORAlexandra M. Ruggiero is a decorative arts curator specializing in glass and a Consulting Curator at The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in New York. Ruggiero enjoyed a decade of curatorial experience at The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG), where she worked on projects and research that spanned the history of glass. From 2019 to 2022, she was Curator of Modern Glass with responsibility for acquisitions, exhibitions, cataloging, and research of the CMoG’s glass collections from 1825–1945. In 2023, she was the Interim Department Head, Curator of Collections &amp; Exhibitions at The Rockwell Museum—A Smithsonian Affiliate in Corning, NY. Ruggiero earned a master’s in the History of Decorative Arts through the Corcoran College of Art + Design and Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C. and a bachelor’s degree in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Association of Art Museum Curators. ABOUT THE DRIEHAUS MUSEUMThe Driehaus Museum engages and inspires the global community through exploration and ongoing conversations in art, architecture, and design of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions are presented in an immersive experience within the restored 1883 Nickerson Mansion, and the 1926 Murphy Auditorium. The Museum’s collection reflects and is inspired by the collecting interests, vision, and focus of its founder, the late Richard H. Driehaus. For more information, visit<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.driehausmuseum.org/" target="_blank">driehausmuseum.org</a>&nbsp;and connect with the Museum on&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Driehaus-Museum/362867207176025" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, TikTok,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.instagram.com/driehausmuseum/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.

Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade

<a style="color: rgb(84, 88, 89);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.meijergardens.org/plensa/?occurrence=2025-10-24" target="_blank">Jaume Plensa: A New Humanism</a>&nbsp;explores Jaume Plensa’s career-long engagement with themes common to our shared humanity such as dreams, desire, justice and mortality. While Plensa’s oeuvre is marked by diversity in format and media, the human condition remains the primary subject of his art, which traverses the personal and collective, individual and universal. Featuring both monumental and intimate-scaled sculptures and select two-dimensional works that span three decades, this is the first retrospective of this internationally acclaimed artist in the United States. Image: Jaume Plensa.&nbsp;Hortense in Slumberland, 2021. Bronze, Edition of 11. 30 x 22 x 20 cm. Photo: Roberto Ruiz © Plensa Studio Barcelona

Jaume Plensa: A New Humanism

The Center Program offers artists who are ready to raise their practice to the next level the opportunity to develop new work, receive feedback from art professionals, and work towards an exhibition at the Art Center over the course of eight months. This eleventh iteration of the program will feature the work of 20 artists guest curated by Teresa Silva, an independent curator and writer based in Chicago.

Center Program

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is thrilled to announce the latest installation in its&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=5302a2f296&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">Atrium Project series, featuring the mural&nbsp;The Free Clinic for Gender Affirming Care&nbsp;by artist Edie Fake</a>&nbsp;(b. 1980, Evanston, IL; lives in Twentynine Palms, CA). Opening on March 25, 2025, and running through March 26, 2026, in the MCA’s second floor atrium, the artwork envisions the utopian façade of a clinic for free transgender healthcare. Curated by Assistant Curator Jack Schneider,&nbsp;The Free Clinic&nbsp;is a large-scale architectural representation of a clinic, whose prismatic colors reflect the full spectrum of gender expression beyond the binary. It confronts widespread political efforts to restrain, scapegoat, and repress transgender and nonbinary people in the United States, an issue that is personal to Fake. To him, “gender affirming care has been hard-won and life-changing . . . this mural is meant to meet the threat—and often reality—that has positioned gender affirming care as scarce, under-resourced, and underground with an aspirational and celebratory vision.”&nbsp; The installation coincides, and is in conversation with,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=f9f0473f52&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago</a>, an upcoming exhibition at the MCA opening on July 5, 2025, also curated by Schneider.&nbsp;City in a Garden&nbsp;examines Chicago's underacknowledged role in the histories of queer art and activism beginning in the 1980s, when activists radically mobilized in response to the US government’s disastrous handling of the AIDS crisis and reclaimed the historically pejorative epithet “queer” as a liberatory term encompassing all who purposefully deviate from heteronormative society. With works drawn from the MCA Collection and other local collections, the exhibition features over thirty artists—including Fake. Edie Fake’s work has previously been exhibited at the MCA in&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(0, 124, 137);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mcachicago.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c24ba7c5a91cefd699dc985e1&amp;id=8cfda8f3de&amp;e=95b957c616" target="_blank">Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now</a>&nbsp;(2021). Atrium Project: Edie Fake&nbsp;is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator.&nbsp; ABOUT THE ARTIST Edie Fake’s (b. 1980, Evanston, IL; lives in Twentynine Palms, CA)&nbsp;multimedia work—drawings, paintings, installations, comics, books, and zines—has been exhibited in solo shows at Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; and in New York City at The Drawing Center, Broadway Gallery, and Marlborough Gallery. Fake recently exhibited publications, paintings, and a large wall installation in&nbsp;Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now&nbsp;at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His 2018 show at Western Exhibitions was reviewed in Art in America. Fake’s work is held in the collections of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library &amp; Museum, Columbus; Des Moines Art Center, Iowa; RISD Museum, Providence; KADIST, San Francisco; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. He was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists, and his Gaylord Phoenix collection of comics won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel. His work has been written about and featured in&nbsp;Artforum, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Art News, Art 21, Juxtapoz, Hyperallergic, The Comics Journal, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Fake’s work is held in the collections of the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, the RISD Museum in Providence, RI, KADIST in San Francisco, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, KS. Edie fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980 and received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2002. Fake is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and Broadway Gallery in New York, and he currently lives and works in Twentynine Palms, California.

Atrium Project: Edie Fake

<a style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.21cchicago.com/" target="_blank">21c Museum Hotel Chicago</a>&nbsp;is unveiling a new exhibition with&nbsp;Truth or Dare: A Reality Show. The exhibition opens to the public on March 15, 2025, and remains on view until March 2026 throughout the 21c Chicago gallery spaces. At a hotel where curiosity shapes every experience, the latest exhibition presents a thematic group exhibition of 70 multimedia artworks by 52 artists from across the globe exploring the slippery terrain between fact and fiction.&nbsp;Truth or Dare&nbsp;features works by artists Jorge Méndez Blake, Leandro Erlich, Vibha Galhotra, Jane Hammonds, Ann Hamilton, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Pedro Reyes, Federico Solmi, Siebren Versteeg, and many others, including Chicago-based photographer Laura Letinsky.Located in Chicago’s vibrant River North neighborhood,&nbsp;Truth or Dare: A Reality Show&nbsp;opens to the public with a reception on Friday, March 21stfrom 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. An introduction to the exhibition by 21c Museum Hotel’s Chief Curator, Alice Gray Stites, will be followed by a presentation by featured artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at 7 p.m. The world-class museum is free and open 24/7, 365 days a year.“Highlighting uncertainty and contradiction, the artworks featured in&nbsp;Truth or Dare: A Reality Show&nbsp;emphasize the importance of questioning both knowledge and belief by utilizing illusion to entice, entertain, and explore the contemporary relationship between fact and fiction, presence and absence, reality and imagination,” said Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator of 21c Museum Hotels.The suspension of disbelief is invoked in works that simulate games, maps, and tricks of the eye and hand, to engage and connect. A ping-pong table altered with a mirror for a game of one-on-one by Trong Gia Nguyen, a gravity-defying black rectangle modeled on the alien monolith in Stanley Kubrick's&nbsp;2001: A Space Odyssey&nbsp;by Josh Azzarella, and Charles Matton's hologram figure projected in a miniature library are at once playful and prescient critiques of how and where we search for knowledge and meaning. Anthony Adcock's steel&nbsp;Column&nbsp;is actually oil paint on wood; Addie Wagenknecht's flower vase is crafted from 3D printed Liberator guns; and Paolo Ventura's detailed photographs of scale models suggest that nothing is as it seems. Alejandro Almanza Pereda's dynamic video reimagines a Caravaggio still life under water, where fruit, glasses, and flatware rise and fall, defying a fixed arrangement.Collapsing the immediate distance between what is seen and what is known, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s&nbsp;Zero Noon&nbsp;is a clock that runs on internet-refreshed statistics, conflating time and data into a screen-based experience of consumption. Drawing on hundreds of sources, the clock tells the local time based on various metrics, such as the average number of daily human breaths, the number of firearms produced in the U.S. per day, the number of cups of tea drunk in the UK, etc. Each day at noon, the clock resets, and the numbers all revert to zero, ever so briefly suspending the exponential onslaught of these indices of activity worldwide.&nbsp;The new exhibition highlights the global contemporary environment available in 21c Chicago’s expansive and art-filled event spaces. The unique spaces offer an opportunity to gather creatively, with the capacity to host gatherings from 10 to 300. Named a Gold Medal Winner in the Best Boutique Hotel and Best Décor categories of Northstar Meetings Group’s annual awards, 21c Museum Hotel Chicago encourages curiosity and collaboration for all events.&nbsp; About the ArtistRafael Lozano-Hemmer is a media artist working at the intersection of architecture and performance art. He creates platforms for public participation using technologies such as robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, media walls, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his light and shadow works are "antimonuments for alien agency". He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale with an exhibition at Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has also shown at Biennials in Cuenca, Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne NGV, Moscow, New Orleans, New York ICP, Seoul, Seville, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Wuzhen.&nbsp;Collections holding his work include MoMA and Guggenheim in New York, TATE in London, MAC and MBAM in Montreal, Jumex, and MUAC in Mexico City, DAROS in Zurich, MONA in Hobart, 21C Museum in Kanazawa, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, CIFO in Miami, MAG in Manchester, SFMOMA in San Francisco, ZKM in Karlsruhe, SAM in Singapore and many others. About 21c Museum Hotels21c Museum is a multi-venue museum located in seven cities. One of the largest contemporary art museums in the U.S., and North America’s only collecting museum dedicated solely to art of the 21st century, each property features exhibition space open free of charge to the public, combined with a boutique hotel and restaurant. It was founded in 2006 by Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson; philanthropists, preservationists, and collectors, committed to expanding access to contemporary art as a means of catalyzing revitalization and civic connection. 21c presents a range of arts programming curated by Museum Director, Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites, including both solo and group exhibitions that reflect the global nature of art today, as well as site-specific, commissioned installations, and a variety of cultural events. The organization collaborates on arts initiatives with artists and organizations worldwide, including Speed Art Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Artadia, Creative Time, For Freedoms, and others. About 21c Museum Hotel Chicago&nbsp;Located steps from the famous Magnificent Mile shopping district in River North, 21c Museum Hotel Chicago offers an art-filled escape in the heart of the city. The 297-room hotel, with 106 suites, boasts extraordinary contemporary art with a multi-venue museum that provides curated exhibitions and cultural programming for both visitors and the local community. For a perfect night out in River North, the hotel’s signature restaurant, Lure Fishbar, provides world-class seafood and sushi, premium steaks, burgers, craft cocktails, and more. Recently awarded the Northstar Meetings Group Gold Medal Award for the Best Boutique Hotel and Best Décor in the Midwest, 21c Museum Hotel Chicago’s art-filled event spaces offer inspiration for creative gatherings for groups ranging from 10 to 300. For more information, visit&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.21cchicago.com/" target="_blank">https://www.21cchicago.com/</a>.&nbsp; Image: Valerie Hegarty, Still Lives with Crows, 2006

Truth or Dare: A Reality Show

<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

Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011) began printmaking in 1961, working across lithography, woodcut, and etching for the next fifty years. Frankenthaler is known for her abstract paintings and especially her signature “soak-stain” technique—allowing paint to sit, spread, and pool on untreated canvas. She brought this same sensibility, what she described as a&nbsp;“pouring, flooding, spilling, bleeding one,”&nbsp;to works on paper.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; While printmaking is often characterized by precision and control, Frankenthaler’s prints allow for chance encounters between pigment and surface—unintentional effects that emphasize the agency and alchemy of materials. The exhibition will focus on her print practice and call attention to the unpredictability, chance, and accident in Frankenthaler’s work. The exhibition will include works by other artists in The Block’s collection who similarly have embraced chance, accident, or aesthetic surprise in their artworks. It will bring together a sampling of lithographs, drawings, and watercolors by Frankenthaler’s friends and colleagues—Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, and Robert Motherwell—and many other artists from The Block’s permanent collection. In 2023, The Block Museum was one of ten university museums to receive artwork as part of the&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(78, 42, 132);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://nublockmuseum.blog/2024/04/01/the-block-among-national-museums-to-receive-works-from-helen-frankenthaler-foundation-prints-initiative/" target="_blank">Frankenthaler Print Initiative</a>. The exhibition will feature this extraordinary gift and bring it into conversation with prints in the collection. The exhibition will be closed December 20, 2025 – January 8, 2026 for the Year End Holiday.

Frankenthaler and Printmaking

<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.

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