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

Each spring The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is pleased to present the work of the Masters of Fine Arts candidates in the&nbsp;<a href="https://art.northwestern.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Department of Art Theory &amp; Practice</a>.&nbsp;The exhibition marks an early milestone in these artists' careers, and also offers a glimpse into the future of contemporary art.This exhibition and the associated events are co-organized by the Department of Art Theory and Practice and the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. The Block acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council, the Norton S. Walbridge Fund, the Myers Foundations, the Jerrold Loebl Fund for the Arts, and the Alsdorf Endowment.

2027 Art Theory and Practice MFA Thesis Exhibition

&nbsp;(Windows on Fifth Gallery)Using cut paper, Wisconsin-based Velliquette crafts a site-specific installation that explores the handmade, the ornamental, and the imagination.

Michael Velliquette: Intuitive Patterns

What can artworks tell us about how people have sought to heal from past traumas and grief? How can the process of making art become therapeutic? In what ways can objects facilitate healing and protection? The exhibition How Do We Heal? addresses the connections between art and healing.

How Do We Heal?

Stairwell GalleriesOccupying the three-story stairwell galleries in the MCA,&nbsp;From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard&nbsp;examines the wider impact of the research, writings, activism and exhibitions of renowned art historian, critic and curator Lucy Lippard (b. 1937, New York; lives in Galisteo, NM), who pushed the field of art history toward further inclusivity, through the lens of the MCA’s permanent collection. Over the past six decades, Lippard’s multidisciplinary career has been foundational to the histories of Conceptual, Feminist, Minimalist and Land Art practices of the 1960s and 1970s; the representation of artists of color in the Western canon; the intersection of art and activism; and placemaking for and by artists. Lippard’s work is widely appreciated due to its reach beyond the confines of art history to grapple with real world social issues through the lens of visual art and art criticism.&nbsp;From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard&nbsp;is split into three sections: “Form &amp; Feminism,” “The Art Worker as Activist” and “Site, Land, Place,” and will include works from the MCA Collection alongside archival materials, interviews, recordings and texts documenting Lippard’s career and work. “Form &amp; Feminism” will highlight Lippard’s efforts to incorporate women artists and issues in the art historical canon—including the publishing of feminist journal&nbsp;Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, which ran from 1977 to 1993; her activism on behalf of women artists; and her own writing and curated exhibitions, including&nbsp;Twenty-Six Contemporary Women Artists&nbsp;(1971) and&nbsp;From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art&nbsp;(1976). The section “The Art Worker as Activist” will consider how artists are mobilized as activists alongside and as part of their artistic practices, as inspired by Lippard’s work within various activist groups such as the Art Workers Coalition and Ad Hoc Women’s Artist Committee. Lastly, “Site, Land, Place” relates to the politics of space—real, imagined or contested; the land and environment; and the power of placemaking. Lippard wrote several books concerned with these ideas, such as&nbsp;The Lure of the Local&nbsp;(1997);&nbsp;On the Beaten Track: Tourism, Art, and Place&nbsp;(1999);&nbsp;Undermining: A Wild Ride through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West&nbsp;(2014); and two of her storied “Numbers” exhibitions,&nbsp;557,087&nbsp;(1969) and&nbsp;955,000&nbsp;(1970), which included several notable Land artists. Cumulatively, these presentations will provide a concise overview of select overriding themes that have driven Lippard’s practice throughout the arc of her prolific and singular career.Highlighted in the exhibition are over forty artists who have been featured in her scholarly or curatorial work, or are aligned with or inspired by her practice. Participating artists include Lynda Benglis, Andrea Bowers, Judy Chicago, Robert Colescott, Group Material, Fred Lonidier, Howardena Pindell, Robert Smithson, Michelle Stuart and Amanda Williams, among others. The exhibition will be supplemented by public programs, including a symposium, charting Lippard’s influence over several generations of artists, art historians and curators.&nbsp;From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard&nbsp;is organized by Jamillah James, Manilow Senior Curator, with Korina Hernandez, Curatorial Assistant.

From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard

The Smart Museum of Art is honored to present a site-specific installation entitled&nbsp;Between Us&nbsp;by artist Nina Chanel Abney, on view from September 22, 2026, through July 11, 2027.Commissioned as part of the Smart’s ongoing Threshold series, which brings large-scale installations of contemporary art annually to the Eunice Ratner Reception Gallery in the Museum’s lobby.Nina Chanel Abney&nbsp;takes the most familiar images of American life, drawn from advertising, sports, cartoons, and the news, and turns them against themselves, using humor and accessibility to draw viewers in before the harder questions surface. For the commission at the Smart, Abney created a large-scale 70-feet-wide and 40-feet-high mural, entitled&nbsp;Between Us,&nbsp;that borrows the visual language of childhood instruction, such as diagrams, wall charts, and educational puzzles. The forms stay recognizable, but their reassurances curdle the longer one looks.This site-specific installation will&nbsp;form the opening of Nina Chanel Abney’s major solo exhibition&nbsp;at the Smart,&nbsp;While Supplies Last, which will be on view March 23, 2027, through July 11, 2027.

Nina Chanel Abney: Between Us

Opening May 13, 2027Gallery About the Exhibition Naotaka Hiro uses his body as an implement of making where he is both the subject and the object. The resulting works are deceptively alluring–full of intense color and pattern with both detail and overall structure that satisfies sustained attention. Less obvious perhaps is Hiro’s process, which entails arduous hours of painting or bodycasting, where, in a performative move, he pushes his body to its limits leaving evident the residue of movement and thought across surfaces.&nbsp;To make his paintings, for example, Hiro suspends canvas or wooden panels in his studio and places himself either beneath or within them for a timed work session during which he executes (to a greater or lesser degree) rules of markmaking that include tracing, reaching, or rubbing his body against the media. As the process unfolds, Hiro’s access to different parts of his body varies, so he must work between what he can see and what he must imagine. The experience requires intense mental energy that places the artist in an alternative or even meditative state.&nbsp; Hiro began his career as a filmmaker. In his early films, he worked alone, moving between the roles of actor and director. This relationship to the self as other through a change in position maintains a core place in Hiro’s practice. The title “Wandering Field” attempts to capture that sense of displacement and shifting subjectivity. “Between the body and its image, action and observation, making and revising, I move back and forth between these things rather than staying in one place. ‘Wandering’ came from that movement. ‘Field’ is the space where this movement takes place.” The exhibition brings together works across different media and different periods of Hiro’s practice, along with new works made for The Arts Club of Chicago. The exhibition is curated by Arts Club Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf. Image:Detail,&nbsp;Sandwaves, Internally,&nbsp;2025296” × 82”Canvas, fabric dye, oil pastel, rope, and grommetsImage courtesy of Bortolami, New York. Photo by Guang Xu. About the Artist Naotaka Hiro: Born in Osaka in 1972. Lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Selected solo exhibitions include Others (Herald St, London, 2026), Of Two (Bortolami, New York, 2025), Two Worlds (The Box, Los Angeles, 2024), Limbs, Anatomy, Beautiful View (Misako &amp; Rosen, Tokyo, 2024), and Subterranean &amp; Wanderer (Brennan &amp; Griffin, New York, 2019). Selected group exhibitions include Toronto Biennial of Art (Toronto, 2026), Roppongi Crossing 2025 (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2025), No Boundaries (The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2025), Painting Paintings (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2025), What It Becomes (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2024), Seven Stations: Selections from MOCA’s Collection (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2020), In the Meanwhile… (Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2020), 50+50: A Creative Century from Chouinard to CalArts (REDCAT, Los Angeles, 2020), and Made in L.A. 2018 (Hammer Museum, Los Angeles). His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, and The National Museum of Art, Osaka.

Naotaka Hiro: Wandering Field

From October 16, 2026, through October 17, 2027, the Polish Museum of America will present the monographic exhibition <a href="https://www.polishmuseumofamerica.org/eventer/szukalski-the-mythshaper-at-the-polish-museum-of-america-in-chicago/edate/2026-10-16/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Szukalski. The Mythshaper&nbsp;/&nbsp;Szukalski. Rzeźbiarz mitu</a>,&nbsp;dedicated to Stanisław Szukalski (1893–1987), one of the most original and controversial artists of the twentieth century. The exhibition is organized by the Polish Museum of America in collaboration with the National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad POLONIKA.&nbsp;Opening Reception:&nbsp;October 16, 2026, at 7:00 p.m.; Admission: $25Discussion&nbsp;— “Szukalski. Too Dynamic to Be Ignored?”: October 17, 2026, at 1:00 p.m.; Admission: $20Combined Admission&nbsp;(Oct. 16 &amp; Oct. 17): $40Organized by:&nbsp;The Polish Museum of America and National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad POLONIKACuratorial Team:&nbsp;Julita Siegel (PMA), Maria Muszkowska, Dr. Paweł Drabarczyk vel Grabarczyk, and Dr. Magdalena Gutowska (POLONIKA Institute)Exhibition Partner:&nbsp;Szukalski Archives The exhibition presents Szukalski as an artist who, drawing on his study of diverse mythologies and artistic traditions, including Pre-Columbian and Slavic traditions, sought to create a modern mythology of his own. He developed it through sculpture, drawings, prints, and photography, as well as through an alternative theory of human history, language, and narratives. Situated at the intersection of art and ideology, science and myth, modernism and archaism, his work defies simple classification and continues to inspire fascination, debate, and critical reflection. The exhibition offers a reinterpretation of the artist’s legacy from the perspective of contemporary scholarship on modernism, migration, cultural identity, transnational art, pseudoscience, and outsider art. It also raises questions about the role of myth in the modern world and the boundaries between art, science, and ideology. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog prepared by an international team of scholars, art historians, writers, and artists. The publication documents Szukalski’s body of work and presents his art in light of the latest scholarship and contemporary perspectives on modernism, mythology, and pseudoscience. The opening program will also include the discussion “Szukalski. Too Dynamic to Be Ignored?”, taking place on October 17, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. The conversation will explore, among other topics, how Szukalski constructed his own myths and alternative vision of history, why his work continues to provoke debate, and, more broadly, how to present the work of artists whose legacies are complex and contested.

Szukalski. The Mythshaper / Szukalski. Rzeźbiarz mitu

Opening reception August 7, 5-8pm To deeply know something or someone outside of yourself is intimate. You must open your perception to what’s around you, set yourself aside, listen closely, and consider what might misalign with your worldview. And then, a glimmer of connection. Through a series of nonobjective paintings on paper, Wolfkill asks audience members to bear witness to and participate in softness, intimacy, and openness. Pause in front of each painting and let them wash over you. Methods of self protection, the space we hold between ourselves and others, and the masking we engage in to enter social situations “appropriately” must fall away. Vibrant colors and rounded forms create a sense of delight and comfort while spatial relationships amongst elements change as the viewer looks. This body of work asks for tenderness, radical compassion, vulnerability, and joy. It is a space to pause and consider what is possible when we connect to each other with authenticity. Take your time, there’s no rush.

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