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IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

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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

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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

Join us for an electrifying evening at Bridgeport Art Center's Monthly Open Studios, where creativity knows no bounds. Immerse yourself in a vibrant creative ecosystem where artists, designers, and innovators converge to showcase their latest works, ongoing projects, and groundbreaking processes. Walk through multiple studios, engage directly with talented professionals, and experience the dynamic artistic energy that makes our community truly unique.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://bridgeportart.acemlnb.com/lt.php?x=3DZy~GDMV6Gh65F5zADMgRVw2nNSut~wj~hhjqTHI3Gi7p37zEy.zuF03I2ijdg~ju5AXHjJIU" target="_blank">RSVP - FREE EVENT</a>

Open Studios

Juror: Kristen Carter&nbsp;is an assistant professor of art history at Florida Southern College. She holds a PhD in modern and contemporary art from the University of British Columbia and a BA in art history from DePaul University. Her research concerns different modes of relationality, care, and institutional critique with an emphasis on artistic praxis and pedagogy in the 1960s and 1970s. She has presented and published on a range of topics, including performance, body art, and dance, histories of art and pedagogy in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, and the changing relationship between art and politics. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the University of British Columbia and the Getty Research Institute.Committed to collaborative and inclusive pedagogy, Carter serves on the College Art Association’s Education Committee, advocating for undergraduate research and innovative teaching.Exhibiting Artists:&nbsp;​Lynne Breitfeller, Anna Brody, Oona Bruss, Ingrid Butterer, Maddie Casagranda, Christeina Nena, Krista Cibis, Jeanne Ciravolo, Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud, Samantha Degucz, Leslie Drennan, Jessica Gomez Ferrer, Veronica Hicks, Rana Huwais, Blond Jenny, Lauren Johnston, Khin, Yuliya Klochan, Beth Lemerand, Anna Lentz, Annamaria Eleanor Loia, Lindsay Lion Lord, Ashley Mangum, Ashley Martin, Susan Messer McBride, Laura Lee McCartney, Lorena Molina, Mackenna Morse, Abbey Peters, Felicia L. Reed, Astrid Reichenbach, Elke Richter, Robyn Rozelle, Ramya Shenoy, Vivian Smith, Victoria Smits, Phoebe Snyder, Kelly Sturhahn, Gwynneth VanLaven, Julie Waltz-Stalker, and Danielle C. Wyckoff

Acts of Care: Nurturing the Present, Shaping the Future

The annual exhibition highlights paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, prints, animation, and multimedia work by young artists participating in&nbsp;Hyde Park Art Center’s Teen programs. Each year, Teen programs provide a structured independence that encourages young artists to develop their creative voices, learn new skills, and build relationships in the context of a community art center, where artists of all ages and backgrounds do the same. The exhibition is a testament to these young artists’ evolution and dedication. They have taken on the challenge of expressing perplexed thoughts, feelings, and emotions into individual works of art.&nbsp; So, What Now?&nbsp;is curated by Jules DiGregorio, Exhibitions and Residency Intern, with support from Harley Reid, Teen Programs Coordinator, and Tran Tran, Exhibitions &amp; Residency Manager.&nbsp; Image:&nbsp;Devin Carrillo,&nbsp;She saw me once,&nbsp;2025, Acrylic paint, oil pastel on canvas, 12 x 12 inches

So, What Now?

A performance developed in collaboration with Jamaican choreographer Neila Ebanks that explores themes in the exhibition through movement and dance. Ebanks is the co-founder of dance collective Enkompane and Director of Dance Studies at Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston.

Cornerstone Performance in collaboration with Neila Ebanks

<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, announces&nbsp;Yasmin Spiro: Cornerstone,&nbsp;the first major solo exhibition of the Chicago-based Jamaican artist, and related free public programming. Inspired by Spiro’s background, the exhibition presents the artist’s ongoing exploration of the intersections between land, body, memory, and architecture, inviting the audience to contemplate the physical and psychological effects of histories of migration and colonialism. Layered with aspects of Jamaica’s ecology, architectural structures, land ownership, and socio-political history,&nbsp;Cornerstone&nbsp;emphasizes the hybridity of the island's culture and people, via immersive new works including sculptures, sound and scent work, and weavings.&nbsp;Yasmin Spiro: Cornerstone&nbsp;is curated by Allison Peters Quinn and runs&nbsp;from April 19 to November 2, 2025; admission is free. The title work&nbsp;Cornerstone&nbsp;is a new, towering fort-like structure made with cast forms and textile walls designed for visitors to enter. In construction, the cornerstone refers to the first-laid stone of a building, to which all other stones are positioned in relation. Set up at the center of the gallery, the installation—created during Spiro’s 2024 Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Art Center—connects to three surrounding bodies of work in the gallery, serving as a metaphor for home and the feeling of being grounded in an identity that is shaped by a homeland. Combining burlap, wood, rope, mixed-media cast, and ceramic forms, video, and rural sound, Spiro composes a sensorial environment that elicits comfort and belonging. The three related bodies of work combine old and new elements from Spiro’s practice within texture, muted organic tones, and sensory-rich materials. The north end of the gallery will feature a 17 ft. long burlap weaving embedded with handmade ceramic bells, found driftwood, and rope that projects a complex lattice of shadows on the wall, offering a new perception of space. On the west wall, six mounted panels align rope compositions next to flesh-toned ceramic tiles made during Spiro’s Arts/Industry residency at Kohler Co. Finally, ropes descend from the ceiling on the south end of the gallery and extend outward, forming a suspended alternative architecture. Through these works, Spiro contemplates the fluidity of land and water, and how people’s relationship to land is shaped by migration, colonial histories, and national identity. To the artist, buildings are not simply physical structures, but spaces that anchor human experiences, culture, and history. “Materiality is central to the meaning of the work,” explains Spiro. “The cast forms in&nbsp;Cornerstone&nbsp;create an organic, almost fossilized presence that simultaneously emerges from and erodes back into the earth, reflecting how landscapes shift and histories accumulate over time. Pigmented in shades of pink, their fleshy, shell-like tones correspond to the cast porcelain on the walls, referencing the natural landscapes of Jamaica and the layered histories embedded in them. These forms speak to the way places shape us and how we carry them within us.” This exhibition is part of an ongoing annual series of large-scale artworks commissioned by Hyde Park Art Center, which in the past included new works by Edra Soto, Faheem Majeed, and Lan Tuazon among others. The exhibition will be documented and enhanced through a publication with essays by critic and writer Seph Rodney and curator Allison Peters Quinn. A series of public programs will offer opportunities for audiences to further engage with the exhibition.&nbsp;Yasmin Spiro: Cornerstone&nbsp;is generously supported by the Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Foundation Research and Production Fund. Related free public programs include: Artist-led Exhibition TourTuesday, April 22, 5:30 p.m.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Yasmin Spiro leads an exhibition tour as part of EXPO Chicago’s South Side Night.</a> Yasmin Spiro in conversation with Seph RodneyThursday, May 15, 6 p.m.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Writer and critic Seph Rodney joins Yasmin Spiro in conversation to discuss her exhibition</a>&nbsp;in relation to colonial and post-colonial Caribbean culture, land, body, and identity. Panel discussion: Geographies of Belonging: Land, Identity, and Collective MemorySaturday, June 21, 1-2:30 p.m.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Artists, architects, archaeologists, and historians discuss how human bodies relate to land and space, exploring themes of displacement, rootedness, and identity.&nbsp;</a> Cornerstone Performance in collaboration with Neila EbanksThursday, October 9, 6 p.m.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">A performance developed in collaboration with Jamaican choreographer Neila Ebanks that explores themes in the exhibition through movement and dance. Ebanks is the co-founder of dance collective Enkompane and Director of Dance Studies at Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston.</a> ABOUT THE ARTIST<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica by a family from multiple geographies, the interdisciplinary artist&nbsp;</a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.yasminspiro.com/" target="_blank">Yasmin Spiro&nbsp;</a>approaches cultural identity with a unique perspective. Through her sculptures and installations, she addresses issues of socio-economic imbalance within the framework of urban development and architecture – often through the lens of Caribbean culture. Spiro works in a variety of media from wood, ceramic, natural and synthetic fibers and textiles to performance and video, exploring materiality while investigating the relationship between the body, nature, and the built environment. She attended Pratt Institute and held residences at the Dora Maar Foundation, The Kohler Arts and Industry residency, Vermont Studio Center, and the Chicago Artist Coalition. She currently resides in Chicago. ABOUT THE HYDE PARK ART CENTER<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Hyde 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&nbsp;www.hydeparkart.org</a>.

Yasmin Spiro: Cornerstone

The Art Center 2025 Gala is happening on&nbsp;Saturday,&nbsp;November 15!&nbsp;Honoring Amanda Williams &amp; Esther Grimm with Co-Chairs Christy MacLear &amp; Mirja Spooner Haffner,&nbsp;the lively event activates the entire building with hands-on art activities, performances, open studios, art auctions, and DJs. The Gala program and dinner runs from&nbsp;5:30-8:30pm, with an&nbsp;After Party until 11:30pm.&nbsp;Come join&nbsp;us in this unique and interactive experience which benefits the Art Center’s various programs supporting Chicago art and artists!Gala Tickets are available for $750 with sponsorship levels beginning at $2,500. Guests may RSVP and make donations at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://oq8cplyab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Kgr8xVqPBDRKOn6_Os7pAXM47rYYYV8BGitdv2EQC8nI5DPStEllVeB8DtOsrv4r6sncmK88RMHsRD7RombBHyAt_XUW2d9QYeL1eWG6W7kPmkGG1cho9Q2Zec7A6igQ43SwhkVAp9yfp4EdbkXsagsOfdKq7q9I&amp;c=SMreShyCVj2DSkCZPg-DOyOZf8L_JPDNz5Uaxtv6dce-n21lGzjzzQ==&amp;ch=MQ2Kdc1AHq4-TVauo0fYdGQPO5T_QHGI_XII6FymrmVGVvv5GaxJBA==" target="_blank">www.hydeparkart.org/gala.</a><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://oq8cplyab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Kgr8xVqPBDRKOn6_Os7pAXM47rYYYV8BGitdv2EQC8nI5DPStEllVXZP1ogFUxmPqkCiQVkpJ5H_MvJbebbilfIi5Ok717SqvxEIaZYq28iKfvq3yPGfANcBDtdr45WRaiWX6Gk24etlpWDTPd8dFbN6RmzPAmul&amp;c=SMreShyCVj2DSkCZPg-DOyOZf8L_JPDNz5Uaxtv6dce-n21lGzjzzQ==&amp;ch=MQ2Kdc1AHq4-TVauo0fYdGQPO5T_QHGI_XII6FymrmVGVvv5GaxJBA==" target="_blank">MORE INFO &amp; RSVP</a>

The Art Center 2025 Gala

Apparent Paths&nbsp;brings together a new series of weavings by&nbsp;Emily Frances Winter. These building portraits utilize the textile language of plaids, stripes and gradients to render sky, earth and architecture. Woven while in residence at the Icelandic Textile Center (Blönduós, Iceland) and Praxis Fiber Workshop (Cleveland, Ohio), the works represent a series of singular moments when light and form and shadow lined up in such a way as to bring the simultaneous specificity and universality of the built environment into view. These building portraits deploy the material qualities of thread and woven structure to address questions of space, light, and volume and a certain type of observation made possible by attention and patience and presence.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://oq8cplyab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001qN7C5MC1MKO26JFpc-Z7s3qARqx8-wDlTd2g1OfsVdW6rFZqSNrcTTYw-d9rdQc-zEQt8v0NEchmef55vn0xwNQljxW9rQqN9546uWDEz57UmwdfQVkGMzQ0W00zzRnxK5ehGMigtoeSjNXTLydp6ta2tJvvsB89qmNFA5PZ3xFpU4bG42dwGUC5fG0vRCN6B3G_oZVedDhfmj1evBHXPSxlswx4MSp25R6Uhv9_eAc=&amp;c=VE1pMnxRc_25qd3r0J13n6ETpf00E4h05M_mSX32i6nUkwnGJttMeQ==&amp;ch=rO_GT9QZ_7EquiEoc4K3l_8dwwD5PjmFcamBCJKhUj6IXaD91Vxe4g==" target="_blank">Read More</a> Image: Emily Frances Winter,&nbsp;Detail of&nbsp;SHED 1,&nbsp;2023, Linen, cotton, and wool.

Emily Frances Winter: Apparent Paths

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

Mark Me, Too: Five Artists

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

Theaster Gates: Unto Thee&nbsp;centers on the multifaceted practice of Theaster Gates and&nbsp;explores how he employs sculpture to expose the complexities of surrender and accumulation through a series of large-scale installations, music and film, and the redeployment of deaccessioned objects from the University of Chicago, where Gates is currently Professor of Visual Arts.&nbsp;Through a series of sculptural interventions meditating on sacrifice,&nbsp;rites, consecration, libation, vows and offerings, Gates elevates invisible labor, interrogates artistic legacies, questions economies of power, and, equally, celebrates Black&nbsp;artistic and intellectual contributions.&nbsp;The exhibition will present Gates's latest work that continues to build on&nbsp;the material legacies of under-recognized histories, voices, and, in some cases, institutional structures&nbsp;first mined in these University objects. Gates will temporarily reunite these objects and collections back at the University for this special exhibition.&nbsp;The large-scale solo exhibition will also be 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

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.

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