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

Free Registration Open!Join a 1-hour guided tour of&nbsp;Theaster Gates: Unto Thee, led by Smart Museum Fellow, Ian Brundige.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://uchicago.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aba2086a45b4ee8391b89447b&amp;id=4947a8c778&amp;e=00938adab1" target="_blank">Register Here</a>

Friday Tour: Unto Thee

<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

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. Visit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://renaissancesociety.org/" target="_blank">renaissancesociety.org</a>&nbsp;for more information.

Performance: Eli Keszler

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

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.

Discussion with Danny Bredar, Gaylen Gerber, and Oscar Zheng

Part I, September 23, 2025 - February 22, 2026Part II, March 24, 2026 - July 26, 2026Why and how do people form political communities? How does political society organize our economic lives - and vice versa? And how as individuals do we navigate society?Smart to the Core: Wise to Power&nbsp;examines these questions by integrating visual art with foundational texts of modern social and political thought spanning nearly four centuries. Through a wide range of creative practices and philosophical perspectives, the exhibition addresses themes that are widely familiar yet deeply connected to specific political, economic, and cultural histories.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://uchicago.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aba2086a45b4ee8391b89447b&amp;id=a6520b5f11&amp;e=00938adab1" target="_blank">Learn more about this exhibition</a>

Smart to the Core: Wise to Power (Part II)

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

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 Renaissance Society is thrilled to announce that artist&nbsp;Maurizio Cattelan&nbsp;will conceive and orchestrate&nbsp;RenBen 2026, taking place on&nbsp;Wednesday, April 8, 2026, during Chicago's EXPO Art Week.&nbsp; Known for his provocative and darkly humorous approach to contemporary art, Cattelan has spent four decades creating works that spark conversation, to say the least. From his infamous solid gold toilet&nbsp;America&nbsp;to his hyperrealistic sculptures, Cattelan's work consistently captivates audiences while questioning authority, religion, celebrity, and the art world itself.&nbsp;RenBen is the Renaissance Society’s annual artist-centered gala and the institution’s most important fundraising event, vital to sustaining its experimental exhibitions and programs throughout the year. Each edition invites a single artist to design every aspect of the evening, from the space and performances to the food and choreography. Past editions have been conceived by Meriem Bennani (2025), Kevin Beasley (2024), Adam Linder (2023), and Piero Golia (2022), each expanding what an artist-driven benefit can be.&nbsp; For RenBen 2026, Cattelan will draw on his established signature forms of playful inversion, surprise, and surrealist elegance. Guests can expect his subversive wit and theatrical sensibility. “BEING AN ARTIST IS NOT A JOB, IT'S A MALFUNCTION,” he shared.&nbsp; Maurizio Cattelan's work has been featured in major museums and exhibitions worldwide, including solo shows at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. His collaborations through&nbsp;Toiletpaper&nbsp;magazine and with brands including Kenzo, Berluti, Longchamp, and Seletti—demonstrate his ability to merge high art with popular culture, making him an ideal artist to reimagine RenBen.&nbsp; All proceeds from RenBen 2026 support the Renaissance Society's program of exhibitions,&nbsp;Intermissions, concerts, public programs, and publications—all free and open to the public.&nbsp;RenBen 2026 takes place during Chicago's EXPO Art Week, in alignment with EXPO CHICAGO contemporary art fair, attracting cultural figures from around the globe.&nbsp; Additional details will be announced in early 2026.&nbsp; Corporate sponsorships and in-kind gift opportunities are available.&nbsp;Please contact Polina Kasian at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:pkasian@renaissancesociety.org" target="_blank">pkasian@renaissancesociety.org</a>&nbsp;for more information.&nbsp;Underwriter and Benefactor sponsorships and individual tickets are now available&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/TqGCpLmdPWCEh8kci33nKQ" target="_blank">here</a>.&nbsp; Photo:&nbsp;Maurizio Cattelan by Alberto Zanetti.

RenBen 2026

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)

Since 2020, Carter has developed an extensive body of work exploring the site, history, and significance of the Singer Pavilion–the last remaining building of the former Michael Reese Hospital complex in Bronzeville–a design collaboration led by architect Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus School. This exhibition presents for the first time together the ten artworks including sculptures, digital images, sound works, installations, and a series of zines developed in collaboration with artists and community members with connections to the hospital. Together, the works prompt reflection on the importance of this site as a case study of past and future efforts to develop this culturally rich yet under-resourced neighborhood while also examining evolving ideas about urban development, architectural preservation, and the legacy of Modernist aesthetic and social philosophy.

Jeff Carter: The Singer Pavilion Project

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)

The annual exhibition highlights paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, prints, animation, and multimedia work by young artists participating in Hyde Park Art Center’s Teen programs. Each year, the 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-based art center, where artists of all ages and backgrounds do the same. The exhibition is a testament to the evolution and dedication of these young artists. They have taken on the challenge of expressing perplexed thoughts, feelings, and emotions into individual works of art.

Teen Show

Ground Floor, an ongoing biennial exhibition since 2010, brings together work by Chicago’s most promising emerging talent. The exhibition offers a single destination to encounter the work of twenty artists who have recently graduated (in 2025 and 2026) from one of Chicago’s five outstanding MFA programs: Columbia College, Northwestern University, The University of Chicago, The University of Illinois at Chicago, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.&nbsp;Ground Floor&nbsp;presents art made in the past couple of years in hopes of investigating and articulating conceptual and stylistic trends coming out of Chicago art schools right now.&nbsp;

Ground Floor

Hyde Park Art Center is excited to partner with the Veteran Art Movement, Chicago Cultural Center, Elmhurst Art Museum, and Walls Turned Sideways for the 2026 Veteran Art Triennial and Summit. The Hyde Park Art Center chapter&nbsp;Shifting Horizons&nbsp;considers land, migration, and decolonization through ideas informed by thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Harsha Walia. The exhibition invites reflections on how borders shape experience, how people navigate systems of control and resistance, and the uncertain landscapes that emerge amid ongoing struggles. The 2026 Veteran Art Triennial and Summit,&nbsp;Resisting the Long Wars, organized by curators Aaron Hughes, Mohamed Mehdi, Meranda Roberts, and Amber Zora, highlights artists’ creative defiance of war and militarism.

Veteran Art Triennial - RESISTING THE LONG WARS: Shifting Horizons 

The triennial program, created by Hyde Park Art Center in the mid-1990s, facilitates a fun and accessible commissioning process that builds lasting relationships between artists and patrons, creates a new base of support for artists, and invests in the vitality of Chicago’s cultural community.&nbsp;Not Just Another Pretty Face&nbsp;cultivates collectors, who are essential to the ecosystem that artists need to thrive, by embracing and encouraging the concept of patronage in contemporary art. Artists need not only collectors but also a community of people who know, support, and value what they do. To date, the Art Center has raised nearly&nbsp;$2,000,000&nbsp;through this program—half of which goes directly to artists, with the other half supporting Art Center programs. Through&nbsp;Not Just Another Pretty Face,&nbsp;375+&nbsp;original works&nbsp;of art have been commissioned by&nbsp;275&nbsp;new and established collectors&nbsp;interested in investing in Chicago’s artists. This exhibition will showcase the nearly&nbsp;100 new artworks&nbsp;made in this year’s iteration of this popular program.

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