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

West Town

Wisconsin

IL • MI • IN

West Loop, Fulton Market, East Garfield Park

West Loop and West Side

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

Suburbs

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

North Side

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

Michigan Avenue

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

South Side

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

River North

A group exhibition in partnership with Oliva Gallery that foregrounds three influential voices in contemporary Midwestern art. Through sculpture, color, and dynamic form,&nbsp;Facades&nbsp;confronts themes of identity, visibility, and public space, inviting audiences to consider how we construct, obscure, and reveal ourselves in a constantly shifting social landscape.Featured artists: Nikki Renee Anderson, Aaron Becker, and the late Molly Schiff.<a style="color: rgb(49, 95, 195);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://rkcgwygbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001pQCTLAZWoLcf8QKJ7bW0UTmQQvLi8QCbGnkKtsql4i6I9ZL64t5o-ClLO30U4qlgbzz1_RMl0TnO4ySsyGSgn5p0R6WKlrHrsVsqKwvj43J5pwb-3qIzuQdxhUrAKrZZeE5lQN-624hOFVumazIUgXhjCn3B9ybpA0oJH7BBUbjNK8knTWgzan41fTzp867IrUp_dYhlprGi3zshErrhVtkvEbFk1r-jYLNoXfuO-1T4w1MaGVWcu38dRLUkgnbQSMKVKwDyfDfky2mTo8On3eMZ4nEXLlOhQ443AHZ73Zx9Tpvau5sDr0_uylojA8TswWV5fJL37D3cj1bKBq8FOFhm93ReWXo-qaAGtYHf84c=&amp;c=IJzV2jz8yvZtX5CTPVPXoMUDippq0o1jIRBZpwu4VeFXp_eCnKxnzg==&amp;ch=kzLhgOqA5aEWuRf34Ovhff1OQt3YOA0ZU-fCxhD596BhhhFEKh0xXw==" target="_blank">Learn more</a>

Facades

Artists Reception Friday, September 5th 6-8pmImage: Impulse, Christina Cooley

Somewhere Between, Christina Cooley

Flourish: Embracing Indigenous and Scientific KnowledgeSupport Brushwood's impact&nbsp;at the 42nd Annual Smith Nature SymposiumHonoring author, scientist, mother, professor, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer Saturday, October 11, 2025Chicago Botanic Garden1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, IL 60022 Smith Nature Symposium Co-Chairs:Lois Morrison and Janea Harris About the Smith Nature Symposium 2024 Environmental Leadership Award winner Dr. Mona Hanna with emcees Bill Kurtis and Donna La Pietra at the Smith Nature Symposium Awards DinnerThe Smith Nature Symposium is Brushwood’s largest fundraising event of the year, and all funds raised from the Smith Awards Dinner directly benefit our programs for youth, families, and Veterans across our community.&nbsp;&nbsp;On May 6, 1984, more than 350 people gathered for the first Smith Nature Symposium featuring Roger Tory Peterson. Organized under the leadership of Barbi Donnelley, Symposium Co-Chair, this jam-packed convening of nature-lovers became the first of four decades of annual Symposia memorializing the significant civic legacy of Hermon Dunlap and Ellen Thorne Smith, who donated their land and cabin to help form Ryerson Woods. About Robin Wall Kimmerer Robin Wall Kimmerer&nbsp;is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of&nbsp;The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants&nbsp;and&nbsp;Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.&nbsp;She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. The Serviceberry As Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?&nbsp;Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival.&nbsp;&nbsp;As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” Braiding Sweetgrass As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In&nbsp;Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).&nbsp;Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices.&nbsp;&nbsp;In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

42nd Annual Smith Nature Symposium Awards Dinner

This Fall, the&nbsp;Elmhurst Art Museum&nbsp;presents&nbsp;Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust,&nbsp;the first major museum exhibition for Chicago-based artists Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust. Lake and Faust are mutually inspired by the Japanese principle of&nbsp;Shakkei&nbsp;(“borrowed scenery”), a design philosophy that incorporates organic features and architectural designs. The artists’ kaleidoscopic works use color and pattern to create immersive optical experiences, interpreting the Eastern concept broadly as a metaphor for empathy, adaptability, and the ability to hold multiple viewpoints simultaneously. The exhibition will feature recent large-scale artworks by Lake and Faust in separate galleries, as well as a collaborative new work combining their design languages. The exhibition is curated by Liz Chilsen, Manager of Exhibitions &amp; Collections, and will be on view at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst, fromSeptember 4, 2025 to January 4, 2026.For this exhibition, each artist will bring their own perspective to the concept of&nbsp;Shakkei, reflecting their unique experiences and history. While Lake’s imagery is based on the symbolic floral motifs found in antique Japanese girls’ kimonos, Faust often incorporates the surroundings of the project or exhibition venue into his “wallworks,” creating site-specific perspectives manipulated from digital photographs. The dialogue between artists addresses the intersection of the patterns of everyday life and cultural and social histories. Allison Peters Quinn,&nbsp;Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum, said, “Shakkei&nbsp;highlights cross-cultural exchange by showcasing Japanese principles of landscape design and its influence on contemporary art and architecture. The artists are longtime admirers of each other’s work and decided to collaborate for the first time on a new installation for this show.” She added, “Inspired by our McCormick House designed by Mies van der Rohe, Mayumi and Bob have pushed themselves to consider how their work creates vistas and portals that heighten our understanding of the world around us.&nbsp;We are excited to be the first to present this incredible blend of art practices rooted in nature, pattern, and play, that turn the everyday into an extraordinary, immersive sculptural experience.” ABOUT THE ARTISTSWorking in the space between art and design,&nbsp;Bob Faust&nbsp;crafts artwork with typography at its core and viscerality on its surface. Faust has over 30 years of experience as the principle and creative director of the eponymously named cultural branding studio, Faust. He makes his work with purpose first—to inform, empower and/or instigate in the service and celebration of human difference. Text, patterns, and the ideas of surprise and discovery emerge as throughlines throughout his conceptual art practice that defies categorization and genre. Faust has been recognized nationally and internationally for his inimitable creativity through many prestigious honors including a University of Illinois, College of Fine &amp; Applied Arts, 2022 Distinguished Legacy Award and City of Chicago, 2022 Mayor’s Medal of Honor. Exhibitions have included Mass MoCA BY The Numb3r5 (Mass MoCA), For And Nor But Or Yet So (Poetry Foundation), WA/ONDER (167 Green), with all, and still... (The Peninsula Chicago), Rapt on the Mile (The Magnificent Mile Association), Ways and Means (Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and The Chicago Transit Authority), About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art (Wrightwood 659), Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Container (Chicago Design Museum), guilty / Innocent (MASS MoCA); Unfolded: Made with Paper (Chicago Design Museum), Betweens (Riverside Arts Center), and CHGO DSGN (Chicago Cultural Center). In addition to his own work, Faust is also the professional and personal partner of artist Nick Cave. Together they founded the non-for-profit Facility: a multi-use creative space in Chicago that seeks to build community and change the world through art and design. Mayumi Lake&nbsp;is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work explores the ideas of time, memory, and floating between the real and imaginary. With a foundation in photography, she integrates digital images of nature and Japanese textiles into her collages, sculpture, sound, moving images, and installation to expand the narrative of the work and form conceptual layers. Lake’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, Asia Society, Art in General, and Artists Space in New York; Chicago Artists Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago; Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City; Fotografie Forum International in Frankfurt; Cornelius Pleser Galerie in Munich; Galleria PaciArte in Brescia; FOTOAMERICA in Santiago; Witzenhausen Gallery in Amsterdam; and the Setouchi Triennale in Takamatsu. She has published two monographs, Poo-Chi and Ex Post Facto, with Nazraeli Press. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Art Institute of Chicago, Asia Society, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)/City of Chicago, the McCormick Place Art Collection/Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA), Video Art World, the Joy of Giving Something Foundation, and Facebook. Lake received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust&nbsp;is presented as part of the sixth edition of the&nbsp;Chicago Architecture Biennial. Running&nbsp;September 19, 2025 - February 28, 2026&nbsp;at locations throughout Chicago,&nbsp;SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change&nbsp;explores timely global issues through the lens of architecture and design.&nbsp;Learn more at&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/" target="_blank">chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org</a>This exhibition is sponsored by Wintrust Bank with additional support from the Illinois Arts Council, Discover DuPage, Enjoy Illinois and anonymous donors. ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUMThe Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public. The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for adults (ages 18+), $15 for seniors, $10 for students, and $5 for children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org/" target="_blank">elmhurstartmuseum.org</a>.

Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust

Thoughtfully designed, One of a Kind Art Gifts

Gallery Seven Holiday Gift Show

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.

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