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

Jonathan Muecke’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery opens Friday April 10, 2026, from 5 to 8 p.m. Muecke's practice is one of persistent material exploration yielding highly intentional forms.&nbsp;Through iterative cycles of observation, experimentation, and re-understanding—Muecke patiently tests material, scale, and form against one another. Exhibited works range across the matrix of Muecke’s practice, from chairs and tables cast in carbon fiber to inscrutable geometric sculptures, together capturing a moment in an ongoing and self-referential body of work.&nbsp;&nbsp;Jonathan Muecke and Nile Greenberg In Conversation: Saturday April 11, 2pm

Jonathan Muecke

ATHENA 2026 Solo Shows

Our main Opening Reception for "Pieces Too Short to Save: A Survey of Contemporary Collage - An Exhibition Honoring Tony Fitzpatrick" is Sat., April 11, 6-9 pm. We will also have a reception on Wed., April 8 from 6-9 pm to celebrate the opening of the show. There will be a short program at the Saturday reception at 7:30 pm to honor Tony. Family members will be present, and his adult children Max and Gaby will read from Tony's poetry. Tony Fitzpatrick was the beloved, brash, and bold artist, actor, and poet who died too soon at the age of 66 on October 11, 2025. He was a prolific collage artist and printmaker who loved the city of Chicago as well as birds, dogs, and regular folks. For years he has supported other artists and lifted them up. Before he died, we were working with him on this very special collage show. Tony selected most of the artists in this show because he said, “they are among the best.” This exhibit includes works by Lisa Barcy, Lou Beach, Monica J. Brown, Andrea Burgay, Tony Fitzpatrick, Glen Gauthier, Paul Loughney, Jack Poker, Nellie Seigel, and Paloma Trecka. Along with Tony’s work, there are several pieces in the show that were made in tribute to Tony. Many of the artists worked with or were mentored by him. The work in this exhibition showcases the myriad styles and subjects of contemporary collage revealing the dynamism of this art form. This exhibition explores personal memories, social commentary, and a diversity of materials. SoNa Chicago is proud to be a part of extending Tony’s legacy by showcasing contemporary collage artists and honoring him through this exhibition.

Pieces Too Short to Save: A Survey of Contemporary Collage  - An Exhibition Honoring Tony Fitzpatrick

Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present our fifth solo show with&nbsp;Marshall Brown,&nbsp;<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bdZTE3r3YzLqzbr6etCtDNKv_LTwOueZmCJitPDVOy-uIiKEHlGdtQO8GGXVCjGw2taS7eDgoDtRjzTUDmqIK23VMANarfWZo6Ym_17wOpJhKGTvsajrXXq1sGdBy49z6CCPDlkARdNOJ3Z9zpCLGgw==&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Palaces and Prisons</a>, a two-part exhibition presenting collages from Brown’s new&nbsp;Palaces of Industry&nbsp;series in Gallery 1 and in Gallery 2, never-before-shown works that continue his ongoing&nbsp;Prisons of Invention&nbsp;series. Marshall Brown, an artist and architect, collapses reality and fiction with collage, a loophole between he shared territories of art and architecture. In these Palaces, he builds utopian visions from pure abstraction. In these Prisons, he constructs paradoxes from reality’s ruins.&nbsp; The show opens on&nbsp;Friday, March 27&nbsp;with a public reception from 5 to 8pm, and will run through June 6, 2026. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.In Gallery 1,&nbsp;Palaces of Industry&nbsp;is a new series of large-scale collages on panel that returns to Brown’s earliest influences: the floating geometries and dynamic equilibrium of Suprematism, Constructivism’s photomontage tradition and layering, Giacometti’s surrealist structures, Duchamp’s readymades. He appropriates images from contemporary artists who make architecture their subject, reconstructing them as monumental collages. These are imagined futures inspired by great industrial palaces built at the birth of modernism: the Crystal Palace, factories that housed new collective labor, the production sites that promised transformation. White space floods the compositions. Fragments hover. The scale creates immersive worlds you can step inside—flatness expands into depth. Building utopian space from contemporary art’s fascination with architecture, Brown turns art’s gaze at architecture back on itself. These are not pictures. They are visions.In Gallery 2, these never-before-shown works continue his ongoing collage-on-paper&nbsp;Prisons of Invention&nbsp;series, named for Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione. Brown constructs these paradoxical, labyrinthine spaces from fragments of recent architectural photography, just as Piranesi built his imaginary dungeons from the ruins of Rome. Multiple viewpoints collide and diverge within a single composition. Light and shadow emerge from hidden sources. Fragments layer and overlap, creating perspectives that can’t belong to the same space. These are visions of many moments struggling to coexist—each piece holds multiple experiences that refuse to settle into one.<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy561SuiGEWT4MhT4Os8jhBUeey3LFQ4aZ6T5uQJkYTmbYW6LkgBDGUUKHAh6iVHDti2zkaGpFn12vZDwprvXG2S2UsSIeK0AHHDg5xV_sTOC-ik1fHySs-dJq9--xAUe_lrzLix_xp92&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marshall Brown</a>&nbsp;is an architect, urbanist, and futurist whose work creates new connections, associations, and meanings among disconnected architectural and urban remnants. His 2022-23 show,&nbsp;<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy2uuD0m8_rbJNz6t6FMZhku_YBtgfqVqv6lv3AzCA1pJHdc69fTCPz9wq3yYc6OKDI1qdwsupA_d7f6syVyEl8cGbtwKSiHhO6nLuLUTAM_HSeLxzhzD_GTG_CbHgG0Wcw==&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Architecture of Collage</a>&nbsp;at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, was Brown’s first solo museum exhibition and most comprehensive presentation of his collages to date. Works from the show, exploratory essays, and additional pieces are published in a book of the same name, available at the gallery. Brown’s work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography and the University Club, both in Chicago. Brown has exhibited at the&nbsp;<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bI9Z7lobUZF4W_f2F8Fi4g9BDBfQ1J7ECDtmdtVb3cQg5FJTXuEYKopHphEXBpnTBdu-iwEOLy1uiLqfN8_lLU3OzE50o-ArwsLj_5QNYrvubhwCmA7VQ9RdxLK6LYRca&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2016 Venice Architecture Biennale</a>, the&nbsp;2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial,&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit,<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bjPnSRNnkqaHNQdckV1jNouRizwqncz3HG7uoyanPGCHtMMFgntkGZCp9cy03nQ2jthdXSW2ob5r5F-NlRfd6ZdO_2GUMW0f-7dL2mAGyCluR_DCaiv3gh6a8y5Bl6anJmY9LpnX_jxxofbRm900emuGK46Mk17NktrMmZjTmV3AWbSfTQ9tEu_4WKXi3rOpE&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;</a><a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bjPnSRNnkqaHNQdckV1jNouRizwqncz3HG7uoyanPGCHtMMFgntkGZCp9cy03nQ2jthdXSW2ob5r5F-NlRfd6ZdO_2GUMW0f-7dL2mAGyCluR_DCaiv3gh6a8y5Bl6anJmY9LpnX_jxxofbRm900emuGK46Mk17NktrMmZjTmV3BtWSd6D6EhGNBWjcqDjYCa&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Arts Club of Chicago</a>, the Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles, and in a 10-year survey,&nbsp;<a href="https://jxxaepcab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001mPZNIBbgp7CngKH7GjouZPqgrdkfsQqRZl_PgL7NDhbo0-gE8BFGy8emjM07ZJ6bnZplywff9dtv64hK1sygeYVTet5MW28aeYa2mWbJilpfcGIegsKRgzHPd3Fw3INFhZuhPTMyGYiSx3oM54bg-6PxmE5piljEp70XQEQoZVWE9ZW5QqSTyvtgWKniyo2PxYmvaVt2Y9TeXThJX4Zss0x6kjNMpy7SU7fIBeUIBn_H1wzSvuTVuz6UPKMjVo7bq4mvbAEVonnH1Mh6YAXWv6Ca1gCMBk17&amp;c=7PLORVjNRCcHiAvoo0yosgb7vONCSH2o-CAOe_uNl9Rtx5TqjGvWig==&amp;ch=FJaFVK7C8TKLubw7oZtYCqmQb_e5DAHI4W1WR0N62GsfWuwfesdlxQ==" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Recurrent Visions: The Architecture of Marshall Brown Projects</a>, at the Princeton University School of Architecture. Marshall Brown received his masters degrees at Harvard University. He is a full professor with tenure at the Princeton University School of Architecture, where he directs the Princeton Urban Imagination Center. Marshall Brown lives in Princeton, NJ and Philadelphia, PA. Foundry﻿, 2026, collage on prepared panel, 72 x 87 inches

Marshall Brown: Palaces and Prisons

DOCUMENT is delighted to present&nbsp;Dabin Ahn’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on Friday, March 27.Dabin Ahn (b. 1988, Seoul, Korea) lives and works in Chicago, IL. He creates paintings populated by flora, fauna, vessels, candles, and ceramic fragments, motifs that function as representations of the self. Ahn’s paintings also incorporate sculptural elements such as hand-built frames that part to reveal images along the canvas edge. Light plays a central role in the artist’s lexicon, suggesting an illuminating presence even when its source is hidden. These elements collectively blur the boundaries between the material and the imagined, evoking an emotional depth reflective of the human experience. Ahn received a BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Selected solo exhibitions include François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; OCHI, Los Angeles; Harper’s, New York; 1969, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Make Room, Los Angeles; Harper’s, East Hampton; and The Hole, Los Angeles. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GE; X Museum, Beijing, China.

Dabin Ahn: Nocturne

Sarah BedfordDay BrièrreJosiah EllnerLéa LeFloc'h Elise Seigenthaler Gallery is pleased to present&nbsp;Before We Knew Better, a group exhibition featuring Sarah Bedford, Day Brièrre, Josiah Ellner, and Léa LeFloc’h, whose practices draw on narrative, folklore, and personal mythology to explore our enduring relationship with the natural world. Across painting, ceramics, and works on paper,&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;gathers works that feel at once intimate and mythical, suspended at the intersection of memory, imagination, and observation.&nbsp;Before knowledge becomes fixed and ingrained, the world is encountered through instinct and emotion, narrative and storytelling. The works in&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;echo this sensibility, evoking a time when the boundary between the real and the imagined was more diaphanous and permeable. Throughout the exhibition, flora, fauna, and landscapes are depicted across varied materials. Simplified forms, vibrant color palettes, and illustrative gestures imbue the works with a tone that feels both immediate and out-of-time. A close-cropped painting of a unicorn’s milky eye, ringed with fur, reflects a shooting star passing through the luminous sky. Insects and birds adorn intricately patterned vessels. Winding golden roads meander through softly-rendered mountains.&nbsp;Rather than depicting nature as a fixed or distant subject, the artists approach it as a living presence shaped by memory, experience, and intuition. Their works suggest environments where traces of human life appear alongside vast or mysterious forces: secret gardens, shifting terrains, and intimate moments of quiet grandeur that seem to exist just beyond the veil of ordinary perception.As the gallery’s second exhibition,&nbsp;Before We Knew Better&nbsp;continues Elise Seigenthaler Gallery’s interest in work that feels imaginative, and open-ended. The exhibition invites viewers into a space where imagined worlds that feel at once ancient and visionary.-Malena Steelberg

Before We Knew Better

GRAY is pleased to announce&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane, the first monographic exhibition at the gallery dedicated to Brown since announcing exclusive representation of the artist’s estate.&nbsp;Opening at GRAY Chicago on March 19,&nbsp;Weathervane&nbsp;explores the artist’s vision of an emotionally charged contemporary life set at the tense border between the built environment and the natural world.Featuring eleven paintings from the 1980s and 1990s, the exhibition reflects Brown’s clarity of vision as an artist both unafraid to face sociopolitical headwinds and unable to ignore ecological destruction.The exhibition opens with a public reception from 5-7 PM on March 19 and remains on view through June 13.&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane&nbsp;will travel to GRAY New York for a presentation at the gallery’s Madison Avenue space opening on July 8.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-ajdujlt-sykijfhl-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a> Installation view of&nbsp;Roger Brown: Weathervane, GRAY Chicago, 2026. Artwork © The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown Family.

Roger Brown: Weathervane

John Stezaker, the British artist known for his groundbreaking conceptual collage cycles,&nbsp;debuts a new body of work&nbsp;at GRAY Chicago this spring. Titled&nbsp;Raft, the exhibition features a series of uncanny landscapes that mend together two images from the artist’s archives to create a single composition. Sourced from nineteenth-century British books—ostensibly about world travel, but flaunting the geographic extent of the empire—Raftis a continuation of the radically incisive collage techniques Stezaker has been pursuing for nearly six decades.The exhibition opens at GRAY Chicago on Saturday, March 28 with an artist walkthrough at 2:30 PM and a public reception from 3-5 PM.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-atiikhl-tjjiiihhyu-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a>

John Stezaker: Raft

Liliana PorterThe Strange TaskApril 10 - June 13, 2026 Public Opening: Friday, April 10, 5-8PM I would have to say that what art gives me is awareness. Awareness of this short period of time that we have, on one hand, and on the other hand, a way of understanding reality. It may sound corny or dramatic, but for me art is a form of salvation.- Liliana Porter* SECRIST | BEACH is pleased to announce a solo presentation for New York-based gallery artist Liliana Porter. Titled The Strange Task, this exhibition will feature a variety of media including painting, works on paper, sculpture and video all featuring Porter’s coterie of endearing inanimate found objects, toys and figurines. This exhibition is presentedconcurrently with UNREAL, an invitational survey featuring a group of artists exploring contemporary anxieties and the surreal dimensions of everyday life. Both exhibitions open Friday, April 10 from 5–8 PM at SECRIST | BEACH and remain on view through June 13, 2026. Born in Argentina in 1941 and based in New York since 1964, Liliana Porter has developed a enigmatic multidisciplinary practice spanning more than six decades. Working across video, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, small-scale installations, and theatre, her work incorporates everyday found objects to investigate themes of identity, labor, and time, with an idiosyncratic blend of poetic metaphor and humor. Porter constructs situations in which ordinary objects are transformed into agents of reflection on the human condition.Porter is widely recognized as an important figure in conceptual, Latin American and feminist art. Her uniquely personal visual language is rooted the theory of surrealism highlighting not only our relation to objects, but the very nature of objecthood itself. By placing these toys and figurines in a specific context where they are either connected to each other or, conversely, directly connected to the viewer, the fidelity of emotional connection is enhanced. Works included in the exhibition - such as To Get There, To Hold the String, To See a Bird, and To Do It Again - stage moments of quiet action and contemplation. Objects and protagonists develop a narrative that is as approachable as it is meaningful, creating a reconsideration of our own everyday actions. As co-founder of the influential New York Graphic Workshop (1964), Porter also produced prints for the Spanish Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Although their artistic practices diﬀer in both method and context. significantly, both artists share a commitment to distorting reality as a method of inquiry. This conceptual aﬃnity situates Porter within a broader lineage ofSurrealist experimentation, where altered perception functions as a means of probing psychological, cultural, and symbolic structures. Highlighting Porter’s connection to this artistic movement, The Strange Task is presented alongside UNREAL, an exhibition featuring a group of artists whose work engages with contemporary manifestations of surrealism. Thesimultaneous presentation of these two exhibitions establishes a dialogue of contemporary approaches to the surreal, highlighting the relevance of imaginative distortion as a strategy for interrogating collective consciousness.____ Liliana Porter’s (b. Argentina, 1941, resides in New York since 1964) recent solo exhibitions include those at Dia Beacon in New York, Les Abattoirs in Toulouse France, El Museo de Barrio in New York City; The Perez Art Museum in Miami; Galería Luciana Brito in São Paulo, Brasil; ART OMI in Ghent, NY; Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA; El Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo; Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Franklin Rawson in San Juan, Argentina; Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, Mexico Her most recent institutional exhibition took place at Dia Bridgehampton in 2025. Porter's most recent theatrical performance, THEM was co-directed with Ana Tiscornia with music by Sylvia Meyer and debuted in New York at The Kitchen in 2018. Image: Liliana PorterWoman Sweeping with Gold, 2025Glitter and figurine one a pedestalDimensions variable

Liliana Porter: The Strange Task 

Juror for Body Sovereignty: Danni O’BrienSolo artist: Audrey Yang

Body Sovereignty (Front/Group) & Solo (Back)

Japeth Mennes: I will always love ewe

Lavar Munroe&nbsp;is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the human condition through a blend of immersive travel, cultural research, and material experimentation. Working across mixed media painting, sculpture, and drawing, Munroe&nbsp;operates&nbsp;in the spirit of an anthropologist—integrating into communities across Africa, including Tanzania, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, to engage firsthand with local rituals, ceremonies, and belief systems. These encounters, combined with his upbringing in the Bahamas, fuel a practice rooted in storytelling, folklore, and mythology.&nbsp;Munroe’s richly layered works—often described as hybrids between painting and relief sculpture—combine&nbsp;everyday&nbsp;and symbolic materials such as glass, synthetic flowers, feathers, and&nbsp;newspaper&nbsp;with acrylic, oil pastel, and house paint. These elements, many drawn from his childhood and travels, are woven into fantastical, dreamlike compositions that examine themes of home, utopia, escape, and belonging. His work challenges viewers to navigate multiple narratives that span personal memory, cultural identity, and collective imagination.&nbsp;&nbsp;Munroe (b.1982, Nassau, Bahamas) earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (2007) and MFA Studio Art at Washington University, St. Louis (2013).&nbsp;He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2013) and was awarded a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2016), Benny Andrews Fellow from the MacDowell Colony (2016), and The Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity-University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC (2014). Recent solo exhibitions include&nbsp;Larkin Durey, London, UK (2024);&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2023);&nbsp;Jack Bell Gallery, London, England (2022, 2021, 2014); Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2021); NOMAD, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, LA (2018); SCAD Museum of Art and Gutstein Gallery, Savannah, GA (2016); and The Central Bank, Nassau, Bahamas (2010).&nbsp;Munroe’s work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally at&nbsp;The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI;&nbsp;Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben, CH;&nbsp;Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, SA;&nbsp;The&nbsp;National Art Gallery of&nbsp;The Bahamas; Centre Pompidou Metz, FR; Ichihara Lakeside Museum; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; Perez Art Museum Miami, FL; Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC, among others.&nbsp;Munroe will have a solo show with&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;in 2026 and will co-represent&nbsp;The Bahamas at the 2026 Venice Biennale.&nbsp;Munroe’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD;&nbsp;Fondation&nbsp;de France;&nbsp;Fondation&nbsp;Gandur&nbsp;pour&nbsp;l’Art, Genève, Switzerland; The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY; The Central Bank of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, BA; and the MAXXI Museum, Rome, IT. He is the recipient of honors and awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in honor of Robert De Niro, Sr., (2023), the Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist (2021), Distinguished Alums Award from Sam Fox School of Art and Design from Washington University of St. Louis (2018), Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence from the University of North Carolina (2015), Sam Fox Dean’s Initiative Fund (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2013), Joan Mitchell Foundation Scholarship (2012), The Kraus Family Foundation Award (2011), and The National Endowment for the Arts Grant (2011). Munroe lives and works between Baltimore, MD, and&nbsp;The Bahamas.&nbsp;

Lavar Munroe

Artists: Natalja Heybrook, Ruti Modlin, Jeein Kim

July Solo Shows

 Marian Carow

The City of Chicago and its people are celebrated in IAM’s exhibition of works by Chicago-based artist Marvin Young. A lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side, Young joined&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://artsoflife.org/" target="_blank">Arts of Life</a>’s progressive studio for artists with intellectual and physical disabilities in 2024. Using graphite, colored pencil, crayon, pen, and marker, Young creates vivid drawings that reflect his community and personal history, capturing imagined and remembered urban scenes alongside large-scale portraits. Young’s architectural landscapes feature vintage Chicago walk-ups, brownstones, and high rises framed by bright skies and classic cars, taxi cabs, police officers, and bustling city life. Curated by IAM Assistant Curator&nbsp;Christina Stavros, the exhibition showcases Young’s vision and prolific practice.

Impressions of a City: Drawings by Marvin Young

Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady&nbsp;is&nbsp;the largest solo exhibition of the artist’s work outside his native Pennsylvania. Known for transforming tin-plated steel and welding rods into forms that evoke figures, machines, spacecraft, and whimsical abstractions, the retrospective features more than 40 dynamic sculptures alongside images from Brady’s sketchbooks. Curated by IAM Chief Curator&nbsp;Alison Amick,&nbsp;Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady&nbsp;features a selection of works from over five decades, providing insight into the imaginative sources behind the artist’s practice.&nbsp;

Drawing with Metal: Sculpture by Bill Brady

Brendan Fernandes&nbsp;is an internationally recognized,&nbsp;multidisciplinary artist&nbsp;who&nbsp;examines issues of cultural displacement, migration, labor, and queer subjectivity through installation, video, sculpture, and dance. He is invested in confronting the complexities of transitional and transnational identities, with a particular interest in incorporating elements of cultural performance into contemporary art, arising from his unique cultural background as a Queer, Kenyan Indian Canadian. &nbsp;Fernandes’&nbsp;projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency,&nbsp;his&nbsp;projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance party, part political protest...&nbsp;always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity.  &nbsp;Fernandes (b.1979, Nairobi, Kenya) attended York University for his Bachelors (hons.) and is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2010).&nbsp;He is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. &nbsp;Selected solo presentations include&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver, CO (2024);&nbsp;Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, NY (2023);&nbsp;The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA (2023);&nbsp;Lurie Garden at&nbsp;Millennium&nbsp;Park, Chicago, IL (2022); The Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC (2022); The Art Gallery in Ontario, Toronto, ON (2021); Chrysler Art Museum, Norfolk, VA (2020);&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;(2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2019); The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (2019); The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL (2018).&nbsp;His projects have been featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa,&nbsp;ON;&nbsp;Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON;&nbsp;Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA;&nbsp;and The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, among many others.&nbsp;Recent projects include performances and solo presentations at the&nbsp;Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO; Prospect.6, New Orleans, LA;&nbsp;Remai Modern, Saskatoon, CA;&nbsp;Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway; a collaboration with Danish National Radio, Copenhagen, Denmark, a group show at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa,&nbsp;and a two person show at Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA. In 2024, Fernandes debuted&nbsp;Build of the House&nbsp;for ART on THE MART, which traveled to Times Square Arts’ Midnight Moments.&nbsp;&nbsp;Public collections include&nbsp;the&nbsp;National Museum of&nbsp;African&nbsp;Art, Smithsonian, DC;&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary&nbsp;Art, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;Remai&nbsp;Modern, Saskatoon, CA;&nbsp;The&nbsp;Museu&nbsp;de&nbsp;Arte de São&nbsp;Paulo, BR;&nbsp;Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO;&nbsp;DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;Block Museum of&nbsp;Art&nbsp;at Northwestern University, IL;&nbsp;The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA;&nbsp;Musée&nbsp;des&nbsp;Beaux-Arts de Montréal, QC;&nbsp;Crysler&nbsp;Museum of&nbsp;Art, Norfolk, VA;&nbsp;The Joyner/Giuffrida&nbsp;Collection of&nbsp;Abstract&nbsp;Art, San Francisco, CA;&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary&nbsp;Art, University of Massachusetts,&nbsp;Amherst, MA;&nbsp;and the Wedge Collection, Toronto, ON.&nbsp;Fernandes is a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship. In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art&nbsp;Award, and&nbsp;is the recipient of a prestigious Canada Council New Chapters grant (2017), the&nbsp;Artadia&nbsp;Award (2019), a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019), and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020).&nbsp;Fernandes currently lives&nbsp;and works&nbsp;in Chicago, IL. &nbsp;

Brendan Fernandes

Cutting and Pasting a World: The Paper Craft of Henry Darger&nbsp;April 22, 2026 to January 31, 2027&nbsp;IAM joins in the celebration of the 250th anniversary celebration of American craft, Handwork 2026, organized by Craft in America, with an exhibition exploring the connection between Henry Darger’s art and traditional American paper crafts. Drawing on research by guest curator and art historian Dr. Mary Trent(College of Charleston), the exhibition illustrates how the turn-of-the-century practices of making paper dolls and paper dollhouse scrapbooks may have influenced Darger’s evolution as an artist and maker. By showcasing both finished artworks and original source materials, the exhibition demonstrates how Darger adapted these humble pastimes into sophisticated methods for constructing large-scale, mixed-media narratives. The exhibition provides context for these crafts within the early 20th-century movement to instill middle-class American "taste" in a burgeoning immigrant population. Likely exposed to these practices within social welfare institutions as a child, Darger ultimately subverted them—transforming decorative domestic crafts into a profound and complex commentary on the vulnerabilities of marginalized children.&nbsp;&nbsp;IAM joins in the celebration of the 250th&nbsp;anniversary celebration of American craft,&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.handwork2026.org/" target="_blank">Handwork 2026</a>,&nbsp;organized by&nbsp;<a style="color: rgb(70, 120, 134);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.craftinamerica.org/" target="_blank">Craft in America</a>, with an exhibition exploring the connection between Henry Darger’s art and traditional American paper crafts. Drawing on research by guest curator and art historian&nbsp;Dr.&nbsp;Mary Trent (College of Charleston), the exhibition illustrates how the turn-of-the-century practices of making paper dolls and paper dollhouse scrapbooks may have influenced Darger’s evolution as an artist and maker. By showcasing both finished artworks and original source materials, the exhibition demonstrates how Darger adapted these humble pastimes into sophisticated methods for constructing large-scale, mixed-media narratives. The exhibition provides context for these crafts within the early 20th-century movement to instill middle-class American "taste" in a burgeoning immigrant population. Likely exposed to these practices within social welfare institutions as a child, Darger ultimately subverted them—transforming decorative domestic crafts into a profound and complex commentary on the vulnerabilities of marginalized children.&nbsp;

Cutting and Pasting a World: The Paper Craft of Henry Darger

Life is an Art: The Collection of Jan Petry&nbsp;highlights 30 artworks donated to IAM by the late, long-time board member Jan Petry. Curated by IAM Chief Curator&nbsp;Alison Amick, the exhibition showcases paintings, drawings, and sculptures by major figures in American self-taught art, including Emery Blagdon, James Castle, Ulysses Davis, Charles Dellschau, William Hawkins, and Martín Ramírez, as well as Günther Schützenhöfer, a resident artist at Gugging, a progressive art studio in Austria. Those artworks are complemented by objects that reflect Petry’s passion for folk art, design, furniture, and maritime themes, offering a glimpse into the vision of a dedicated collector.

Life is an Art: The Collection of Jan Petry

Dr. Charles Smith served as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, an experience that left lasting wounds and shaped his artistic vision. In the 1980s, he began transforming his Aurora, Ill., home into the African-American Heritage Museum and Black Veterans Archive—a monumental environment of nearly 600 sculptures and 150 monuments honoring African-American history and civil rights. Using found materials, Smith created life-sized figures and symbolic structures referencing slavery, the Middle Passage, the Underground Railroad, African American cultural and political figures, and everyday life. Through the concept of&nbsp;anti-monumentalism, Smith critiques traditional monuments and holds space for histories often excluded from civic memory. Curated by IAM Assistant Curator Christina Stavros,&nbsp;Monumental: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith&nbsp;features pieces from the Museum’s collection alongside select loans, including several recently conserved works now on view for the first time in years.

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