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

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, MexicoHer 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 Porter, Woman Sweeping with Gold, 2025, Glitter and figurine one a pedestal, Dimensions variable

Liliana Porter: The Strange Task 

PATRON announces&nbsp;Garden of Prayer, our second solo exhibition with New York-based artist Nour Malas (b. 1995, Cannes, France). Borrowing its title from a 1971 song by Max Roach and The J.C. White Singers, the exhibition invokes jazz’s improvisational exploration of form and gospel’s devotional intensity, through a series of expansive paintings and pastel works on linen, paper, and silk fabric. Over the past five years Malas has developed a physical, poetic practice, driven by an inert impulse to give form to the emotional states of being alive. Spending her formative years between Europe and the Middle East, before studying in London and Chicago, Malas’s work is informed by her experience of cultural hybridity, transforming diverse legacies of song, poetry, music, and visual culture into abstraction.&nbsp;Shaped memories of place, mood, architecture, and drawing on an intimate knowledge of art history,&nbsp;Garden of Prayer&nbsp;marks a considerable shift in Malas’s practice over the past year. Developed over the last five months, the work in the exhibition results from a perspective of turning inward, holding, honoring, and communing with personal history and familial lineages, as spaces in which possible realities may be lived. The result is a corpus of expansive landscapes of alternative states, transcendent yet accessible, outside shared human experiences of suffering, otherworldly, yet deeply familiar.&nbsp;In&nbsp;L’âme de L’âme&nbsp;(2026), the first painting Malas completed of this body of work, celestial bursts of pigment unfurl in gestural swirls. Deep purples, blues, reds, and greens gather into a spiritual atmosphere recalling the spiritually evocative scenes of 16th century Italian painters such as Titian. Barely perceivable, spectral silhouettes appear and recede. The painting is a space of ascension, where earth meets spirit. The title, French for “soul of the soul,” also echoes the Arabic phrase Ruh al-Ruh, suggesting an innermost essence—something tender, sacred, and inseparable from love.At the heart of Malas’s work is the spirit of her grandmother, who the artist attributes as being her spiritual guide. A continued embodiment of a childhood sense of nature, care, and safety, Malas’s ancestor personifies a space within the real world in which the artist, as a child, could retreat. In speaking to how she continues to communicate with her grandmother through dreams, Malas suggests how paintings can be portals into parallel, spiritual worlds. Conjuring new spaces with pigment, Malas is compelled to create sites of care, where imagination and magic can exist. In&nbsp;Sweetness and Light&nbsp;the artist’s grandmother, mother, and sister appear in turn as spectral figures or, as in the expansive landscape of&nbsp;Spiritual Wasteland, as memories, or personified emotions. A return to her roots as a sculptor, Malas’s world building unfolds into the gallery’s architecture through an installation of painted silk,&nbsp;Long Division&nbsp;(2026). Suspended six-foot panels of fabric envelop the viewer, undulating as one passes through the space. Embracing and enveloping the viewer,&nbsp;Long Division&nbsp;creates an impermeable space out of time, where we can, at least temporarily, be held.Claiming “there is a sense of duty in painting a different picture,” Malas’s practice emerges from her own ineffable impulse to channel the emotional weight of existence. Considering how her own experience of revolution and war was in part channeled through the lives of family members, Malas’s practice relies on our ability to transport through time, and feel, viscerally alternative aspects of the same reality. This impulse transforms pigment into emotional, social residues, giving form to sites that exist on the other side of grief, in which we can escape and imagine a different present, and future.

Nour Malas: Garden of Prayer

<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0vFfmz2MVVacIXQRtQtK_wXksMklY-uC4lbOEXaJeYqrTsini80rxdgP9JZxLyus684o_vaFbyfpsiAnL2xnwZ_k9-Q4qvZ-C2oxXoEwlCCdJ5fBJ3IF5TVskUoSHEDrCcSlAerCTl4-wO1VnKgWrRg==&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">homeward (un)bound</a>, a three-person exhibition by 2024-26 Artist Residents&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0yFe07UT3uphqVJ1u3870CL8eInpBZMfGfaDz_DEV0dxzTybaYiFjnn5m3iCsGCG-jhPwlN_ANpDheiu7lahv_AXVSNYWREYlxVW5sf7tRRiyLtr1El432S7PNaREMoCBi0q3AFQIHQiz90TEO-LjwscqYHjPXhDLxlYBqwxvg8cfj-hiB34faNKnJKNhe_08vm73ALPg03hxqVnL_QTgpRL41Ghmsjc1tu7E-ETs5oAhFTToEmwF62EHO24IWROMnQGOLSzkMuylqkcyf7D5hroSJM9UWQQAdc9QUoqeVsVhejwqJkNgRsrbD0P8Lwksr-OAj0i_Lq633KiuJ7nXRLMtHjug75hpSa5eXJS4tN9ScgBZc6eeaO0Uzf2IYNHV&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Maryam Faridani</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0eKweQiPtinscmzTgSMitOzVhWCeYSEKOATs4K4zql7bbSn5nJ7S-t1Tlb6Nbm_RR4a1-tp4pCOIzjrKASQGrxfICOgb2PNgZ&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Jairo Granados-Cardenas</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0aTg_hjekkcPOnbPEqrlF1G3u2UL3Dn5UAMzfDHOGT9RrpVnTirk5emY6FPxL1a7LQNY7_AbcS4rfQSP-wBhx0NdhcFqcYKoy&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">Martha Osornio Ruiz</a>,curated by 2024-26 Curatorial Resident&nbsp;<a href="https://tnxbinhbb.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-AyuHMeFW3lREHV41VYkX-HsvsKSTe-TOXRN_hhl7etEdhSUVhtYAe70g_PVPyI0lPvnA0KwECcQmoagxOzk-mg2BEeGMSxpih3-lonaQ6Ce7VvFME2Ko2mrKQKjLoGtcQ9mkM5Hk8z6dKRgFYa8xOao89yZSzORpBSeUs143Dr0K4x7aIFKcJ-0b2cqPDY2iN1TzvIZ_H-JWk9_vA6kM3UgmFrVZs9sDNRMPprHYc1HYNrxLR-b7xjxQapc-uBqo3YjtrlGsgdBae4ZuANs-l_-j0wsVu4k62Y-z8F3rmq8kcGHjbVsHn22kmDBI9mswDjZ_mLJbCrGuZUuIPbe1W_oI6xq5CxjHJT3W3-vXOTPVln2Vw4wNv1oF7C0P1rsQDfCWFkA6e8B9Q-roC1PqLsyxa3pY39_mXAKIrOm5yRzwaI3gVgeKdJM6LvynH5Yyr_KlNfBg08=&amp;c=wB0z5d7Pqxdd7DfIDY0H4Z4sWpRZZtQl8p7vB1KMpHFESPXc1sJFxQ==&amp;ch=PH7frpLvTMZEJtLk7cZ2FuL99-6FNPA7RLlyH77WuWTTzAlef0VdAw==" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(44, 116, 255);" target="_blank">gordon fung</a>. Gallery Hours:Wednesdays from 11am-4pmSaturdays from 12-4pmBy advance appointment

homeward (un)bound

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

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

Join us Friday, May 29th, from 6-10pm for the Opening Reception of PRIDE! - Jackson Junge Gallery’s newest group exhibition featuring artists from the LGBTQ+ community. Giving queer and non-binary creators a platform to share their experiences through art, the gallery hopes to foster an inclusive space for marginalized voices. Explore your own identity and challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality with PRIDE!

PRIDE! Group Exhibition

Japeth Mennes: I will always love ewe

Artists: Natalja Heybrook, Ruti Modlin, Jeein Kim

July Solo Shows

Within the past&nbsp;several years, I have been making wall-mounted mixed media objects out of everyday materials.&nbsp;With a process-driven, improvisational approach, I allow chance and contingency into the work.&nbsp;A major project has been investigation of the possibilities of salvaged corrugated cartons.&nbsp;I also employ wood elements, both purchased and found, cast-off scraps, repositories of my own and others' decision making.&nbsp;By bringing materials into my studio, I can live with and consider them over time.&nbsp;I begin without a preconceived end in mind and proceed in a spontaneous way, bending, cutting, sawing, ripping, stomping, reconfiguring, gluing, until a form resonates. Surface treatments often include white house paint, scantily applied to suggest weathering and allowing exposure of structural seams.&nbsp;Inspiration for these pieces resides in the pulse of urban surroundings--architecture, construction and the accompanying debris, abandoned structures, fragmentation as well as the anxiety of instability and fragility of life.For a large part of my career,&nbsp;drawing has been the primary focus of my practice. Strongly influenced by minimalism, I employ varieties of wet and dry media to develop series of works on paper, the content addressing tensions among flat shapes and lines, the energy between them, their relationship to negative space as well as to the edges of the support. My approach is to begin with an element, adding information to develop a visual dialogue, mindful of restraint, challenging myself to know when to stop. The final images are distillations of experiential incongruities, with a prominent role given to negative space, referencing the weight of silence, of things unsaid.Pivot, 2022. Plywood, Acrylic, 10" x 6.5" x 2.5"

 Marian Carow

Please join for an opening reception for&nbsp;<a href="http://westernexhibitions.com/artist/richard-hull/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" target="_blank">Richard Hull</a>‘s sixth show at Western Exhibitions, new work in Gallery 1 and a printmaking retrospective in Gallery 2, on Friday, June 12, 2026, 5 to 8pm. More information to come.Image: Duet , 2023, Oil and wax ground on linen. 48h x 60w in

Richard Hull

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

Please join us for a new installation, Interrobang, by Jenal Dolson to kick off the project space at 65GRAND. Enveloped in an overtly bright, striped environment, Interrobang stages a dynamic interplay of color, pattern, and optical vibration, destabilizing perceptual assumptions and enacting a phenomenological encounter in which space, surface, and body are inseparably entangled. In this way, the paintings hold gesture as the body holds touch: as residue, as a lingering presence - embodying the interrogative tension of the interrobang itself. Image: Jenal Dolson,&nbsp;Play House,&nbsp;2026, oil and pumice on canvas, 41.25 x 34 inches

Jenal Dolson: Interrobang

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

Please join for an opening reception for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oliviazubko.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" target="_blank">Olivia Zubko’s</a>&nbsp;first show at Western Exhibitions, on Friday, September 18, 5 to 8pm. More information to come.Image: Cairn III , 2025, Stained porcelain. 16h x 6 1/2w x 6 1/2d in

Olivia Zubko 

Gallery One, ChicagoPlease join for an opening reception for&nbsp;<a href="http://westernexhibitions.com/artist/miller-shellabarger/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" target="_blank">Miller &amp; Shellabarger</a>’s sixth show at Western Exhibitions on Friday, November 6, 2026, 5 to 8pm. More information to come.Image: Tug, 2025, construction paper, string, 6h x 13 1/2w in

Miller & Shellabarger

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.

Monumental: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith

Gallery Two, ChicagoPlease join for an opening reception for&nbsp;<a href="http://westernexhibitions.com/artist/paul-nudd/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);" target="_blank">Paul Nudd</a>‘s sixth solo show at Western Exhibitions, the first focusing on his burgeoning ceramics practice, on Friday, November 6, 2026, 5 to 8pm. More information to come.Image: Paul Nudd ceramics

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