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

GRAY Chicago | 2044 W Carroll AveGRAY is pleased to announce&nbsp;IT’S ABOUT TIME: Counterproductive Conceptualisms in Chicago, an exhibition that traces the contours of a newly emerging conceptual art ethos among younger generations of Chicago-based or -trained artists.Organized by DRAW, the curatorial duo composed of Dieter Roelstraete and Abigail Winograd, the exhibition brings together a group&nbsp;of artists who prefer taking their time, and who often use “time” itself as one of their subjects. Shaped to a discernible degree by the local legacies of artists like Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle and Pope.L, this distinctly contrarian strand of conceptualism in Chicago seeks to restore the social magic of both art and the artist’s life.&nbsp;The artists include Alex Chitty, Shir Ende, Max Guy, Jinn Bronwen Lee, Dave Lloyd, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Devin T. Mays, Pope.L, Nick Raffel, and Miao Wang.While maintaining disparate practices, these artists share a spirit of studied nonchalance: what might be described as a “Midwestern” alternative to the demands of artistic production as a rat race.IT'S ABOUT TIME&nbsp;will open on July 10 with a public reception from 3-8 PM, with artist activations. Remarks at 5pm.<a href="https://ennouncement.exhibit-e.com/t/y-l-audiykl-sykijfhl-t/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Learn More</a> Image: Iñigo Manglano Ovalle,&nbsp;Untitled sawhorse free of metaphor (after Bas Jan Ader), 2025.

IT’S ABOUT TIME: Counterproductive Conceptualisms in Chicago

We're thrilled to share our&nbsp;first exhibition in partnership with&nbsp;<a href="https://links.joymachine.art/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzNjc5MyxcImxcIjoxOTEyNjk1MzgzMDg4MTg2NDEsXCJyXCI6MTkxMjY5NTUyNTkwNDIzMjcxfSIsInMiOiIwMWJjNjUxNjlkMjc5NjI2In0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Vertical Gallery</a>:&nbsp;Wanderland,&nbsp;featuring all new works&nbsp;by Dutch artist&nbsp;Collin van der Sluijs. Opening on July 10, this exhibition marks the artist’s sixth solo presentation in Chicago and more than ten years of working&nbsp;with Vertical. We're honored to be part of the collaboration.Wanderland&nbsp;comprises a new body of work developed during a two-year period. Spanning enormous mixed-media paintings, intimate drawings, and skate decks bearing the artist’s signature birds, the exhibition reflects both the momentous and mundane, particularly loss, grief, and the therapeutic powers of nature.The opening also coincides with the publication of&nbsp;Wanderland: 1991-2026,&nbsp;a beautiful 180-page hardcover career retrospective spotlighting van der Sluijs' achievements as a painter, muralist and graffiti writer.You can&nbsp;<a href="https://links.joymachine.art/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzNjc5MyxcImxcIjoxOTEyNjk1MzgzMjE0MDE1NTcsXCJyXCI6MTkxMjY5NTUyNTkwNDIzMjcxfSIsInMiOiJmYWFhMmYxZDYzNTQ1MTNhIn0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pre-order it here</a>.Join us&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href="https://links.joymachine.art/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzNjc5MyxcImxcIjoxOTEyNjk1MzgzMzUwMzMwNDgsXCJyXCI6MTkxMjY5NTUyNTkwNDIzMjcxfSIsInMiOiI5NzNkYWY1NGViNDk3ODdlIn0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an opening reception</a>&nbsp;from 6 to 8 p.m. on July 10. Van der Sluijs will be present.<a href="https://links.joymachine.art/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzNjc5MyxcImxcIjoxOTEyNjk1MzgzNDg2NjQ1NDIsXCJyXCI6MTkxMjY5NTUyNTkwNDIzMjcxfSIsInMiOiJiMzkzMDQ0YWUxNmU4OWYyIn0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RSVP to the opening</a><a href="https://links.joymachine.art/tj/cl/eyJ2Ijoie1wiYVwiOjIzNjc5MyxcImxcIjoxOTEyNjk1MzgzNjQzOTMxODgsXCJyXCI6MTkxMjY5NTUyNTkwNDIzMjcxfSIsInMiOiJmOTA0NDY5NmM0MDFhYjljIn0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Join collector preview</a>

Collin van der Sluijs: Wonderland

Painters' Painters is a curated summer exhibition featuring artists whose work is held in high esteem within the discourse of contemporary painting. This exhibition unites artists not by subject matter or an overarching idea, but by medium — presenting an opportunity to witness a sustained commitment to the act of painting itself, championing fluency and fidelity. By removing the context of a singular curatorial thesis, the works presented tell a story about the enduring relationship between artists and to the ever-evolving language of painting itself. The resulting dialogue creates a dynamic synthesis between how art is made, for whom it is made, and why. The twelve artists in&nbsp;Painters' Painters&nbsp;were selected by the gallery as exemplars of what we most admire in this medium. Just as importantly, they are artists who admire one another's work. While the idea of a “painter's painter" is inherently subjective - and at times polarizing - the defining quality shared by these artists is an intuitive command of the medium. Their work reflects not only technical fluency, but also an artistic sensibility that gives each painting a distinct presence and unmistakable authenticity. Embedded within the exhibition is the often private ecology of influence that defines artistic practice. Painters look relentlessly at other painters: studying decisions, testing assumptions, tracing formal problems across generations, and discovering unexpected solutions. Admiration and competition, affinity and resistance, coexist within this process. Looking becomes a form of research as much as a catalyst for invention, situating each new painting within an ongoing conversation that is at once historical and contemporary. The works in&nbsp;Painters' Painters&nbsp;span a broad range of subjects, ideas, and methodologies, reflecting the expansive terrain of painting today.&nbsp;Photorealist works appear alongside landscapes, still lifes, abstractions, and narrative paintings, demonstrating that the language of painting is neither singular nor stable, but continually recalibrated through material decisions, perceptual experience, and individual vision. Together, these works offer a rich visual vocabulary through which to consider not only painting's capacity to communicate, but also the many ways artists employ its formal language to encode meaning and invite interpretation. This is an occasion to consider painting not as a unified position, but as a plurality of practices that remain deeply invested in the possibilities of the medium. Throughout the exhibition, we will be taking a closer look into each artists studio practice and exploring their inspirations, frustrations, aesthetic philosophies and the artists they consider "painters' painters." These conversations will be published on our website, culminating in a full-color exhibition catalogue to be released later this summer. Image: Dana DeGiulio, A structure to pour into that wields nothing, 2023. Oil on MDF, 16 x 12 inches Artists include:&nbsp;Sam Bornstein&nbsp;(New York)Nik Cho&nbsp;(Chicago)Tavin Davis&nbsp;(Chicago)Rob Davis&nbsp;(New York)Dana DeGulio&nbsp;(New York)Kevin Ford&nbsp;(Conneticut)Dana Frankfort&nbsp;(Houston)April Gornik&nbsp;(New York)Jeffly Gabriela&nbsp;Molina&nbsp;(Chicago)Richard Tinkler&nbsp;(New York)Emma White&nbsp;(Toronto)Kevin Wolff&nbsp;(Chicago)

Painters' Painters

In his first exhibition at EAM, visual artist Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford presents a series of outdoor sculptures in Wilder Park (on view starting April 18) as well as an immersive installation within the iconic McCormick House. Bridging handcrafted techniques and digital fabrication, featured works serve as a low-carbon alternative to traditional monumental sculpture as a way of reflecting on labor, materiality, the internet age, and architectural legacies. Curated by&nbsp;Allison Peters Quinn, EAM Executive Director and Chief Curator,&nbsp;Near Immortality&nbsp;features&nbsp;new sculptures inside the McCormick House&nbsp;created from 3D scans of important design items in EAM’s collection, including Mies’ Barcelona Chair and a leg splint designed by Charles &amp; Ray Eames.&nbsp;Hulsebos-Spofford is a sculptor and assistant professor of sculpture at Indiana University Northwest. He is also a co-director and founder of the collective Floating Museum, and co-curator of the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Through his large plaster and silicon sculptures, he reinterprets modern monuments and classical sculptures as glitched assemblages. Although many of his works evoke ancient art history, Hulsebos-Spofford’s pieces are rooted in modernist aesthetics and its relevance in the everyday experience.&nbsp;

Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford: Near Eternity

Raised in Wheaton, Illinois, and based in New York, Jeanette Andrews&nbsp;bridges the worlds of illusion, installation, and conceptual art, creating interactive vignettes and surreal, multisensory experiences that investigate perception, cognition, and the seemingly impossible. Andrews applies sensory illusion techniques and her interest in the bounds of perception to create artworks that explore magic, multiple realities, and the human psyche, often inviting audiences in as co-creators in her illusory performances.Her first solo museum exhibition,&nbsp;On Wonder, Mind, &amp; Magic&nbsp;will present interactive and site-specific works including installation, sculpture, video, sound, and performance, alongside&nbsp;new work developed while Artist in Residence at MIT’s Center for Art, Science, and Technology&nbsp;in 2024-25. Curated by&nbsp;Liz Chilsen, Manager of Exhibitions &amp; Collections, the exhibition represents a return home for Andrews, who cites EAM as an early influence in her pursuit of a career honing her technical skills and applying magic and sensory illusion techniques to create artworks.&nbsp;Andrews has presented numerous commissioned works with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, as well as for the Quebec City Biennial and Boca Raton Museum of Art, presented talks for Cooper Hewitt, Chicago Ideas Week, The British Society of Aesthetics, and universities, including Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Harvard. She has held residencies with the Institute for Art and Olfaction and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston and is a former National Arts Club Artist Fellow and Affiliate of metaLAB at Harvard. She was a 2024-2025 Visiting Artist for the Center for Art, Science and Technology at MIT and the current visiting artist for the Arts Institute at Brown University.

On Wonder, Mind, & Magic: Jeanette Andrews

Exhibit Hall, Chicago Cultural Center&nbsp;Chicago-based artist Alberto Aguilar presents a two-part&nbsp;retrospective&nbsp;exploring&nbsp;the&nbsp;themes of communication,&nbsp;translation&nbsp;and collaboration. Through&nbsp;distinctive&nbsp;acts of translation&nbsp;and&nbsp;shared authorship, Aguilar invites artists, friends, family members and even strangers into his creative process, transforming the exhibition into a living dialogue.&nbsp;The exhibition features works created with a range of collaborators including Saoirse Ahumada Furin, Jess Bass, Cecilia Beaven, Julieta Beltrán Lazo, Alex Bradley Cohen, Maria Burundarena, Jooeun Kim, Joshua Mitchell, Jonas Müller-Anheim, Ricardo Vilas Freire and Zespo.&nbsp;&nbsp;Please click&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://link.mediaoutreach.meltwater.com/ls/click?upn=u001.CSSunAOBvEOR4GhykBjJWWnTwxFlkUDDBF-2Fji248p2y6hFXsBorvoCC9fZuH5e36AZGg2-2FtjC961wjBmgLlzNuz7Rq0zU-2BMLYcNhNIvpeOQ-3DEHvI_0g5QiKQ3ANfCkWXxwzczn1phIok0-2FnBF8GNWXrNhq2-2B4ftGj9DI8Jn4AfRAGeAJVn7gGoI0v4yHfyxNzcTgWoLurliSnTAPDeTMjcpIoytOOx4olIMMV-2FUlia6rP-2BnJxXYH5O8tvn-2Fktq8OM7hVEsSIVa5QMZTlavNfGLkxY-2Bv5Ob8cNxVZY2QQwdDW7CjMxGACT3QdirHvuvzc-2FrsOP9qq38FKVrw-2Bh9GrF70Ft5aJeGU9JUtxgunhG3qQqj-2BBd7tnD-2FdpqjWxL-2Fa4NHpdsTiQUtoaEwE3RrYEjNAtk3izMJ2YvahaFX3oiKvlOSprDrjkY8srcE6zhUZAIal-2Fc7gOryvSwKytp1PAKnMYGiT-2Fh5CExJ-2BJuSePSfHnwccFhcyqY4CDYCv6QC3KEKttMDQ-3D-3D" target="_blank">here</a>&nbsp;for more information on this exhibition.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Alberto Aguilar: I just really want to tell you this one thing 

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

Institute193 and DOCUMENT are pleased to invite you to a book signing and release party for&nbsp;Living and Working, a monograph on the work of artist Erin Jane Nelson, on Tuesday, August 25 from 5-7pm at DOCUMENT Chicago. Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name at the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,&nbsp;Living and Working&nbsp;traces ten years of artist Erin Jane Nelson’s evolving practice in and around Atlanta, Georgia. Moving from fabric collages to wall-hanging ceramics to analogue photography using cameras of her own making, Nelson has investigated the relationship between the watery landscapes of the American Southeast and the psychological and political structures of our contemporary world.⁠ Nelson’s practice gently applies pressure to the traditional boundaries of fine art, offering an imaginative, open-ended response to ecological anxiety. She draws upon a lineage of feminist practices, infusing her collaged quilts and amoeba-like ceramics with visual languages indebted to various aesthetics traditionally excluded from fine art—vernacular craft forms of the South, science fiction, and the overtly feminine and personal.&nbsp;Living and Workingmirrors this blurring of boundaries by including candid photographs, diaristic writing, and Nelson’s own fiction alongside critical essays and full-color documentation of her work.⁠ Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989, Neenah, WI) lives and works in Santa Fe, NM. In 2011 she received her BFA from The Cooper Union. Recent solo exhibitions include the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL (2026); DOCUMENT, Chicago, IL (2024); Chapter NY, New York, NY (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA (2021); and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA (2019).&nbsp;Nelson was included in the 2026 Whitney Biennial and 2021 New Museum Triennial; her work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ (2025); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (2024); Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA (2023); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2021); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2020); Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands (2020); La Galerie, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, France (2019); and Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2018). Nelson was the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts.

Erin Jane Nelson: Living and Working | Book Signing and Release Party

Thursday, August 27, 2026, 6:00-7:00pm$20For some 300 years, cartoonists have cast their satirical lens on fashion, capturing trends at their most absurd. In this visually immersive lecture inspired by&nbsp;Ink &amp; Outrage: 18th-Century Satirical Prints in London &amp; Dublin, Alex Aubry, Director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Fashion Resource Center, explores the role of satire as a visual record of social mores, tastes, and opinions on fashionable dress. While using humor to ridicule vanity, excess, and eccentricity, the most talented satirists were also keen observers of society. For those who followed them, satirical cartoons also ignited larger conversation around gender roles, class, and morality in a rapidly changing world.

Mad Fashions, Stylish Eccentrics & Those Who Satirized Them

Explore the role of satire as a visual record of social mores, tastes and opinions on fashionable dress with Alex Aubry, Director of SAIC’s Fashion Resource Center.

Mad Fashions, Stylish Eccentrics, & Those Who Satirized Them

Opening Reception August 7, 5-8pm King’s work reconsiders the malleable nature of memory, haunted and holy spaces, and the chain of living connection through a recontextualization of heirloom porcelain objects. At the heart of my practice is a series of large hand-painted porcelain pots inspired by functional historical forms, such as amphorae and canopic jars, that she refers to as her “memory vessels”. Their surfaces explore the fundamental desire to safeguard personal narrative and nostalgia, the history of ceramic objects as vessels for storage and preservation, and the ways in which Jewish tradition informs how she has come to understand her relationship to her family’s past and my consequential present. These vessels exalt the unseeable things underfoot and consider the intersecting relationships between social invisibility, utilitarian craft history, and the geological mechanisms that both govern and record activity on earth.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jayne King: Archaeology of the Self

Opening reception August 7, 5-8pm Michelle Williams is drawn to the human figure as the most honest landscape we have. Through the slow, meditative act of beading alongside mixed media, she builds up layer upon layer until the subject in front of her becomes something new: a surface that holds light differently than it holds shadow, a form that reveals itself gradually, the way people do. Each bead is a decision, a moment of attention. Together they create a presence that cannot be rushed, and cannot be looked at only once.

Michelle Williams: Luminous Witness

Fluid Mechanics&nbsp;is guest curated by Alexandra Riesco, Tandem Press 2025–2026 University of Wisconsin-Madison Graduate Student Curatorial Assistant. During her time at Tandem over the past year, Riesco has familiarized herself with many of the prints created at Tandem Press. As one of her final projects, she was challenged to conceptualize and curate an exhibition, selecting pieces from the Tandem Press inventory and contextualizing them to create a unique statement. Fluidity is defined as the ability of a substance to flow easily, the quality of being smooth and continuous, or the state of being unstable, likely to change repeatedly or unexpectedly. Artists use fluidity both conceptually and materially to express a range of seemingly contradictory ideas: stillness and motion, serenity and distress, unpredictability and the breakdown of boundaries. The quality of fluidity is directly tied to how liquids behave. Liquids respond to their environment, changing shape to fit their container. They are also transparent, acting as a lens to highlight or distort their surroundings. Beyond how these substances physically behave, different fluids—water, tears, beer, ether, etc—can each carry their own meanings.Fluid Mechanics&nbsp;features work by local Madison artists as well as selected works from Tandem Press’s inventory, each using or expressing fluidity in different ways. Created in a variety of processes and techniques, including printmaking, sculpture, photography, and painting, these works demonstrate the wide range of ideas and emotions that fluidity can express.This exhibition includes works by&nbsp;<a href="https://baranataei.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Baran Ataei</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/suzanne-caporael/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Suzanne Caporael</a>, Emma Harris,&nbsp;<a href="https://danifhughes.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Dani Hughes</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/marie-lorenz/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Marie Lorenz</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/cameron-martin/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Cameron Martin</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/judy-pfaff/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Judy Pfaff</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/jane-rosen/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Jane Rosen</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://tandempress.wisc.edu/artists/alison-saar/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Alison Saar</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://christianulloa.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Christian Ulloa</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alexandrariesco.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: inherit;" target="_blank">Alexandra Riesco</a>&nbsp;is an artist and printmaker from Miami, Florida. Her work is heavily influenced by the natural world and the dynamic processes that drive it. After completing a semester-long geology field program, she discovered the parallels between the forces that shape the planet and the slow, physical processes of printmaking. Her interest in the sciences and deep love for the outdoors feeds her practice, which incorporates drawing, printmaking, and papermaking to explore the bodily experience of the landscape, mapping and the geologic record, and the possibilities of a reciprocal rather than controlling relationship with the environment. Riesco received her B.A. in Studio Art and Biology modified with Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College in 2017, where she won the Robert Read Prize and the Artist’s Book Prize. After spending a few years working in outdoor education, Riesco returned to printmaking and has worked as an assistant printer, workshop instructor, and manager of a fine art print publisher. She is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she received the Graduate Research Scholars Fellowship from the School of Education.

Fluid Mechanics

Oliva Gallery, in partnership with Bridgeport Artist Community, presents Art in Transit, a group exhibition bringing together artists CV Peterson, Daniela Castro, Jane Michalski, Kuna Na, Pamela Staker, Takako, and Tara Sabini. The exhibition explores how movement, transition, and shifting environments shape artistic practice. Transit appears here as both a physical and internal condition, moving through space, memory, perception, material, and time. Together, the works reflect a creative community shaped by exchange, passage, and ongoing transformation. Programming in conjunction with Art in Transit includes: Opening Reception: Art in TransitFriday, July 24, 5:00 PMOliva Gallery Cake Decorating Workshop: Faux Frosting with Daniela CastroThursday, August 6, 4:30 PMOliva Gallery Introduction to Encaustic Materials and Demonstration with Jane MichalskiSunday, August 9, 10:00 AMOliva Gallery Virtual Studio Visit: Tara SabiniSaturday, August 15, 3:00 PM CDTVirtual Workshop: Collage with Recycled Materials&nbsp;Thursday, August 20, 6:00 PMOliva Gallery Art in Conversation: Art in Transit Closing ReceptionSaturday, August 29, 2:00 PMOliva Gallery To RSVP visit <a href="https://bit.ly/Oliva_Gallery" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bit.ly/Oliva_Gallery</a>

Art in Transit with Bridgeport Artist Community

Saturdays, August 29, September 26, 2026, 11:00am-12:30pm$35 | Student: $18While plenty can be learned by walking Chicago's streets, a whole hidden history can be seen in its alleys. Discover how Chicago became the alleyway capital of the country, dig into the history of urban trash, and see Chicago architecture from a new perspective on this alleyway walking tour. This tour with curator and historian Madeline Crispell will trace a route through the Gold Coast and end at Washington Square Park, covering everything from how activists like Jane Addams worked to clean up the alleyways to how a new generation of green alleys can help the city adapt to a changing climate.

Walking Chicago’s Alleys

August Exhibit: Gallery ArtistsExhibit:&nbsp;Summer SalonOpening: Friday, August 7th, 5-7 PM This month, we'll be showing new work and favorites from our existing inventory from&nbsp;a collection of our artists! Come in and find that perfect piece! <a href="https://vividartgallery.net/august-group-exhibit" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">See More of the Exhibit</a> Please note our August Hours: The Gallery will be open on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11-5 PM. We will resume normal hours on Wednesday, September 2nd. First Friday - August 7th,&nbsp;﻿4-7 PM First Friday returns in Hubbard Woods - next Friday! Many stores throughout the district will celebrate the coming summer with extended hours and promotions. To accentuate the festiveness of the evening, First Friday will also include cocktails and live music throughout the district.&nbsp; Join in on the fun!

Summer Salon

Bert Green Fine Art&nbsp;is pleased to present our second solo show by Chicago-based artist and printmaker&nbsp;Deborah Maris Lader.A skilled artist and printmaker who constantly explores experimentation with a vast array of other materials,&nbsp;Deborah Maris Lader’s newest work extends the printed image off the page via animations, sculptural techniques, and automata. Using mechanistic props, light and space, she devises a diverse menagerie of beings, creatures from the inner workings of Lader's creative brain.All gallery events are free and open to the public. Additional information found at the gallery website at&nbsp;<a href="https://bgfa.us./" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bgfa.us.</a>&nbsp;Image: Deborah Maris Lader, Becoming, Hand operated automata, mixed media interactive object: printers proofs, wire, cardboard, beads, 11 x 5 x 4" , 2026

Deborah Maris Lader: We Become Birds

Mystic Meadows is an ethereal exhibition with dark undertones. Featuring work from four Swedish artists - Hanna Liljenberg, Karin Roy Andersson, and Märta Mattsson and Sofia Bjorkman - the exhibition addresses themes of repetition, transience, rebirth, and the tension that lies between beauty and decay.&nbsp;

Mystic Meadows

Anne Loucks Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of&nbsp;Age of Abstraction, a&nbsp;new exhibition in our Glencoe gallery featuring Liz Barber, Charlie Bluett, Jenny Nelson and Maura Segal. The show will be on view through August 30th and features forty vibrant, abstract paintings by these talented artists. For an exhibition list, please click&nbsp;<a href="https://loucksgallery.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=94b15167543c6c56d1b3c36b4&amp;id=a8a812016a&amp;e=f72f6f8cb1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.Liz Barber's work is inspired by memory, emotion, and natural elements. With loose, textured brushstrokes and a fresh palette, organic forms and lines flow through her canvases, capturing movement and light.&nbsp;Charlie Bluett's paintings combine subtle layers of color, texture and free flowing shapes. Inspired by nature, his compositions evoke light, movement, and reflection.Jenny Nelson’s paintings are vibrant, intuitive abstractions built through layers of color and gestural marks. Rooted in drawing and observation, her compositions balance spontaneity with structure, creating a sense of depth, movement, and harmony.&nbsp;Maura Segal’s abstract works conjure a delicate simplicity. Fields of color are balanced with thin meandering lines and curves - intricately cut patterns that add texture and interest to her compositions.&nbsp;&nbsp;Please stop in this summer ~ We'd love to see you!

Age of Abstraction: Liz Barber, Charlie Bluett, Jenny Nelson and Maura Segal

Virtual Artists’ Talk:&nbsp;Thursday, August 20, at 7 PM. To register for the talk, please visit our website&nbsp;<a href="https://perspectivegallery.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=04a588cae42ffc5c2d944d823&amp;id=7866185ca7&amp;e=49b9939ea4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">perspectivegallery.org</a>.Perspective Gallery is excited to host&nbsp;ar•ti•facts, a new exhibition by members Jeffrie Chirchirillo and Jane Feely. While each photographer turns their lens toward very different subject matter, their images find a commonality in approach, highlighting the beauty and meaning in often overlooked, sometimes intimate, scenes.Chirchirillo brings us&nbsp;Light Filtering Through Leaves, images which capture the annual light show he experiences when the roof of his greenhouse essentially becomes a large light box. Variations in light, weather and the decaying of the spent leaves all add to the magic, resulting in images akin to unique, natural stained-glass windows.&nbsp;In&nbsp;Imprints&nbsp;of the Past, Feely captures Tenby, the small Welsh fishing town where her family has lived for centuries. By exploring still-visible artifacts of the past, she touches the imprints of her ancestors, acknowledging those from whom she descends. The resulting work reflects on themes of belonging, continuity and lineage. Jane Feely,&nbsp;On Reflections

ar•ti•facts 

David R. Harper: Good Morning Sweetheart&nbsp;brings together sculpture, textiles, ceramics, stained glass, and found imagery to explore how memory takes shape in objects. Couches, perfume bottles, motel soaps, detergents, birds, flowers, fragments of figurative sculpture, and everyday household items appear throughout the exhibition. Familiar at first glance, these things are carefully handmade, altered, and recombined—becoming intimate, uncanny, and quietly charged.The exhibition unfolds across two connected spaces. In the MMoCA Icon, Harper creates a suspended environment centered on a lightweight mid-century couch upholstered in handwoven tones of pink, sherbet, melon, and honey. Embedded with domestic cleaning products, the couch becomes a floating “memory bank”—a meditation on home, care, and repose—surrounded by a mobile featuring a summer patio umbrella and garlands of cast-ceramic Froot Loops.In the State Street Gallery, the exhibition pivots around&nbsp;She Drank the Water That Was Meant for the Orchids&nbsp;(2019), a recent addition to MMoCA’s collection. New large-scale embroideries, stuffed horses with embedded objects, shelves of ceramic vases covered in cast cicadas, and ceramic flower bouquets extend the exhibition’s domestic and emotional terrain.Across both spaces, memory functions as a material. Objects act as containers of experience—holding care, pleasure, grief, desire, and loss. Rather than telling a single story, Harper creates environments where meaning emerges through movement and attention. Looking becomes an active process, shaped by proximity, perspective, and the viewer’s own lived experience.About the ArtistDavid R. Harper (b. Toronto, Canada / Lives and Works in the American Midwest), received his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber and Material Studies. He currently teaches in the Painting and Drawing department at the Art Institute of Chicago and the New Studio Practice department at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.&nbsp;Harper’s work employs both traditional and non-traditional materials such as embroidery, ceramic, and casting materials such as salt and charcoal in a cross-disciplinary manner to create objects installations that grapple with notions of loss, love, feelings of belonging and how we use objects to inform our notions of self.&nbsp;Harper has been included in group shows at museums in the US and Canada, including MASS MoCA, National Gallery of Canada and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including&nbsp;My Own Personal Ghost&nbsp;(The John Michael Kohler Art Center),&nbsp;Plateau&nbsp;(South Bend Museum of Art)&nbsp;Skin and Bone&nbsp;(Textile Museum of Canada), A solo touring exhibition of Harper’s work titled&nbsp;Entre Le Chien et Le Loup&nbsp;was organized by the University of Toronto in 2013&nbsp;He has participated in several residencies, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2016), Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (2014), and the Kohler Arts Industry (2012/2014)&nbsp;&nbsp;His work can be found in a number of notable collections, including The Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), The John Michael Kohler Art Center, The Museum of Wisconsin Art, The National Gallery of Canada, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation (Los Angeles), and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

David R. Harper: Good Morning Sweetheart

The momentum continues this summer with&nbsp;Forward V: Our Wisconsin &amp; Regional Artists, our fifth annual celebration of the exceptional painters, sculptors, printmakers, and mixed-media artists who call Wisconsin and the greater Midwest home.&nbsp;&nbsp;This beloved exhibition carries special meaning in 2026 — it will be the first Forward in our beautiful new space, and it arrives at a landmark moment for the Third Ward as the&nbsp;Historic Third Ward Association celebrates its 50th Anniversary.Forward V gathers artists&nbsp;Marc Anderson, Reginald Baylor, Allison B. Cooke, Al Eickberg, Steve Gerhartz, Bobby Girsh, Michael Guinane, Mutópe J. Johnson, Darren Jones, Shelby Keefe, Antwan Ramar, Jolanta Kinga Rose, Colette Odya Smith, Michael Charles Sutton, and John Waite.This year we are proud to introduce two&nbsp;emerging artists&nbsp;to the Forward stage:&nbsp;Greta Berens&nbsp;from MIAD and&nbsp;Abigail Tran&nbsp;from UWM — two extraordinary young talents whose inclusion reflects our deep belief in growing and supporting the next generation of Wisconsin artists.

Forward V: Our Wisconsin & Regional Artists 

A solo exhibition of vibrant, layered paintings exploring memory, perception, and place through a process that balances intention with spontaneity. Image: Christina's Garden

Continuum: Selected Works by Carol Neiger

“All Terrain”, a landscape group show featuring Brooks Anderson, Mark Flickinger, Paula Blackwell, and others.River North Mid-Summer Gallery Walk, 5-8pm.

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