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

Reception and Awards: April 9, 7pmGallery Talk with Prize Winners: April 22, 2pm The President’s 18th Annual Art Exhibition highlights the top artwork from Lewis Students and Alumni. This important juried exhibition is hosted by the Department of Art and Design and sponsored by Dr. David Livingston, President of Lewis University. Image Description:&nbsp;Electric Madonna, oil on canvas by Annabelle Makselan, First Place 2025

The President’s 18th Annual Art Exhibition

Parallel Acts: A Practice of Staying brings together two practices that understand gesture as a durational condition rather than a singular event. In both bodies of work, movement is sustained over time, and repetition becomes a means of transformation rather than reproduction.In Shin’s ongoing series, Pas de Deux, Soo Shin constructs a buoyant vessel that floats in the Pacific Ocean while tethered to her body. Paper and pigmented wooden balls move freely within the structure, allowing ocean currents to register motion across the surface. Gesture emerges through sustained presence and shared agency between body, material, and environment, recorded as residue over time rather than intention.Tim Stone’s works are formed through repeated return to a single drawing. By tracing and retracing his own marks over extended periods, he allows accumulation to alter the surface. Through accumulation, the surface slowly transforms: compression builds, sheen develops, and the drawing shifts toward another material state. Staying with the same gesture becomes a means of altering both surface and substance.Placed together, these practices unfold as parallel acts of staying—where movement persists, time accumulates, and matter becomes the record of duration.<a style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sooshin.org/" target="_blank">Soo Shin </a>(b. Seoul, Korea) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She received the Northern Trust Acquisition Award (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) at Expo Chicago and has been awarded fellowships from the Loghaven Artist Residency (Knoxville, TN), the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (Woodside, CA), the Vilcek Foundation Fellowship at MacDowell, and the Illinois Arts Council Artists Grant. Her work has been exhibited at Block Museum (Evanston, IL), Ohio University (Athens, OH), PATRON Gallery (Chicago, IL), The Rivalry Projects (Buffalo, NY), The Luminary (St. Louis, MO), Goldfinch Gallery (Chicago, IL), Chicago Manual Style (Chicago, IL), LVL3 (Chicago, IL), and the Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago, IL), among others. She has also completed residencies at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI) and Ox-Bow (Saugatuck, MI). Shin holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as both an MFA and a BFA from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea.<a style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.circlecontemporary.org/artists/88-tim-stone/works/" target="_blank">Tim Stone</a> was born in Park Ridge in 1973, where he grew up living with his family. Over the years, Stone has created an expansive and cohesive body of work across media, including graphite, watercolor, and acrylic. For the past few years he has focused primarily on grayscale drawings of loose grids in graphite, with titles that hint at personal inspirations. Focused and methodical in his practice, he maintains a diligent studio routine and steadfast artistic vision informed by concepts of abstraction. Stone’s process is driven by labor-intensive, repetitive mark-making that burnishes the graphite and slowly wears away the surface of the paper over time. He’s also an active member of the curatorial committee, assisting guest curators with exhibitions at Circle Contemporary featuring studio artists alongside artists from the broader contemporary art community.

Parallel Acts: A Practice of Staying | Soo Shin and Tim Stone

“Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue” is an exhibition of select works from Chicago artist Ben Foch that span the past 20 + years of his making. Some works are from the early 2000’s, never before exhibited seminal beginnings. Some works are from the 2014-2018 era, created after the 1st and 2nd incarnations of his artist-run project space New Capital, and of course, something new from 2026 will be selected.Cinderella, Dracula, Raiders Logo, Scotch Tape Plaid, Newport cigarettes, Tupac Shakur; these are some of the source content(s) that generate an origin narrative for the painting practice of Ben Foch. It could appear to be a contemporary interpretation of a Pop Culture narrative in art, and in the sense that Foch is engaged in discovering and/or defining an avant-garde in the 21st century, it is. Yet, his work, now in its mid-career mature phase, finds its roots in the 1960’s and 70’s Conceptual practices of On Kawara, Roman Opalka and Olivier Mosset. The only difference being the veneer.This exhibition is a meditation on and a celebration of life dedicated to making. It’s important to tell our stories; to ourselves, so we can know who we are, to each other, so we can know one another, and to share them with the world at large, so we can manifest our being through shared acknowledgements of time and space. Stories can be told in many ways. This exhibition is an accounting that reflects one artist through a curated look of their past in the present.We are the stories we tell ourselves.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mleblancchicago.com/ben-foch" target="_blank">Ben Foch</a>&nbsp;(b. 1977) is an artist based in Chicago. He grew up in Park Forest IL., attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 1995-2000), co-founded the artist-run exhibition space New Capital (2010-2017) and is represented by M. Leblanc.&nbsp;Recent solo exhibitions of Foch’s work include Proof Of Werq (2024) and Hood Ornament (2021) at M. LeBlanc in Chicago, IL, Haiku (2019) at Selenas Mountain in Brooklyn, NY, Full Grown (2018) at Efrain Lopez Gallery in Chicago, IL, and Of Human Bondage (2018) at Roots and Culture in Chicago, IL. Foch’s work has been recently included in group exhibitions such as The Highest Level of Listening (2025) curated by Olivia Swider at Gure, Chicago, IL., Miniotics (2025) curated by Trinity Bavaria and Gunner Dongieux at Weatherproof, Chicago, IL., Tricky Passage (2022) curated by Ben Gill at Rhona Hoffman in Chicago, IL, Ugly Feelings (2016) curated by Karolina Gnatowski at Side Car Gallery in Hammond, IN.

Ben Foch: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Whether shooting from the vast wilds of Alaska, or the familiar Chicago alleys of her hometown, Alexa Viscius manages to create film portraits that feel like peering into a keyhole. Candid shots reveal coveted glimpses of beloved musicians: like New York Phenom Cameron Winter making adjustments to his musical arrangements backstage before his monumental solo performance at Hyde Park’s Rockefeller Church, or the sensational young Chicago band Horsegirl, running down a hill with a certain excitement and teenage-abandon of a group on the cusp of their breakout record, or a contemplative moment shared between longtime friends and prolific Chicago indie rockers Max Kakacek and Julien Elrich of Whitney, sitting in Kackek’s grandparent’s bedroom in Portman, Wisconsin. Many of her portraits, taken at her longtime studio in the historic Flatiron building in Wicker Park Chicago, retain that same sense of tenderness: A portrait of renowned New York musician, and frequent collaborator, Adrienne Linker of Big Thief, displays a sense of intimacy and trust. It’s a trust that has been earned through 20+ years of mastering her craft, allowing her subjects to open up, revealing themselves like flowers. From legendary Chicago DIY venues of yore, to international stages and all those quiet moments in between, she’s been there thru it all, with her finger on the shutter, capturing the music and the people that make it. Alexa Viscius is a Chicago based photographer with a focus on music portraiture, working primarily on film. She received her BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2011. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Paper magazine, W magazine, and other publications. She is a recipient of the Abbey Road Music Photography Award for the Editorial category in 2024.In addition to her photography practice, Viscius is an award winning graphic designer and plays bass in the Chicago indie rock band Bnny. She lives in Chicago with her husband Adam and their son Arthur.

Alexa Viscius: Portraits of People Who Make Music

Forget Me Not&nbsp;features 10 emerging and mid-career Chicago-based artists who showcase the city's burgeoning creative talent and diversity: Mikey Coleman, Stevie Connor, Rex Delafkaran, Bailey Ellens, Bianca Pastel, Alayna Pernell, Juan Molina Hernández, Kitty Rauth, Selma Suleiman, and Marlon Tobias, all of whom broadly reflect on themes of place, home, belonging, and community. Curated by School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) Arts Administration and Policy graduate students Serena Fox, Isabelle (Izzy) Jaeggin, Tia Lowe, and Helena Rodriguez, in collaboration with Epiphany Center for the Arts, the exhibition presents a diverse range of artistic practices, including installation, photography, ceramics, and sculpture, with fiber, collage, and painting.&nbsp; Throughout these works, “home” appears not as a fixed location, but as an evolving terrain defined by the act of remembering. Some of the featured artists render these ideas tangibly through their usage of objects, materiality, and the natural world. Others probe the emotional and psychological landscapes of nostalgia and childhood. Characterized by movement and diaspora, these artists draw on archival material, ancestral traditions, and cultural motifs, grounding their work in practices of preservation.&nbsp; Forget Me Not&nbsp;highlights both the tension and interdependence between individualism and communal belonging. Together, these artists offer an assemblage of perspectives on how we ground ourselves in the world: through ritual, storytelling, connectivity, joy, and resistance. We invite viewers to consider the power of the collective and how, despite our differences, we all find ourselves here, together.

Forget Me Not

Through the investigation of personal histories, familial ancestry, and the weight of place, the six ACRE alumni artists in&nbsp;tether me to the ground or let me float&nbsp;consider how we gather fragmented ideas of place and identity to piece together notions of belonging and grounding.&nbsp;Grounding becomes a means of navigating obscured histories and solidifying ourselves, our ancestors, and our communities to a place.&nbsp;tether me to the ground or let me float&nbsp;examines how we ground ourselves within our own histories and how we become informed and infused by the places we occupy.&nbsp;The exhibition questions the complexity of home, the relationship between the environment and the body, and the fragility of temporalities. Molded and shaped by the landscapes that surround them, the artists in the exhibition explore the multifaceted, imperfect, and often difficult undertaking of building an ecology of belonging that radically imagines our relationships to the ongoing history of a place.&nbsp;Unearthing and breaking down these relationships, the artists reflect on space in relation to memory, migration, community, and spirituality. They consider the tangible traces of our presence and the ephemeral quality of the personal and ancestral histories that both tether and release us from the places we pass through and remain in. Place and home become at once stark and ephemeral in these narratives, inviting the viewer to imagine how we locate and ground ourselves within these complexities. Featured Artists:&nbsp;Prerna, Colin Martinez, yétúndé ọlágbajú, Lars Shimabukuro, Ian Solomon, Shirin Towfiq&nbsp;Curated by&nbsp;Gemma KimACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions)&nbsp;is an artist-run non-profit devoted to providing resources to emerging artists and nurturing a diverse community of cultural producers. ACRE’s programs support this generative community with materials, equipment, expertise, conscientiously produced food, and opportunities to exhibit and share work.&nbsp;ACRE’s annual summer residency in rural Wisconsin brings together emerging artists to live and work in a communal setting. A corresponding year-long program of exhibitions and events based in Chicago creates ongoing opportunities for idea exchange, feedback and growth. Programs such as ACRE Projects, ACRE Kitchen, and ACRE TV, provide additional venues for collaboration and experimentation.ACRE aims to be a leader at advancing new means of support for emerging artists at critical junctures in their careers. ACRE eschews focus on traditional institutional success, instead prioritizing the unique, individually-defined paths of artists.

tether me to the ground or let me float

Ringleader&nbsp;is a collaborative furniture design project by artists Noël Morical and Mat Mancini, forged at the intersection of sculpture, utility, and irreverent joy. Rooted in their independent studio practices, the duo merges Noël’s intricate macramé technique with Mat’s materially layered, collage-based approach to create hybrid objects that are as functional as they are fantastically whimsy.The collaboration merges through a heart-to-heart between handcrafted and industrial construction. Noël's use of richly colored paracord—knotted, braided, and tensioned—introduces a tactile softness and sculptural rhythm to the work. Her practice draws from the language of textiles and body adornment, reimagining traditional macramé within a contemporary design context. Chairs, tables, and lighting elements become vessels of texture and intimacy—each loop and knot a deliberate gesture toward intentional care and geometric complexity.In parallel, Mat brings an eclectic material and cultural vocabulary drawn from cast forms, welded steel display systems, resin-infused prints, and 1990s pop-cultural motifs. Splicing structure with spirit, his practice grazes the edges of contemporary furniture’s conventions, guided by an irreverent yet lyrical sensibility. His surfaces feel both archival and futuristic—evoking suburban skate parks,color block fashion, Greco-Roman columns, and the visual clutter of mischievous, meaningful adolescence.Together, their work percolates between design, sculpture, and play—producing objects that are performative, customizable, and unapologetically personal. Whether it’s a chair that functions like a stage prop or a lamp that behaves like a wearable artifact,&nbsp;Ringleader&nbsp;treats furniture as a site of experimentation: a place where memory, humor, tactility, and utility converge.Noël Morical (American, b. 1989) lives and works in Chicago IL. She received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. Morical is a multidisciplinary artist interested in organizing color, coded experience, and craft techniques.&nbsp;Mat Mancini (b. 1987, Philadelphia) lives and works in Chicago, IL. MFA The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2014. BFA Rutgers University, 2010. Recent shows include Peana Projects in MX, Little Berlin in PHL, HG INN, Julius Caesar, Paris London Hong Kong, and LVL3 in CHI.

Noël Morical and Mat Mancini: Ringleader

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 7th, 2026 from 2 to 5 PM&nbsp; The Women Painting Women Exhibition expands upon our collective identities as figurative artists. In this exhibition of figure paintings, we challenge the male gaze by exploring alternative topics such as our individual selfhood, archetypical figures and Surreal depictions of the human form. Our focus on our own authentic, complex bodies provides a vehicle for change and elevates our position as artists.&nbsp; Saturday, April 4th at 2 PM: Gallery Talk with Joanna Pinsky, Artistic Director and Cofounder of Art Encounter. Artists: Melissa Arostegui, Pochis Bank, Gaby Bozeman, Kate Citrin, Jennifer Cronin, Karen Fike, Nicole Gordon, Ellen Holtzblatt, Sarah Kaiser, Victoria Loeb, Joanna Pinsky, Lea Pinsky, Mary Porterfield, Patti Ray, Nancy Rosen, and Eleanor Spiess-Ferris.

Women Painting Women

Since 1964, The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has collected and preserved modern and contemporary art in order to exhibit it and provide transformative experiences. These objects, MMoCA holds in trust for everyone to learn from and be inspired by all for free.&nbsp;In 2025, MMoCA added over 80 artworks to the permanent collection, including works on paper, large-scale paintings, and sculptures from both local and international artists.&nbsp;Recent Acquisitions&nbsp;displays some of these art objects, showcasing the breadth of contemporary art practice and connecting Madison to the global dialogue through visual art.&nbsp;

Recent Acquisitions

This Winter, the&nbsp;Elmhurst Art Museum&nbsp;presents&nbsp;Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell.&nbsp;Presenting two series by the Chicago-based artist, Connell’s nationally traveling exhibition&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;responds to the iconic photographs of Highland Park-born artist&nbsp;Edward Weston&nbsp;through a queer, feminist lens. Her second major body of work—Double Life—explores the evolution of intimate relationships shaped by the changing nature of identity over time, and features new commissions responding to the architecture of the&nbsp;Mies van der Rohe-designed McCormick House. The exhibition marks the largest presentation of Connell’s work in Chicago, placing queerness, power structures, and shifting ecologies in the twenty-first century in conversation with two giants of modernism. The exhibition is curated by&nbsp;Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director and Chief Curator, and will be on view at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst, from&nbsp;January 24 to April 27, 2026. Peters Quinn says, “The Elmhurst Art Museum is honored to present the arresting photographs of nationally acclaimed photographer Kelli Connell in the Chicagoland area, where she has rooted her art practice and mentored dozens of artists for over a decade. Following its extensive US tour, we have expanded the&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;exhibition to include an additional series,&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;by Connell. Connell’s commitment to exploring the everyday moments in relationships with ourselves and loved ones encourages us to cherish both the beautiful and the difficult times in our lives. Chicago is a crucial center for contemporary photography, and we are proud to highlight this through&nbsp;Living with Modernism.” An exhibition in two parts, Connell explores the psyche of human relationships and our connection to nature and architecture. The main galleries will feature 45 photographs from her series&nbsp;Pictures for Charis, a tender and emotional sequence of work placing Connell in dialogue with one of the most innovative American photographers of the 20th Century, Edward Weston (1886-1958). For this body of work, Connell revisited the sites of Weston’s black-and-white landscapes and portraits of his partner of 11 years, writer Charis Wilson, in&nbsp;California and the West&nbsp;(1934-45), to photograph her own former longtime partner, artist Betsy Odom. Connell’s work is presented alongside 48 original prints by Weston on loan from the Center for Creative Photography (Tuscon) and text excerpts from Charis. Shining new light on Weston’s subject, Charis, the installation bridges eighty years of ecological and social shifts with a feminist perspective.The McCormick House gallery features the latest chapter in Connell’s ongoing series&nbsp;Double Life, which the artist began in 2002. For this series, Connell explores long-term relationships with others and the self. The digital images document the fictional relationship of two women, both played by collaborator Kiba Jacobson. Connell describes&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;as “an honest representation of the fluidity of the self in regard to decisions about intimate relationships, sexuality, gender, family, belief systems, and lifestyle options.” For&nbsp;Living with Modernism, the Elmhurst Art Museum commissioned Connell to respond to the architecture of McCormick House designed by Mies van der Rohe. Connell chose to photograph the site - and incorporate poetry from its former owner Isabella Gardner (niece of the Boston arts patron by the same name) - to generate new works adding to the perpetual&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;narrative. Connell says,&nbsp;“I am beyond thrilled to show&nbsp;Pictures for Charis&nbsp;and&nbsp;Double Life&nbsp;together at the Elmhurst Art Museum. Both projects portray my commitment to uncovering forgotten histories. Making new work in the McCormick House, a space where the work will also be shown, was a unique opportunity for me to think about architecture and its impact on people and the relationships we have with each other in these spaces.” Pictures for Charis&nbsp;is co-organized by the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, at the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; the Cleveland Museum of Art; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Pictures for Charis&nbsp;is curated for each museum by Rebecca Senf, Ph.D., Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, at the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; Barbara Tannenbaum, Ph.D, Curator of Photography and Chair of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art; and Gregory J. Harris, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and Allison Peters Quinn, Executive Director &amp; Chief Curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum.This project is made possible by Teiger Foundation. Photographs by Edward Weston are courtesy of the Edward Weston Archive at the Center for Creative Photography. Additional support for&nbsp;Living with Modernism&nbsp;and related programs are provided by the Illinois Arts Council and individual donors. ABOUT THE ARTISTKelli Connell&nbsp;(b. 1974) is a photographer based in Chicago. Through her images, she addresses issues of sexuality, identity, and self-perception. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications include&nbsp;Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis&nbsp;(Aperture and Center for Creative Photography, March 2024),&nbsp;PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice(Aperture),&nbsp;Photo Art: The New World of Photography&nbsp;(Aperture), and the monograph&nbsp;Kelli Connell: Double Life&nbsp;(DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships and residencies from The Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUMThe Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public. The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for adults (ages 18+), $15 for seniors, $10 for students, and $5 for children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org/" target="_blank">elmhurstartmuseum.org</a>.Images Kelli Connell,&nbsp;Surf, Point Lobos, 2015, courtesy the artist.

Living with Modernism: Kelli Connell

The Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory is transformed into a vibrant sanctuary filled with thousands of tropical butterflies, creating the largest temporary tropical butterfly exhibition in the United States and one of Meijer Gardens’ most anticipated annual experiences.

Fred & Dorothy Fichter Butterflies Are Blooming

more information coming soon

Kate Goodvin: MFA Qualifier Exhibition

Perspective Gallery is proud to host “Teaching,” Nelson W. Armour’s ode to classroom teachers. Resulting from a two-year residency with “<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://perspectivegallery.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=04a588cae42ffc5c2d944d823&amp;id=8c7e2f36fa&amp;e=49b9939ea4" target="_blank">Artists in the Public Schools, formerly CPSLIves</a>,” the project examines teaching and what it means to be a teacher. This photographic essay is an homage to the challenges, triumphs, hard work and effort of teaching, from the small details to the big picture.&nbsp;“Teaching” opens on Thursday, April&nbsp;2, 2026&nbsp;with an Opening Reception on Saturday, April 4, 2026 from 5- 7 PM. The exhibit runs through Sunday, May 3, 2026. A Virtual Artist’s Talk will be held on Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 7 PM. To register for the talk, go to Perspective Gallery’s website,&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://perspectivegallery.org/april-2026" target="_blank">https://perspectivegallery.org/april-2026</a>.&nbsp;Armour was privileged to follow three teachers over two school years in two Chicago Public Schools, the Lázaro Cárdenas Elementary School in the Little Village area of Chicago (2021-22 school year) and the Michele Clark Academic Prep Magnet High School in the Austin neighborhood (2023-24 school year). This project, sponsored by&nbsp;Artists in the Public Schools, documents how teachers engage and relate to their students as individuals and classes.Above image - Teaching #20

Teaching

In partnership with the&nbsp;Elmhurst Park District, the&nbsp;Elmhurst Art Museum&nbsp;announces the return of&nbsp;Art in Wilder Park&nbsp;to the heart of Elmhurst this spring. The only festival of its kind hosted by an art museum, Art in Wilder Park features over 130 booths showcasing unique, handcrafted treasures including jewelry, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, photography, and fiber arts created by talented Midwest artists. Visitors can enjoy a variety of artisan food vendors, a dedicated Kids Court with creative hands-on activities, and community partner and sponsor displays, all set against the picturesque backdrop of Elmhurst’s Wilder Park. The free-to-the-public event annually attracts over 7,000 people to the museum campus and takes place rain or shine,&nbsp;Saturday to Sunday, May 2-3, 2026, from 10 am to 5 pm,&nbsp;at 175 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst.A new offering in 2026 is the addition of an Emerging Artist Pavilion that taps into the talent of the Chicagoland area, including the hundreds of artists coming out of prestigious college and university programs each year. Artists featured in the festival will be selected by jurors Fatima Hendricks, Manager of Exhibitions &amp; Residencies at Chicago Artists’ Coalition, and Whitney Bradshaw, Curator at Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City, IN.&nbsp;Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum&nbsp;Allison Peters Quinn says, “Art in Wilder Park feels like a hometown hug in the spring. It is the best time of year to support diverse artists, eat delicious food, and let the kids run around. This year, we are excited to partner with other regional art institutions to open the door even wider to emerging artists, and connect their work and ideas to our local communities.”Art in Wilder Park is produced by the Elmhurst Art Museum in partnership with Elmhurst Park District. Presenting&nbsp;sponsor Kelly Stetler | Compass. Festival sponsors: All American Gutter Protection, Chiro One Wellness&nbsp;Centers, Discover DuPage, Enjoy Illinois&nbsp;Explore Elmhurst, Great American Exteriors, The Home Improvement Network,, and Renewal by Andersen Windows. Special Event Sponsors: Chicago Event Graphics and Unlimited Heating &amp; Cooling. Sculpture Sponsors: Community Bank of Elmhurst, Lakeside Bank, Wangler and Company, and WinTrust Bank of Elmhurst.&nbsp;ABOUT THE ELMHURST ART MUSEUMThe Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public.The Museum is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Regular admission prices are $18 for Adults (ages 18+), $15 for Seniors, $10 for Students, and $5 for Children. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.elmhurstartmuseum.org/" target="_blank">elmhurstartmuseum.org</a>.

Art in Wilder Park

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.mocp.org/events/lecture-in-photography-carla-williams/" target="_blank">Lecture in Photography: Carla Williams</a>Wednesday, May 6, 20266:00-7:30 pm Ferguson Lecture Hall600 S. Michigan Ave.Chicago, IL&nbsp; Carla Williams (American, b. 1965) is a photographer and curator known for her explorations of identity, race, gender, and representation. In her early work in the 1980s, she used a large-format camera to explore her own image, in work that reflected the lack of visibility of Black women in photographic history. Williams is the co-author of&nbsp;The Black Female Body: A Photographic History&nbsp;(2002) with Deborah Willis. She served as a curator of photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and was a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Lecture in Photography: Carla Williams

Mark your calendars for this annual&nbsp;celebration of community and creativity. This&nbsp;year, The Art Center will highlight the incredible work of celebrity photographer&nbsp;Sandro Miller, featuring his series on members of Chicago’s historic Steppenwolf Theatre, and members of the Chicago Imagists group,&nbsp;Hairy Who.

TAC's Spring Benefit

Cheryl Pope&nbsp;is an interdisciplinary visual artist&nbsp;who&nbsp;questions and responds to issues of identity as it relates to the individual and the community, specifically&nbsp;regarding&nbsp;race, gender, class, history, power, and place. Her practice&nbsp;emerges&nbsp;from the act and politics of&nbsp;listening and&nbsp;recently introduces&nbsp;a novel&nbsp;material to explore the artist’s memories. Referencing the familiar repertoire of the French Post-Impressionist, Intimist, and Imagist paintings, Pope recreates deeply personal recollections that cinematically compose the silent complexities of beautiful and tragic oscillations between love and loss in our everyday lives. Images of couples are drawn from memory, referencing the artist’s own relationships and moments of disconnect, anxiety, and desire, while beach scenes depicting a mother and child accentuate a tender stillness of caregiving. In these scenes, the figures exist in a nest of choreography–a rotating stage of mystery, tragedy, and poetry of day-to-day living with feelings of presence and absence woven throughout.  &nbsp;Pope (b.1980, Chicago, IL) received her MA in Design (2010) and BFA (2003) from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL, where she is an Adjunct Professor.  Pope has had recent solo exhibitions at&nbsp;Easy Does It Curatorial Space, Los Angeles, CA (2024);&nbsp;moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2022, 2019); The Ulrich Museum of Art,&nbsp;Wichita, KS (2022); Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL (2019); Galleria&nbsp;Bianconi, Milan, Italy (2019); Andres Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2018); and Fort Gansevoort, New York, NY (2017).&nbsp;Notable&nbsp;group presentations include&nbsp;Get in the Game: Sport and Contemporary Culture&nbsp;at&nbsp;SFMoMA&nbsp;(2024) which travels to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Pérez Art Museum Miami&nbsp;(2025; 2026);&nbsp;Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (2024);&nbsp;Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, MI (2023); The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2023&nbsp;2021); Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY (2023);&nbsp;Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI (2022); Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Chicago, IL (2022); Skin in the Game&nbsp;curated by Zoe&nbsp;Lukov, Chicago, IL (2022); Fountainhead, Miami, FL (2021); Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2021);&nbsp;Virginia&nbsp;MOCA,&nbsp;Virgina&nbsp;Beach, VA (2021); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2020).&nbsp;Pope will present a solo exhibition at&nbsp;moniquemeloche&nbsp;in 2026.&nbsp;Pope’s work is in the collections of&nbsp;the&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary Art&nbsp;Jacksonville, FL;&nbsp;the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL;&nbsp;UBS Art Collection, New York, NY;&nbsp;Joan&nbsp;Flasche&nbsp;Artists Book Collection, Chicago, IL; Seattle Art Museum, WA; Honolulu Museum of Art, HI; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL; DePaul University Art Museum, Chicago, IL; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA;&nbsp;Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD;&nbsp;United States Embassy, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; The Jackson West Memorial Hospital, Miami, FL; and The Ulrich Museum of Art,&nbsp;Wichita, KS. She has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Public Artist Award, Franklin Works, Minneapolis, MN (2017); Selected Artist, Year of Public Art, Chicago Cultural Center, IL (2017); Mellon Fellowship, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH (2016); and 3Arts Award, Chicago, IL (2015). Pope lives and works in Chicago, IL&nbsp;and Miami, FL.&nbsp;

Cheryl Pope

Material Memory&nbsp;explores how knowledge, history, and cultural memory are carried through objects and the act of making. Bringing together four artists working in ceramics, fiber, tapestry, and print, the exhibition centers analog processes, material investigation, and the slow accumulation of gesture and meaning.Through hand-built ceramics, bead-encrusted vessels, pony-bead tapestries, and meticulously carved relief prints, the artists in&nbsp;Material Memory&nbsp;examine how culture and personal histories are inherited, learned, and reinterpreted through labor, repetition, and intimate engagement with material. These works ask viewers to consider how objects embody memory, mediate identity, and carry stories across generations.Featuring:Chris Salas&nbsp;(Ceramics)Salas’s hand-built ceramic forms emerge through intuitive, iterative processes informed by personal relationships, historical research, and the ongoing legacy of colonization in the Americas. Clay becomes a vessel for cultural reckoning, holding layered histories through time-intensive making and surface.Katie Mongoven&nbsp;(Fiber, Beading)Mongoven transforms found blue-and-white ceramic vessels with intricate beadwork and embroidery. Her labor-intensive practice explores diasporic memory, identity reconstruction, and the reclamation of Orientalist objects through touch, repetition, and bodily presence.akeylah wellington&nbsp;(Sculpture, Tapestry)Wellington’s pony-bead tapestries and mixed-media sculptures blend humor, endurance, and personal history. Drawing on childhood imagery, early digital culture, and found materials, her work preserves stories of displacement, resilience, and generational inheritance.Ramiro Rodriguez&nbsp;(Printmaking)Rodriguez’s woodblock and linoleum relief prints document familial and cultural narratives rooted in Mexican-American print traditions. Through carving and layered printing, his work embeds memory, transformation, and inherited knowledge into the physical act of making.Together, the artists in&nbsp;Material Memory&nbsp;use material as language—foregrounding slow, analog processes as acts of remembering, learning, and transmission. Their works are deeply personal yet culturally resonant, tracing the invisible threads of inheritance that bind past, present, and future.

Material Memory

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://experience.mcachicago.org/7252/7260" target="_blank">Get Tickets</a> Admission is free to Family Day attendees. Celebrate the movements of our bodies. Designed for children under 12 and their grown-ups, MCA Family Days invite our youngest visitors to be the museum’s artists, thinkers, and collaborators. Image: Family Day | Playoffs, MCA Chicago, May 10, 2025. Photo: Natasha Moustache, © MCA Chicago.

Family Day | Let Loose

Krasl Art Center presents&nbsp;Malcolm Taylor: Prologue, The State of Play, on view February 7 through May 10, 2026 in the ArtLab. The exhibition opens with a free public reception on Thursday, February 6, from 6 – 8 PM.The State of Play&nbsp;marks Benton Harbor–based photographer Malcolm Taylor’s first gallery exhibition, offering an adventurous exploration of storytelling through action figure photography. Taylor stages intricate miniature sets and captures them in vivid, cinematic photographs that blur the line between play and narrative. Featuring characters drawn from comics, video games, and popular culture, the works are infused with humor, nostalgia, and imagination, inviting viewers into fully realized worlds at a toy-sized scale.

Malcolm Taylor: The State of Play

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">Hyde Park Art Center</a>, the renowned non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is proud to announce&nbsp;Yoonshin Park: Prompt and Prompted, an exhibition highlighting the artist’s, as well as her students’, experimental ways of creating artist books that push the boundaries of what books can be. On view from&nbsp;January 24-May 10, 2026,&nbsp;the exhibition offers hands-on experiences for the audience to make their own artist books on multiple dates throughout the duration. Both the exhibition and the public programs are free and open to the public. An artist book is an artwork that reimagines or transforms the form, function, or concept of a book into an expressive medium. For more than two decades, Park has used artist books as an experimental form and conceptual space to expand what books can be. For Park, the medium offers freedom that invites alternative ways of living other aspects of life, and invites the audience to live their lives as expansively as Park defines artist books. This exhibition presents new works that further her exploration of artist books as spatial, symbolic, and participatory sites capable of engaging notions of memory, marginality, translation, and transformation. More than a creator, Park is an arts educator of the medium. Since 2019, she has been teaching courses on artist books virtually through the Art Center’s Oakman Clinton School + Studios, and has found her practice of teaching to be as generative for her as it is for her students. The title of the exhibition refers to the reciprocal exchange that takes place in Park’s classroom. The exhibition includes artworks by 12 of Park’s students, including Kimberly Bailey, Miriam Bisby, Priya Deb, Devie Dragone, Bryne Hadnott, Rebecca Kelly, John Michael Korpal, Carol Lett, Camille Levi, Sumiah Salloum, Virginia Van Vynckt, and Max Washington. Park shares how this presentation differs from past work: “This exhibition marks a shift in my practice from intimate, book-inspired gestures to spatial and communal forms, allowing me to explore how books can extend beyond the page. I hope visitors experience the work as an invitation to engage with their own stories and with spaces—both in books and in the gallery—in new ways, noticing how meaning and connection can emerge through shared interaction.” Free public programs include the following:Wednesday, January 28, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, February 11, 1pm Artist-led workshopThursday, February 19, 6pm Artist talk with Yoonshin Park and curator Mariela AcuñaWednesday, February 25, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-throughWednesday, March 4, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, March 18, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-throughSaturday, April 4, 1-4pm Center Day workshop led by one of Park’s students, John Michael KorpalWednesday, April 8, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, April 22, 1pm Artist-led workshopWednesday, May 6, 1pm Artist-led exhibition walk-through This exhibition was curated by Mariela Acuña, art center Director of Exhibitions and Residency, and produced by Tran Tran and Liang-yu Huang, with fabrication support provided by Huang.&nbsp; <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1771018610/l1mhn1jbmv7qkttusjfz.png"> ABOUT THE ARTISTBorn in Seoul, Korea, Park now resides in Chicago. She has participated in residencies including the HATCH Residency at the Chicago Artists Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program. She teaches at both the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Hyde Park Art Center, and in 2024, served as curator and facilitator for the Hyde Park Art Center’s Bridge Program. Park has exhibited at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Northeastern Illinois University Fine Arts Center Gallery, Beverly Arts Center, Evanston Art Center, Riverside Art Center, Pablo Center and the AIR SPACE at Saint Kate Hotel in Wisconsin, and Simyo Gallery in Seoul, Korea, among others. She is represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. ABOUT THE HYDE PARK ART CENTERHyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering, production, and exhibition space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of artists to establishing a strong legacy of risk-taking and experimentation, emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. Today, the Art Center offers a diverse suite of programs for artists and art lovers of all backgrounds, ages, and stages in their careers including: contemporary art exhibitions in six galleries; an open-access community-based school with 2,000 annual enrollments; weekly arts education to 1,000 elementary school students in public schools; weekly and summer teen programs for 100 teen artists; professional-advancement programs for artists; a local and international artist residency; and public programs that connect residents with Chicago art and artists. The Art Center’s Oakman Clinton School + Studio is the nation’s first fully contribute-what-you-can visual art school for all ages. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for creative voices of today and tomorrow, providing the space to cultivate new work and connections. For more information, visit<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/" target="_blank">&nbsp;www.hydeparkart.org</a>.

Yoonshin Park: Prompt and Prompted

<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jmkac.org/exhibition/a-beautiful-experience/?utm_medium=email&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_TAgiwr9CcUCqp8PARBnetZDmy4oA4M6rKVEblEJGj0fYaKmL0n8Naot67z_PVofiAcW7Sb0wnbX5AHJQODsWXa0U2UYeyKUnYSDhaHXxDMn2lHxQ&amp;_hsmi=343424237&amp;utm_content=343424237&amp;utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Details</a> A Beautiful Experience: The Midwest Grotto Tradition&nbsp;takes its title from a slogan found on years of brochures, maps, and swag from the Dickeyville Grotto in Wisconsin. It is one of several grottoes found throughout the region. These sites began to inspire pilgrimage, tourism, reflection, and community gathering during the 1910s. This exhibition looks at their continuing influence on artists and visitors alike. Materially, midwestern grottoes often reflect local industries, decorative trends, and an area’s geological makeup. Grotto architecture mainly comprises concrete embellished with objects including shells, marbles, colored glass, toys, figurines, fossils, and geodes. This accumulation, as well as the objects incorporated, creates a documentation of the maker’s life, faith, and home. Madeline Buol is one of the few known women grotto builders. The materials she utilized include figurines and stones gathered during her travels. She had a special affinity for shells of all shapes and sizes. The exhibition is the first public showing of Buol’s monumental thirteen-piece grotto since it was saved from the artist’s yard in 2011 by the Kohler Foundation, Inc. It was then gifted to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. In addition to Buol’s grotto,&nbsp;A Beautiful Experience&nbsp;includes objects related to the Midwest grottoes that directly inspired her, such as the Dickeyville Grotto, Jacob Baker’s “dream houses,” the Rudolph Grotto, and the Wegner Grotto. The exhibition illustrates the material histories of these grottoes and strategies for their conservation. Visitors are offered opportunities to learn about the legacy and care of Midwest grotto sites. A Beautiful Experience&nbsp;also includes new work by Stephanie Shih and E. Saffronia Downing, each responding to the grotto tradition. Shih presents a work inspired by Jacob Baker and Chinese immigration in the U.S. Downing shares her explorations of clay and material foraging throughout the Midwest, providing insight into material studies for the concrete and construction materials often invented and improvised upon by grotto builders. Image: Madeline Buol, Buol Grotto and Sculptures (site view, n.d.), Dubuque, IA, 1946–c. 1960. Photo courtesy of Pam Mendenhall.

A Beautiful Experience: The Midwest Grotto Tradition

The annual&nbsp;High School Area Show&nbsp;is a juried exhibition featuring the artwork of high school artists from Kalamazoo and its surrounding counties. This show provides students opportunities to not only show their work in a museum, but also the chance to win prizes and scholarships. The KIA is proud to host this annual exhibition committed to nurturing emerging talent and expanding access to meaningful arts experiences for young people.The 2026 juror is Ginger Owen-Murakami. Owen-Murakami’s artwork reflects narratives of family history, race, gender, and culture. Her practice includes installation, sculpture, and various photographic methods. She is currently a Professor of Photography at Western Michigan University’s Gwen Frostic School of Art.The show is open to high school students residing in Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties. Students can&nbsp;<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=16611" target="_blank">submit up to two works online through CaFE (callforentry.org)</a>. Submissions will be accepted January 6 through February 10.﻿

Calendar

Chicago Gallery News