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

Alma Thomas (1891–1978) is a singular figure of twentieth-century American art. She developed her form of abstraction – characterized by the dazzling interplay of pattern and hue – late in life, after retiring from a long career as a schoolteacher. Her vibrant and rhythmic art transcended established genres, incorporating elements of gestural abstraction and color field painting and creating a style distinctly her own.Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas&nbsp;draws on the extensive holdings of the artist’s paintings at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and offers an intimate view of Thomas’s evolving practice during her most prolific period, from 1959 to 1978. At a deeply politicized moment in American life, Thomas’s abiding sources of inspiration became the cosmos, nature, and music. As she stated, “Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.” The exhibition&nbsp;invites visitors to see the world through the eyes of Alma Thomas.SUPPORTComposing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas&nbsp;is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support has been provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Chris G. Harris, the Wolf Kahn Foundation, and Susan Talley.

Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas

The Shape of Color, A Formalist Painting Exhibition

The devastation of the two world wars played a pivotal role in shaping the field of modern plastic surgery. In the early twentieth century, surgeons became artisans—suturing torn flesh like tailors mending fabric, reinforcing facial structures like carpenters restoring damaged frames. These groundbreaking reconstructive techniques laid the foundation for a discipline that would evolve beyond necessity into the realm of aesthetics.Simultaneously, artists—painters, sculptors, and draftsmen documenting the wars—engaged in parallel work. They studied the human form, deconstructing and reimagining faces and bodies through drawings, sculpture, and canvas. Anatomical study, once central to classical realism, became a bridge between art and medicine, guiding surgeons in their quest to restore symmetry, balance, and expression. The artist’s eye informed the surgeon’s hand, just as surgical reconstructions inspired new artistic interpretations of the human body.By the latter half of the twentieth century, plastic surgery had moved beyond reconstruction to self-reinvention. Like artists shaping raw material into beauty, surgeons refined and reshaped faces and bodies to align with personal desires and cultural ideals. The line between restoration and enhancement blurred, and the human body itself became a canvas for transformation.With the dawn of the new millennium came once-unimaginable feats—most notably, full-face transplantation. Surgeons, like sculptors working in living clay, not only rebuilt faces but gave patients entirely new ones. These innovations merged medicine, aesthetics, and identity in unprecedented ways.Today, the relationship between plastic surgery and art continues to evolve. Surgeons and artists share a common pursuit: to shape, refine, and redefine the human form. Whether working with marble or muscle, canvas or cartilage, both seek to capture the essence of beauty, resilience, and identity in constant flux.The International Museum of Surgical Science is proud to present these coinciding exhibitions as&nbsp;"A Year of Plastic Surgery"—a yearlong exploration of this remarkable field. Through monthly programs, we celebrate the masters of both flesh and form, bridging the worlds of surgical innovation and figurative art. Header Image: A soldier of Company K, 110th Regt. Infantry (formerly 3rd and 10th Inf., Pennsylvania National Guard), just wounded, receiving first-aid treatment from a comrade. Varennes-en-Argonne, France, on September 26, 1918. U.S. Army / U.S. National Archives

The Artistry of Plastic Surgery

Weeds Grow in All Directions&nbsp;is an exhibition of Cydney Lewis's collage works and large-scale assemblages. Using everyday materials found in her daily life–plastic bags, packing paper, magazine cutouts, as well as rhinestones and textiles–Lewis creates otherworldly landscapes that prompt meditation on the destruction and resilience of the natural world. The works in the exhibition reward close looking—to find the extraordinary in the overlooked, to reconnect with energies around us, and to feel the pulse of our shared ecology through playful wonder and poignant reflection. In this body of work, the resilient weed is both metaphor and guide, challenging our perceptions of the disregarded and revealing the quiet spirit inherent in all natural matter. In Lewis's work, the material world intersects with the realm of elemental spirits, creating a layered tapestry of human emotion and urgent ecological awareness.

Cydney M. Lewis: Weeds Grow in All Directions

<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 a major solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Alison Ruttan. Visualizing the catastrophic impact of global warming on coastal communities, the immersive installation places visitors at the center of a submerged suburban neighborhood to invite reflections on the climate crisis. On view from&nbsp;April 4-July 12, 2026, the expansive exhibition takes up 2300 sq. ft. gallery space with over 160 cast ceramic forms. A free public opening reception with the artist will take place on&nbsp;Saturday, April 4, 2026 from 1-4 p.m.Throughout her career, Ruttan has created many visual representations of massive traumatic events, such as the Gombe Chimpanzee War, the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, the “Highway of Death” in Kuwait, and the Syrian Civil War.&nbsp;For Ruttan, the labor involved in rendering these events visible is an attempt to emphasize their urgency for herself and viewers. The title&nbsp;The Paradox of Inaction&nbsp;refers to a mistaken belief that doing nothing is risk-free, while in reality, failing to act has consequences, increases risks, and limits ways forward. She hopes the exhibition, which took more than two years to complete, is a call to action for shifting unsustainable habits and preventing further inaction toward climate issues.Composed of over 160 cast ceramic forms, this installation is arranged in low-lying platforms throughout the gallery. At first glance, the ceramic forms appear abstract; seen collectively, they create the illusion of a submerged suburban neighborhood. Works from Ruttan’s earlier series&nbsp;High Water&nbsp;(2023 - 2024), a group of miniature ceramic sculptures of flooded homes, will be on view on the second floor of the Art Center, complementing the large-scale installation on the first floor. With an otherworldly appearance, the glazed surfaces of the ceramics are suggestive of pools of blackwater and mildewed walls.Ruttan shares why she believes an immersive art installation is a powerful tool for change:&nbsp;“To know something is not the same as comprehending it. I work with the belief that art can sometimes do a better job of convincing than facts alone. In looking at a work of art, we allow our intuitive thinking to mingle with factual thinking. We go back and forth between the contemplation of the physical objects' form and the suggested context that exists outside the art gallery. In bridging these different ways of thinking, we often feel we are coming closer to the truth”.This exhibition is part of an ongoing annual series of large-scale artworks commissioned by Hyde Park Art Center, which in the past included new works by Edra Soto, Faheem Majeed, Lan Tuazon, and Yasmin Spiro, among others. A series of public programs will offer opportunities for audiences to further engage with the exhibition.&nbsp;Alison Ruttan: The Paradox of Inaction&nbsp;is generously supported by the Graham Foundation.ABOUT THE ARTISTAlison Ruttan is a project-based artist whose work focuses on topical investigations. Her work has been exhibited in Chicago at the Riverside Arts Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Weinberg Newton Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Document Gallery, among others. Nationally, her work has been presented at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville, AR;&nbsp;Elmhurst Art Museum, IL; Kent State University Art Museum, OH; The Frist Museum, TN; and The Drawing Center, NY. International presentations of Ruttan’s work have included Galerie Wit in Wageningen, Netherlands, and Rocket Gallery in London, UK. Ruttan has received awards and residencies from the Illinois Arts Council, Jerome Foundation, Art &amp; Technology Residency; Wexner Museum, Artists Residency; and Wild Animal Park. She is an associate professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has taught for over 25 years.

Alison Ruttan: The Paradox of Inaction

From Cobalt to Indigo: The Power of Blue in East Asia is an exploration of one of the most enduring and influential colors in global art history. Spanning centuries of Chinese and Japanese creativity, the exhibition traces how the color blue—once among the rarest and most prized pigments—shaped artistic innovation, cultural exchange, and aesthetic identity across East Asia.From the luminous depths of cobalt-painted porcelain to the brilliance of carved lapis lazuli and the bold Prussian blue of Japanese ukiyo-e prints, this exhibition brings together works that illuminate the remarkable journey of blue across materials and artistic traditions. From Cobalt to Indigo will explore symbolism, craftsmanship, technological advancements, and cross-cultural influences. It showcases blue as both a material and an evolving metaphor. This exhibition invites audiences to see a familiar color anew and to experience the profound beauty and cultural resonance of blue in East Asian art.

From Cobalt to Indigo: The Power of Blue in East Asia

The sun was formed 4.6 billion years ago. It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for its light to travel to Earth. The calendar as we know it, based on cycles of the solar year, was first implemented four and a half centuries ago in 1582. Days still track our planet’s rotation. Years follow our orbit around the sun. Months originally matched lunar cycles. The average human life span equals 26,784 nights or sunrises. In some places, where people have to watch the sky for other reasons, it’s 12,000 less. The oldest person on record lived 122 years. The oldest living now is 115. The clock is a device that constitutes time as it measures it. Time used to be local, based on the sun’s position. That changed on “The Day of Two Noons,” in 1883, when U.S. railroads adopted standardized time zones. Four people who woke up this morning can say they’ve been on the moon. No one has stood there since 1972. Up to 6500 stars are visible to the naked eye at any one location. In most cities around the world, one sees only a fraction of this. Palomar Observatory, on a California mountain, once had the largest optical telescope in the world. It lost the title in 1976, but it’s still used to observe celestial objects, collecting incoming light. Italo Calvino wrote a book about a person, a seeker of the cosmic in the everyday, who shares his name with that place. At 118 pages,&nbsp;Mr. Palomar&nbsp;takes maybe 3 to 4 hours to read. AI doesn’t experience time as a continuous flow, or have a concept for it like we do. Its perception of “now”, if one can say that, will change as its processing speed increases. We can predict where all the stars in the sky will be a hundred years from now. There isn’t a good count for the number of fireflies every summer, but it’s easily in the hundreds of millions, or more. Each one lives for only a few weeks after emerging from the ground. Once there were 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons flying overhead in America. Now there are none. Palomar&nbsp;is a group exhibition in two parts. Curated by Karsten Lund. Friends of Palomar Patron Circle: Maria Christina &amp; Guy-Karim Caland Puymartin. Renaissance Society programs are supported by the Teiger Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Image: Sarah and Joseph Belknap,&nbsp;12 Months of the Sun, 2024

Palomar (Part 2)

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

Lavar Munroe

Martin Wong: Chinatown USA&nbsp;traces the development of the work of the queer painter and poet, highlighting Wong’s connection with the art and&nbsp;culture&nbsp;of&nbsp;Asia,&nbsp;inparticular through&nbsp;his&nbsp;collecting&nbsp;of&nbsp;pre-modern&nbsp;Asian&nbsp;art and antiquities and his explorations of the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco from 1970 through the 1990s. A large portion of the exhibition is devoted to his Chinatown paintings, which were the subject of a major exhibition titled&nbsp;Chinatown USA&nbsp;presented at P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York City and the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. These works depict notable architecture such as the Chinese pagoda-style building at 241 Canal Street, iconic actor Bruce Lee and Peking opera performer Mei Lanfang, festivities like the Chinese New Year Parade, and&nbsp;street&nbsp;scenes. The exhibition also explores Wong’s interest in counterculture communities (such as Puerto Rican poets and graffiti artists) and language through his poetry and American Sign Language paintings. The latter are presented alongside a&nbsp;small&nbsp;selection&nbsp;of works by artists of the modern graffiti movement from Wong’s personal&nbsp;collection,&nbsp;which he donatedto&nbsp;the Museum&nbsp;of the City of New York in 1994. Wong died in 1999 at the age of 53 from an AIDS-related illness.&nbsp;Martin Wong: Chinatown USA&nbsp;is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Halsted A&amp;A Foundation and Gregory R. Miller &amp; Co. Edited by Yasufumi Nakamori, it includes six essays by leading scholars Solomon&nbsp;Adler, Lisa Hsiao Chen, Mark&nbsp;D.&nbsp;Johnson,&nbsp;Vivian&nbsp;Li, Margo Machida, and Lydia Yee.

Martin Wong: Chinatown USA

Drawn from the Art Institute’s collection, this exhibition focuses on Greek multidisciplinary artist Lucas Samaras’s innovative photographs, as well as sculptures and paintings recently gifted to the museum by the Samaras Estate. These works offer a glimpse into Samaras’s broader practice and invites us into his creative, engaged, and focused life.

Lucas Samaras: Sitting, Standing, Walking, Looking

Part I, September 23, 2025 - February 22, 2026Part II, March 24, 2026 - July 26, 2026Why and how do people form political communities? How does political society organize our economic lives - and vice versa? And how as individuals do we navigate society?Smart to the Core: Wise to Power&nbsp;examines these questions by integrating visual art with foundational texts of modern social and political thought spanning nearly four centuries. Through a wide range of creative practices and philosophical perspectives, the exhibition addresses themes that are widely familiar yet deeply connected to specific political, economic, and cultural histories.<a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://uchicago.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=aba2086a45b4ee8391b89447b&amp;id=a6520b5f11&amp;e=00938adab1" target="_blank">Learn more about this exhibition</a>

Smart to the Core: Wise to Power (Part II)

Randolph Street Market Festival <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://randolphstreetmarket.com/event/randolph-street-market-festival-july-2026/" target="_blank">Buy Tickets</a> <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://randolphstreetmarket.com/vendor-application-july/" target="_blank">Become a Vendor</a> July 25+2610am to 5pm both days 1341 W Randolph StChicago, IL Indoor &amp; Outdoor SUMMER SOLSTICE BASH! Stroll on over to the Market and enjoy shopping 200 indoor and outdoor dealers! Find some great shades and breezy fashion as well as accoutrements for casual lifestyle and leisure time. Recharge your battery inside with cool cool A/C. Continuous live music, DJ’s, food and 3-Market Bars too!

Randolph Street Market Festival 

Public Opening | 5:30 –&nbsp;8:00 pmOpening Artist Talk&nbsp;| 6:00 – 7:00 pm Artist Oren Pinhassi sculpts anthropomorphic forms at great scale that appeal to the senses and intellect at once. He brings to The Arts Club of Chicago a series of figural/architectural works that occupy the gallery in an encompassing configuration, aiming to trigger the physical engagements of desire and fragility. On a basic level, Pinhassi’s forms address viewers as beings. They stand erect, though full of bulbous protrusions and seductive orifices. Yet, they refuse to be fully explicit, instead, seeking to communicate in the manner of poetry. Pinhassi’s towering or sprawling creatures draw upon such ordinary materials as sand, stone, or vinyl. In a process he has named “erotic construction,” Pinhassi uses sensual appeal, rough texture, suggestive pose, and intimate detail to press against the confines of a restrictive society.&nbsp;He has further explained, “The cavities in my work—windows, holes—simultaneously reference the most intimate cavities of the body and, as recognizable architectural elements, become landscapes for this public exchange.” How do streetscapes or open windows suggest encounters or interpenetrations? What are the boundaries between one and another? Why do we fear contact? And where might mutual understanding be found?New York-based artist&nbsp;Oren Pinhassi&nbsp;(b. 1985) creates sensuous sculptures and immersive installations that explore the reciprocal relationship between humans and the environments we create. His work investigates how architecture and objects shape our bodies, behaviors, and perceptions while simultaneously carrying traces of human presence, desire, and vulnerability. Pinhassi’s ongoing dialogue highlights how our designs, in turn, design us.Working primarily with sand and plaster, Pinhassi is drawn to organic materials for their transformative potential and porous nature. His process of layering burlap, plaster, and sand over welded steel skeletons involves repeated tactile engagement, mirroring how environments carry the marks of human action—surfaces bearing traces of interaction, labor, care, and also the effects of erosion and destruction. His works challenge fixed ideas of private and public space and the roles we carry within them, envisioning construction as a tender world of hybrid forms where human and environment exist in constant co-creation.The exhibition is curated by&nbsp;Janine Mileaf, Executive Director and Chief Curator at The Arts Club of Chicago.&nbsp;Publication: To accompany the exhibition, the Arts Club of Chicago and Zolo Press, Mexico City, will copublish the artist’s first monograph with an essay by&nbsp;Alyce Mahon, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, and support from Edel Assanti, London, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, and Lehmann Maupin, New YorkPhoto:&nbsp;Truth Teller&nbsp;(detail), 2024. Steel, burlap, sand, polymer and rock. 93 x 30 x 24 in (236.2 x 76.2 x 60.9 cm). Photo by Elisabeth Bernstein. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

Oren Pinhassi: Into Your Arms Length

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) will debut&nbsp;Emily Endo: Estuary, a new exhibition by artist Emily Endo (they/them), on view from February 7 through August 16, 2026.Endo’s largest exhibition to date,&nbsp;Estuary&nbsp;marks JMKAC’s first scent-focused exhibition, inviting visitors into a multisensory experience that explores the body and perception. Endo is known for intricate glass sculptures that reference vascular systems, organic structures, and the porous boundaries between bodies and environment. In&nbsp;Estuary, they expand this practice by integrating scentwith sculptural forms, engaging visitors through both sight and smell. The exhibition challenges conventional modes of looking, encouraging audiences to experience art through embodied and sensory awareness. “Emily Endo’s work asks us to reconsider how meaning is formed through the senses,” said&nbsp;Chava.Krivchenia, Assistant Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. “By aligning scent alongside sculpture,&nbsp;Estuary&nbsp;creates intuitive ways of engaging with art.”Smell plays a central role in the exhibition. Closely tied to memory and emotion, scent has the power to transport, influence mood, and reshape perception. Rather than functioning as an accessory, curated fragrances throughout the gallery act as an extension of the sculptural works themselves. Drawn from minerals, seawater, metal, glass, and organic compounds, these scents reference both natural environments and industrial processes, serving as connective tissue between material, memory, and the body. Estuary&nbsp;also considers how perception differs across species. While humans tend to prioritize vision, many animals rely on smell or sound to navigate the world. Featured works incorporate a turtle shell, highlighting the overlapping and divergent ways animal and human bodies experience their environments. Through this lens, the exhibition invites reflection on the boundaries—both physical and perceptual—that shape how we understand and navigate the world.In addition to their artistic practice, Endo is an educator whose teaching background in glass, scent, and sculpture informs their approach to making. Their studio practice is grounded in curiosity, experimentation, and care, viewing the studio as a site of discovery and learning.Endo will also serve as the first 2026 artist-in-residence for ExAir, JMKAC’s residency program. Their time on- site will support deeper community engagement through public events and offer visitors insight into their evolving creative process.About Emily Endo Emily Endo works across sculpture, scent, and installation, pursuing a research-driven practice grounded in material experimentation and sensory experience. They hold an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2010) and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2006). Endo’s work has been exhibited at Somerset House (London); Massey Klein (New York); Marta, Harkawik, and the Neutra VDL House (Los Angeles); LVL3 (Chicago); and Bullseye Projects (Portland). Recent press includes: The New York Times Style Magazine, Wallpaper, and Architectural Digest. Endo lives and works in Joshua Tree, California. Emily Endo. Photo courtesy of the artist.About the John Michael Kohler Arts CenterFounded in 1967, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) is a nonprofit creative hub that supports the work of contemporary artists through original exhibitions, commissions, residencies, publications, and community programming across visual and performing arts. The only institution in the world that collects artist- built and artist home-based environments, JMKAC is a leading center for the research, preservation, and presentation of artists with wide-ranging practices and backgrounds from academically trained to self-taught and folk traditions, championing long-term relationships with artists and elevating work that has often been overlooked or under-recognized. JMKAC is a vital cultural resource that responds to the needs of its local and regional communities, preserving artistic heritage by uplifting contemporary voices and empowering future generations.HoursTuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.Thursday: 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Image: Emily Endo,&nbsp;Orphic Diadem, 2024; glass, stainless steel, and fragrance; 22 x 22 x 10 in. Photo: Margeaux Walter.

Emily Endo: Estuary

Opening January 31, 2026, at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC),&nbsp;Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis: Rock Fade (~45&nbsp;Billion&nbsp;Years)&nbsp;is a large-scale installation by artist-collaborators Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis. Inviting viewers into an encounter with deep geological time, human perception, and our impulse to order the natural world, the work consists of a carefully selected sequence of stones arranged in a perfect line, gradually diminishing in size. This deceptively simple gesture becomes a profound meditation on material, meaning, and scale, prompting visitors to consider how aesthetic experience is shaped not only by material form, but also by embodied perception and collective engagement.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Rock&nbsp;Fade&nbsp;takes something deeply familiar, a stone, and asks us to encounter it in a new light. As the sequence shifts from boulder to sand, the work reveals how perception, movement, and shared experience shape what we understand as art,” states&nbsp;Jodi Throckmorton, Chief Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. “Relocating the installation across phases challenges us to reflect on our own role in ordering, witnessing, and ultimately returning these materials to the world.”&nbsp;&nbsp;On view through August 16,&nbsp;Rock Fade (~45&nbsp;Billion&nbsp;Years)&nbsp;references local and global rituals of marking time and space with stones, through collection, spirituality, and boundary setting. The work engages a deep human tradition to collect, order, control, and define the natural world against the backdrop of the slow transformation of rocks across ancient seas, volcanic flows, and glacial drifts; always in motion, even in their stillness. This juxtaposition highlights the tension between the human impulse to order and the inevitable processes of erosion and transformation that characterize geological time, revealing the work’s core inquiry: that the act of arranging the stones is both fleeting and monumental. Over time, the artwork will erode, scatter, and reintegrate with the earth, resulting not in failure, but in fulfillment.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rock&nbsp;Fade&nbsp;(~45&nbsp;Billion&nbsp;Years)&nbsp;builds on the conceptual framework of an earlier gesture of stone placement found in the artist environment of pioneer fiber artist Lenore G. Tawney (1907-2007) at JMKAC’s Art Preserve, in which Tawney arranged a subtle gradient of rocks from large to small. The work becomes a form of intergenerational dialogue—artists speaking to one another across time not by replicating but by amplifying, through matter, order, and attention. Clayton and Lewis will be Lenore G. Tawney Fellows at JMKAC in 2026, a fellowship that fosters new engagement with Tawney’s art environment, made possible with support from the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation. Candidates are encouraged to apply with projects that study overlooked aspects of works and movements related to Tawney or discuss previously unexplored connections between those works and art from other disciplines.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Rock Fade&nbsp;engages with the tradition of artist-built environments and the Arts Center’s work to preserve them while embracing the processes that shape them, offering a rare opportunity to witness an artwork that lives, changes, and integrates back into the environment over time. We’re proud to collaborate with Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis as this project unfolds with our community,” adds&nbsp;Amy Horst,&nbsp;Executive&nbsp;Director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.&nbsp;&nbsp;Rock Fade&nbsp;is designed to shift the audience’s relationship to material, scale, and time as it unfolds through multiple phases starting with the exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (January 31-August 16, 2026). The linear installation in a white-cube space depicts the stones removed from their natural setting, placed in a controlled environment that invites close-looking and contemplation.&nbsp;&nbsp;On September 19, 2026, a community procession will follow, inviting participants of all ages and ability to help transport the stones from the gallery to an outdoor site. The procession is logistical and symbolic: an act of communal labor, care, and transformation that becomes a form of glaciation and procession through movement, merging geologic time with collective human effort. The procession will conclude at the Art Preserve where Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis will utilize the rocks for a long-term outdoor installation. The procession will be documented in a film to extend its impact and reach.&nbsp;&nbsp;For its final phase,&nbsp;Rock Fade&nbsp;will come to rest where, for years to come, environmental forces will erode and reshape the installation. Visitors will encounter the work embedded in the land, part as sculpture, part as earthwork, with accessibility top of mind to ensure a wide range of bodies are able to experience the piece.&nbsp;The project, through all the stages, reminds visitors to slow down, notice matter, and share responsibility for how they move through time and space, particularly potent during a global moment of political and climate crisis and shortened attention spans.&nbsp;&nbsp;About&nbsp;Lenka&nbsp;Clayton&nbsp;Lenka Clayton is an interdisciplinary artist whose work considers, exaggerates, and alters the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realms of the poetic and absurd. Clayton is the founder of&nbsp;An Artist Residency in Motherhood, a self-directed, open-source artist residency program that takes place inside the homes and lives of artists who are also parents.&nbsp;&nbsp;Recent exhibitions include&nbsp;Rising Sun&nbsp;(2023) at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia,&nbsp;Day Jobs&nbsp;(2023) at the Blanton Museum of Art,&nbsp;The Museum Collects Itself&nbsp;(2023) at the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh,&nbsp;and&nbsp;To Begin Again&nbsp;(2022) at ICA Boston. Clayton’s work has been supported by The Warhol Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts. She has received an Art&nbsp;Matters Award, a Carol R. Brown Award for Creative Achievement, and a Creative Development Grant from Heinz/Pittsburgh Foundation. She has been an artist-in-residence at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, PA and Headlands Center for the Arts, CA and was a Sabrina Merage Fellow with Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum.&nbsp;&nbsp;Clayton’s work is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, SFMoMA in California, Hamburger Kunsthalle in Germany, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in Massachusetts, and The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and The Philadelphia Art Museum in Pennsylvania. Permanent public artworks include Darkhouse Lighthouse, and Historic Site, both made with collaborator Phillip Andrew Lewis.&nbsp;&nbsp;About&nbsp;Phillip&nbsp;Andrew&nbsp;Lewis&nbsp;Phillip Andrew Lewis is a Philadelphia-based artist who works in a variety of media including photography, video, objects, and sound. His creative research often responds to historical events, psychology, and phenomenology. This work consistently examines duration, perceptual limits, and attentive observation. Lewis is actively involved in collaboration with artists and various groups.&nbsp;&nbsp;Phillip has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. He received a 2012 Creative Capital Grant in Visual Art for his ongoing long-term project entitled SYNONYM. He has also received generous support for his research from Black Cube, Headlands Center for the Arts, Culture and Animals Foundation, Center for Creative Photography, Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York, Fathomers, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Midway Contemporary Arts Fund, Tennessee Arts Commission, University of Tennessee, UrbanArt Commission, The Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and Sabrina Merage Foundation. In collaboration with his wife, Lenka Clayton, he runs a project space in Pittsburgh called Gallery Closed, which is open 24/7 via two street-facing windows.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis: Rock Fade (~45 Billion Years)

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

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 Immortality

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

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

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

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence defined “unalienable rights” as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And five years after the end of the Revolutionary War, the founding generation ratified a new Constitution to, among other things, “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” What it meant to dedicate a country to liberty was immediately contested and continues to be contested to this day. For whom were these “Blessings of Liberty” to be secured? Under what circumstances could individuals expect the inalienable right of liberty to be recognized? What justifies limitations on liberty, and what does a dedication to liberty demand of us? Though Americans grappled with these issues in all times and places, nothing crystallized the tensions around liberty quite like war. President Abraham Lincoln, in his address at the newly dedicated Gettysburg National Cemetery in the midst of the Civil War, centered his reflection on this very question: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” At the site of so much death and destruction, he wondered whether a nation, “so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” Conceived in Liberty: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations in the Wartime US, 1812-1918&nbsp;will draw on the Newberry’s collection to show how artists living through wartime “conceived” cartoons, caricatures, and illustrations that grappled with questions about liberty. These images appeared throughout broader print culture (newspapers, magazines, sheet music, broadsides, posters) as well as in more private contexts, such as diaries, letters, or sketchbooks. Whether patriotic or dissenting, available to the masses or only to a few, wartime imagery reveals in dramatic, visually compelling ways how the people of the US have used the occasion of war to question, revise, challenge, and champion this core value of the country since its founding 250 years ago. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.newberry.org/calendar/conceived-in-liberty" target="_blank">DETAILS</a>

Conceived in Liberty: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations in the Wartime US, 1812-1918

Since 2020, Carter has developed an extensive body of work exploring the site, history, and significance of the Singer Pavilion–the last remaining building of the former Michael Reese Hospital complex in Bronzeville–a design collaboration led by architect Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus School. This exhibition presents for the first time together the ten artworks including sculptures, digital images, sound works, installations, and a series of zines developed in collaboration with artists and community members with connections to the hospital. Together, the works prompt reflection on the importance of this site as a case study of past and future efforts to develop this culturally rich yet under-resourced neighborhood while also examining evolving ideas about urban development, architectural preservation, and the legacy of Modernist aesthetic and social philosophy.

Jeff Carter: The Singer Pavilion Project

Willem de Kooning Drawing&nbsp;is the first exhibition to explore the full scope of Willem de Kooning’s drawing practice and how it was foundational to his boundary-breaking artistic career. Featuring more than 200 artworks including rarely-seen drawings—alongside paintings, sculptures, and prints—this exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience the totality of his graphic production over seven decades and sheds light on his experimentation with materials, tools, and techniques.

Willem de Kooning Drawing

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is thrilled to announce&nbsp;Dancing the Revolution. This exhibition is the first of its kind to explore and expand the visual, political and spiritual histories of dancehall and reggaetón through contemporary art—two dynamic genres that have transcended their grassroots origins to shape global culture. From Kingston to San Juan through London, Toronto, New York City and Panama,&nbsp;Dancing the Revolutionpositions music and dance as a revolutionary practice for collective liberation rooted in the struggle against colonial oppression.Dancehall and reggaetón are not only musical genres but cultural practices and powerful expressions of resistance and joy—reminders of the Caribbean's centuries-old traditions of dance and music as means of liberation and protest rooted in Black Atlantic history and culture.&nbsp;Dancing the Revolution&nbsp;showcases pivotal moments and themes from these histories, starting with the sound system—a mobile disco that embodies both a community experience and a vital civic institution.&nbsp;Presenting work across varied mediums,&nbsp;Dancing the Revolution&nbsp;includes painting, sound sculptures, installations, photographs, and video, showcasing how artists have been and continue to be inspired by these histories and the visual forms that emerge from them. The exhibition features more than 35 artists, including Isaac Julien, Jean Michel Basquiat, Edra Soto, Alberta Whittle, Carolina Caycedo, supakid and Lee "Scratch" Perry. A special commissioned mixtape project invites visitors to learn about the evolution of these popular genres in Panama and hear iconic songs that have paved the way for the global phenomenon of reggaetón. Audiences also will be able to purchase the exhibition’s bilingual catalogue (Spanish/English), which features scholarship on topics such as sound system and sonic aesthetics in painting, dancing and protest during Puerto Rico's&nbsp;Verano del 19, or Summer of 2019, and Panama’s reggae en español, as well as extensive illustrations reproducing exhibition artworks.Dancing the Revolution&nbsp;considers music and dance as powerful tools for sexual and political liberation. The exhibition’s title is inspired by the shifting RPMs (revolutions per minute) that mark the tempo and history of Caribbean popular music, including historic events like Verano del 19 (which famously included protests attended by singers iLe, Residente, Ricky Martin, and Bad Bunny). At this critical moment of collective action, LGBTQ+ and feminist activists led&nbsp;perreo combativo, or “combative twerking,” on the steps of San Juan Cathedral prior to Governor Ricardo Roselló’s resignation, transforming reggaetón’s characteristic dance into a form of political protest. This reclamation of public space through dance—an act deeply rooted in dancehall history and culture—demonstrates how music and dance can serve as bold acts of collective resistance and emancipation.Dancing the Revolution&nbsp;is curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, former Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, with Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate, Nolan Jimbo, Assistant Curator, Cecilia González Godino, former Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, and nibia pastrana santiago, Curatorial Consultant.

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