Chicago activists in the 1960s and ’70s used design to create powerful slogans, symbols, and imagery to amplify their visions for social change. Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of […]

This exhibition makes visible the photograph collection of Japanese photographer Akito Tsuda, who documented Chicago's Mexican American Pilsen neighborhood in the early 1990s while attending art school at Columbia College. […]

Andrea Carlson (b. 1979, Ojibwe/European descent; based in northern Minnesota and Chicago, IL) considers how landscapes are shaped by history, relationships, and power. Her artworks imagine places that are “everywhere and nowhere,” visualizing these shifting yet ever-present dynamics. Grounded in Anishinaabe understandings of space and time, the works in this exhibition reflect on how land […]

Over the last century, Chicago has led the nation in progressive arts education for K-12 students, as teachers and their students linked art education to movements for social justice, access, and self-determination. Gallery 400’s Learning Together centers the progressive art pedagogy of a diverse group of Chicago artist educators from the mid-1960s through the 2010s, […]

Radical Craft, an exhibition, catalog, and workshop series, celebrates the work of immigrant artists and reformers at the country's most important social settlement. The exhibition showcases Hull-House’s rarely exhibited textile collection, drawn from a wide array of immigrant traditions. Also included are handbound books from Ellen Gates Starr’s bookbindery, newly restored paintings by Alice Kellogg […]

Edgar Miller (1899–1993) arrived in Chicago in 1917, and over the next fifty years established a successful career as multi-hyphenate creative practitioner. He worked as an architect, artist, craftsperson, curator, designer, and illustrator during a particularly rich period that saw the emergence and establishment of modernism across the visual culture of the city. The tremendous […]

Over the last nine years, artist Theaster Gates has been the steward of the Johnson Publishing Company’s ephemera, periodicals, furniture, inventory, and architectural fragments originally housed at the Johnson Publishing Company building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The devices for the interrogation of these objects and their permission to be public have created one of […]

During the 1970s, craft emerged as a powerful tool for artists advocating change within the art world and society. These creators aimed to dismantle rigid categorizations, enlighten societal perceptions, and elevate appreciation for individual expression and identity. These issues persist today, prompting a renewed examination of their contemporary relevance. Primarily focused on fiber, ceramics, jewelry, […]

Myth of the Organic City presents an historical and contemporary overview of Chicago’s design and land use, from its Indigenous roots through 20th century infrastructure projects to present-day developments. The exhibition includes maps, landscape designs, installations, wall drawings, sculptures, and multimedia works by more than 25 artists. The exhibition features artwork by Alexandra Antoine, Rebecca […]

For the Smart Museum’s 50th anniversary, South Side artist Robert Earl Paige creates a multi-part pattern-based installation and sprawling public art project that invites communities into a collective experience of space. […]

Exploring identity and place through the diverse work, perspectives, and legacy of three immigration periods of Lithuanian artists in Chicago, this exhibition and its associated programs and publications consider the […]

This exhibition explores typography, the shape and design of letters, within Chicago's diverse neighborhoods to investigate design legacies and their contemporary echoes. The exhibition highlights alternative modernisms by considering how […]

This exhibition and accompanying public program reflect on the lived experiences of immigrant printers, designers, and bookmakers in Chicago and explore how printing by and for immigrant communities has shaped […]