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 the 1960s–70s features more than 100 posters, fliers, signs, buttons, newspapers, magazines, and books from the era, expressing often radical ideas about race, war, gender equality, […]

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. It also explores the relationships between the photographer and his subjects over time.

Presented by the Center for Native Futures, the only all-Native artist-led arts non-profit organization in Chicago, Gagizhibaajiwan considers depth, duality, and paradox in Anishinaabe art as expressed through images of Misshepezhieu, the Underwater Panther, and Animikii, the Thunderbird. The exhibition features the work of four Anishinaabe artists: interdisciplinary artist Marcella Ernest (Gunflint Lake Ojibwe/Bad River […]

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 […]

Building on artist Dawit L. Petros's ongoing exploration of links between colonization, migration, and modernism related to Italy, East Africa (especially in Eritrea and Ethiopia), Libya, and North America, this solo exhibition examines the ways that colonialism and cultural memory are inscribed in the visual culture and built environment of Chicago. The exhibition also explores and interrogates the […]

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 […]

Part of a multifaceted initiative developed in a partnership among the Newberry, representatives from several tribal nations, and Native community members in Chicago, this exhibition explores Indigenous history in Chicago across five centuries to highlight the way that the development of the city has been shaped by Indigenous lives and land. Indigenous Chicago centers the […]

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 […]

Since the time of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago's Black culture has been defined by its creative ethos of resourcefulness. Thinking ecologically before there was an environmental movement, generations of Black artists have worked their alchemy to transform simple materials and castoff objects into beautiful art, breathe life into the city's forgotten corners, and reinvent […]

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. Give the Drummer Some! is rooted in Paige’s decades-long practice as an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator who bridges cultural boundaries. A lifelong resident of the […]

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 causes and consequences of immigration/migration, including displacement, colonization, trauma, and assimilation. The cost of belonging is choosing what to leave behind. Its reward: creating new […]

Dunning explores the history of Cook County's insane asylum through the works of 10 visual artists and 10 poets. The asylum and psychiatric traditions of the past would have incarcerated these artists for a variety of reasons, including identifying as queer and/or trans and being Black or Indigenous.  The exhibition exemplifies the types of culture […]

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 revolutionary movements and concepts like love and safety shape the way communities spread and design information for one another. Featured designers and lettering artists activate […]