Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Audio Art & Strange Poetry from the US/Mexico Border

last edited on Mon. January 11 2021

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Public Media Institute, and the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art present a year-long series of experimental audio performances from Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a performance artist, writer, activist, and MacArthur Fellow, class of 1991. 

The Precariousness of Care

by Cynthia G. Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies and Clinical Faculty for Preaching and Pastoral Care at the University of Chicago Divinity School

last edited on Wed. November 11 2020

Attending to each other and our communities is costly, messy, exhausting—and vital. Cynthia G. Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies and Clinical Faculty for Preaching and Pastoral Care, writes in Sightings on the precariousness of care and her selection for the Collective Care section of Take Care.

Twenty-eight MacArthur Fellows selected for Toward Common Cause

last edited on Tue. November 10 2020

Twenty-eight MacArthur Fellows have been selected to participate in Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, an expansive multi-venue exhibition organized by the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

My Parents, by Song Yongping

by Brian Callender, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center

last edited on Tue. September 29 2020

Physician Brian Callender writes about Song Yongping’s series My Parents and the ways in which it illustrates important aspects of care within one of the fundamental relationships of caring: family.

Stilled Life: Photographs from Home

by Simone Levine, Curatorial Research Assistant for Global Contemporary Art

last edited on Fri. September 18 2020

While many of us are still new to working from home, artists Laura Letinsky and Michiko Kon have worked from home for decades. Simone Levine digs into the Smart's collection to consider how the things of the home can serve as objects of living as well as subjects for working. 

Smart Museum Interim Leadership

last edited on Tue. September 8 2020

Beginning October 17, 2020, Amina Dickerson and Bill Michel will serve as Co-Interim Directors of the Smart Museum of Art.

Back for a limited engagement: The Allure of Matter

last edited on Tue. July 21 2020

We look forward to welcoming you back to the Smart Museum of Art this summer for a reconfigured presentation of The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China, July 24–August 9, 2020.

Covid-19 Updates

last edited on Fri. May 29 2020

The Smart Museum of Art is temporarily closed and on-site programs remain suspended until further notice. Read more for an update on how our staff has begun planning for the safe resumption of public activities at the museum.

Chicago Fundred Initiative: A Bill for IL

last edited on Fri. May 22 2020

Using creativity to fight lead poisoning as part of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40

About The City

by Kathy Fitzgerald, Lead Museum Educator

last edited on Tue. May 12 2020

Lead Museum Educator Kathy Fitzgerald reflects on Walt Kuhn's painting The City, and the city outside.