Celebrate the Smart’s new fall exhibitions, teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity, Nina Chanel Abney: Between Us, and How Do We Heal?
This program is free and open to the all; Registration is encouraged.
The opening reception will include music from Kikù Hibino, hors d’oeuvres, and a themed cocktail.
About the Musical Guest Performance
Kikù Hibino is a Japanese-born, Chicago-based sound artist and producer working across installations, multichannel compositions, and noise-based electronic music. Through precise editing of voice, rhythm, and noise, he explores the boundary between music and non-music while disrupting the listener’s sense of linear time.
From “Fell to Fern” (2022), an ambient technoscape for plants at Lincoln Park Conservatory, to the explosive noise of his Merzbow collaboration “Rococo ∞ Echomatter” (2026), Hibino moves between sonic extremes.
“NOONNOONNOON” (2026), his 24-channel collaboration with Traxman, fuses Chicago footwork and experimental techno at 160 BPM. It was presented at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion for the Sonic Pavilion Festival in September.
He releases on the Rome-based label Superpang and has presented work at MCA Chicago, Wrightwood 659, and the Smart Museum of Art. He co-founded and directs Signal Noise, an independent platform for avant-garde sound and video art.
About the Exhibitions
teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity
The art collective teamLab is renowned for creating immersive digital art installations exploring themes of perception and consciousness. teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity traces the Tokyo-based collective’s trajectory over the last twenty-five years, particularly how they explore the relationship between the self and the world.
For the commission at the Smart, Nina Chanel Abney created a large-scale mural, entitled Between Us, that borrows the visual language of childhood instruction, such as diagrams, wall charts, educational puzzles. The forms stay recognizable, but their reassurances curdle the longer one looks.
What can artworks tell us about how people have sought to heal from past traumas and grief? How can the process of making art become therapeutic? In what ways can objects facilitate healing and protection? This exhibition How Do We Heal? addresses the connections between art and healing.
Support
Principal support for teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity is provided by Amy and Paul Carbone and the Feitler Family.
Major support is provided by the University of Chicago Women’s Board, Lorna Ferguson and Terry Clark, and Ann Ziegler, in memory of Kathleen Cronin.
Support is provided by the Kanter Family Foundation, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Eloise Wright Martin, The Estate of Warren G. Moon, the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago, the Chu Foundation, Yue Li and Hannah So, Brien O’Brien and Mary Hasten, and Hans Reiser and Alan Taylor.
Additional support is provided by Ray Iwanowski and Erica Noble, the Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation, Gay-Young Cho and Christopher Chiu, the Joan S. and Stanley M. Freehling Fund for the Arts, Charles H. Mottier and Philip J. Vidal, Clea and Daniel Van Voorhis, and the Helen and Jack Halpern Fund.
Smart exhibitions are also made possible by the Museum’s Board of Governors and SmartPartners.
Major support for How Do We Heal? is provided by the Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions.
Support is provided by the Brooks McCormick Jr. Japanese Print Fund and The Smart Family Foundation Fund.
Additional support is provided by the Maser Endowment, the Kanter Family Foundation, and the Inge and Edward Maser Memorial Fund.
Smart exhibitions are also made possible by the Museum’s Board of Governors and SmartPartners.
Images
Header Image: Installation view, 2026, Smart Museum of Art, the University of Chicago; teamLab, Dissipative Figures – Human, 2026, from the series Dissipative Figures – Human, Light in Dark, 2023-present, interactive installation. Sound: Hideaki Takahashi. © teamLab
Kikù Hibino Headshot, photograph by Isak Han
From left to right:
teamLab, Sea, 2026, installation, endless © teamLab
Nina Chanel Abney, photograph by Claire Dorn
Jo Sandman, Untitled (self portrait), ca. 1998–1999, Platinum/palladium print. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago. Gift of the artist, 2025.404 ©Jo Sandman