Past Exhibitions
Cross Currents / Intercambio Cultural
July 11–August 18, 2019
This exhibition explores how issues of Latin American and Latino/a identity and place are manifest in the practices of artists working in Chicago and Havana.
Tara Donovan: Fieldwork
June 14–September 22, 2019
American artist Tara Donovan transforms mundane materials like plastic straws, index cards, rubber bands, Slinkys, and sheets of mylar into elaborate, mind-bending objects.
Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection
Presented by The Helis Foundation
January 29–May 19, 2019
This major exhibition offers new perspectives on the significant contribution that African American artists have made on the evolution of visual art in the modern era.
Smart to the Core: Embodying the Self
January 29–May 19, 2019
Presented as primary source material for the Social Sciences course sequence “Self, Culture, and Society,” this exhibition considers how selfhood has been variously constructed and performed by visual artists in the modern era, with particular attention to gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and intersectional identities.
The Time Is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960–1980
September 13, 2018–December 30, 2018
During the 1960s and 1970s, Chicago was shaped by art and ideas produced and circulated on the South Side.
Tang Chang: The Painting that is Painted with Poetry is Profoundly Beautiful
May 8–August 5, 2018
Tang Chang's first solo exhibition outside of Thailand traces the development of his singular style of gestural abstraction and his eventual rejection of painting in favor of “poetry-drawings.”
Expanding Narratives: The Figure and the Ground
April 24–December 16, 2018
Expanding Narratives uses the formal relationship between the figure and the ground in art history as a conceptual springboard into discussions around visual representation, the museum space, and the role of the Smart Museum’s collection in fostering the exchange of diverse perspectives.
Expanding Narratives: Theme and Variations—The Multiple Sorceries of Félix Buhot
April 24 to July 22, 2018
As part of Expanding Narratives, this presentation explores how printmaker Félix Buhot dissolved classic distinctions between figure and ground in ways that challenge the limits of the etching medium.
Into the City: Art in Chicago
April 3–July 22, 2018
Presented in connection with a University of Chicago course, this exhibition samples a selection of themes that have defined artmaking in Chicago.
Art in Seventeenth-Century France
April 3–July 22, 2018
This intimate display serves as primary source material for an Art History course and includes the entirety of Jacques Callot’s portfolio The Large Miseries of War.