The Driehaus Museum is proud to announce A Tale of Today: Materialities, an expansive contemporary exhibition that invites viewers to discover the history and architectural richness of the Museum through the eyes of artists who are rooted in the Midwest. In the autumn of 2023, the Driehaus Museum held an open call for submissions, asking artists to identify a material from the Museum, research its history, and produce site-specific responses that connect the fabric of the building to distant shores, traditions, and ideologies. The commissioned works connect the past and present in original and compelling ways, linking different cultures to specific materials and allowing visitors to see the Nickerson Mansion through different perspectives.
An original idea of guest curator Dr. Giovanni Aloi, organized by the Driehaus Museum, this dynamic, three-floor exhibition includes works from artists Rebecca Beachy, Jonas Becker, Olivia Block, Barbara Cooper, Richard Hunt, IOTO, Beth Lipman, Luftwerk, Dakota Mace, Bobbie Meier, Laleh Motlagh, Ebony G. Patterson, Jefferson Pinder, and Edra Soto, working across a variety of disciplines. A Tale of Today: Materialities will be on view at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie Street from February 7 to April 25, 2025.
Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lisa M. Key states, “It has been wonderful to work with Dr. Aloi, whose own unique perspective on the connection between art and nature supports the concepts of this exhibition. This exhibition explores how materials themselves can be storytelling devices, bridging our modern times with those that came before.”
Guest Curator Giovanni Aloi adds, “For this exhibition at the Driehaus Museum, it was clear to me that I had no other choice but to directly engage with the building’s incredibly rich material essence. I became fascinated with the idea of following materials, tracing the often invisible connections that tie this one-of-a-kind architectural gem to a multitude of historical, ecological, and cultural universes. It was wonderful to steward the creative approaches of this group of artists through this process.”
Exhibition-related programming will include two free community days, plus engaging panel discussions with both the curator and the artists that examine the hidden cultural, economic, political, and ecological histories and networks reflected in the Museum’s materials. These programs will invite visitors to consider the global systems involved in building and decorating the home, as well as the contributions of unrecognized artists and laborers from around the world who played a pivotal role in its construction.
Conceived in 2019, the A Tale of Today series fulfills the Museum’s mission to help audiences understand the relevance of the past—particularly the history of the Gilded Age—through different lenses, and to see the present with new eyes. Past iterations include solo exhibitions of notable contemporary artists Yinka Shonibare CBE (2019), Mika Horibuchi and Nate Young (2020), Theodora Allen (2022), and Sif Itona Westerberg (2024), whose works engaged with the Museum’s historic environment to allow visitors to appreciate the enduring appeal of its remarkable interior art and design.
A Tale of Today: Materialities is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city's artistic heritage and creative communities. A Tale of Today: Materialities is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Rebecca Beachy is a Chicago-based artist, writer, and educator whose practice explores the complex relationships we have with the natural world. She holds an MFA in Studio Arts and an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jonas N.T. Becker is an interdisciplinary, research-based artist. Recent exhibitions include a survey at Wexner Center for the Arts and exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Nazarian/Curcio. He works in Waiteville, WV, and Chicago, IL, where he is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute.
Olivia Block is a Chicago-based, experimental music composer, performer, and contemporary media artist. Her research-driven installations include field recordings, found sounds, found images, electronic sounds, video, and objects. She is known for presenting sound work through installations of multiple speakers. Block regularly performs at festivals and tours throughout America, Europe, and Japan.
Barbara Cooper works in sculpture, drawing, and public art, as well as designing gardens and structures for dance and theater. She has had numerous exhibitions, residencies and fellowships, both in the US and internationally, and has used them as opportunities to research and engage with new environments and geographies. A graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cleveland Institute of Art, Cooper’s work is in the collections of many esteemed museums.
Richard Hunt is one of the most recognized American sculptors of the past century. His distinguished art career spanned seven decades. During his lifetime, Hunt held over 160 solo exhibitions and is represented in more than 100 public museums across the globe. Hunt passed away in 2023.
Industry of the Ordinary (IOTO) is a two-person conceptual art collaborative, made up of Chicago-based artists and educators Adam Brooks and Mathew Wilson. Their work is often performative or sculptural, incorporating audience participation and interaction with the artists. For over 20 years, they have used performance, installation, objects, and interventions to explore and celebrate “ordinariness” and to challenge and elevate the everyday experience into an endeavor worthy of study and veneration.
Beth Lipman is a glass artist who is renowned for her sculptural compositions which recreate the bounty and visual sumptuousness of Renaissance and Baroque still-life paintings, particularly 17th-century Dutch scenes. Lipman earned a BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 1994.
Luftwerk is comprised of artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero. Since founding Luftwerk in 2007, their practice has developed a significant body of work that explores the interplay of light, color, and space through the exploration of data, nature, history, and architecture. Their work is multi-faceted, taking the form of installations, site-specific interventions, and artwork, engaging with landscapes and architecture as well as galleries, museums, and art centers.
Dakota Mace is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on translating the language of Diné history and beliefs. Mace received her MA and MFA degrees in Photography and Textile Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Photography from the Institute of American Indian Arts. As a Diné (Navajo) artist, her work draws from the history of her Diné heritage, exploring the themes of family lineage, community, and identity.
Bobbi Meier is a Chicago-based visual artist. She is the recipient of numerous awards from organizations including John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program, Illinois Arts Council, The Ragdale Foundation, and Anderson Ranch Arts Center. Meier has exhibited work in over 40 museums and galleries in the US and Europe.
Laleh Motlagh, born and raised in Iran, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Motlagh received her MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago.
Ebony G. Patterson is a multimedia artist creating intricate, densely layered, and visually dazzling works that center the culture and aesthetics of postcolonial spaces. Patterson’s practice includes painting, photography, video, performance, sculpture, textiles, and installation. Across media, her works address themes of postcolonial space, visibility and invisibility, regeneration and mourning.
Jefferson Pinder focuses primarily on found objects and video, He investigates identity by creating dynamic circumstances through his innovative use of materials. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Showroom Mama in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the 11th Shanghai Biennale.
Edra Soto is a Puerto Rican born interdisciplinary artist and co-director of the outdoor project space The Franklin. Her recent projects, which are motivated by civic and social actions, prompt viewers to reconsider cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism, and personal responsibility.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Dr. Giovanni Aloi is an author, curator, educator, and maker specializing in the histories of art and politics of aesthetics in representations of nature in art. He’s the founder and Editor in Chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture and US Correspondent for Esse Magazine – Art + Opinion. Aloi is co-editor of the University of Minnesota series ‘Art after Nature’, and has authored four books including Why Look at Plants? - The Vegetal World in Contemporary Art (2019), Lucian Freud – Herbarium (2019) and the forthcoming Vegetal Entwinements (2023) co-edited with Michael Marder, Estado Vegetal (2023), Botanical Revolutions (2025), andLawn (2025). He lectures at museums and universities internationally and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at Queen Mary University of London, Goldsmiths, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London and New York. He received his Ph.D. in natural history and contemporary art from Goldsmiths University of London and has worked as an educator at Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate Galleries.
ABOUT THE DRIEHAUS MUSEUM
The Driehaus Museum engages and inspires the global community through exploration and ongoing conversations in art, architecture, and design of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions are presented in an immersive experience within the restored Nickerson Mansion, completed in 1883, at the height of the Gilded Age, and the Murphy Auditorium, built in 1926. The Museum’s collection reflects and is inspired by the collecting interests, vision, and focus of its founder, the late Richard H. Driehaus. For more information, visit driehausmuseum.org and connect with the Museum onFacebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
ABOUT THE TERRA FOUNDATION
The Terra Foundation for American Art, established in 1978 and having offices in Chicago and Paris, supports organizations and individuals locally and globally with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogues and encouraging transformative practices that expand narratives of American art, through the foundation's grant program, collection, and initiatives.
