Art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object.&nbsp;

Conceptual / Performance

<h3>Developed during the Italian Renaissance, primarily for aesthetics or beauty, the highest art was that which allowed the full expression and display of the artist's imagination.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Pre 18th Century

<h3>Graphic Art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional. It includes calligraphy, photography, painting, typography, computer graphics, and bindery.&nbsp;</h3>

Graphic Art

Works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.

Artists' Books

The exploration of video art and music or sound set, including visual music, abstract film, audiovisual performances and installations.

Video / Sound

The objects produced by shaping pieces of clay that are then hardened by baking, or the skill of making such objects.

Ceramics

An artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are carved, modeled, casted, and constructed into a three-dimensional art object.&nbsp;

Sculpture

The process of creating artworks by printing, typically on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting.

Printmaking

<h3>Something made in an earlier period that is collected and considered to have value because it is beautiful, rare, old, or of high quality.</h3>

Antiques and Artifacts

Imagery where the subject matter centers around a view or depiction of Chicago.&nbsp;

Chicago Scenes & Regionalism

Old Masters refer to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800.

Old Masters

Socio-Political art is used to help the public understand a particular social or political issue.

Socio-Political

<h3>The attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, or implausible, exotic, and supernatural elements.</h3>

Realism

<h3>Artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real objects and is representational.</h3>

Figurative

<h3>Individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. Glass art ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces, to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware.</h3>

Glass

<h3>Artwork that often deals with Rococo, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism, and Romanticism.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – 18th & 19th C.

From the Tate Museum's website: Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Modernism

<h3>Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue to challenge boundaries.</h3>

Fine Prints & Painting – Contemporary

<h3>Art that is concerned with the design and decoration of objects that are chiefly prized for their utility, rather than for their purely aesthetic qualities including, ceramics, glassware, metalware, furniture, textiles, clothing, and more.</h3>

Furniture & Decorative Arts

<h3>Emerging art is work by artists who are still building their artistic careers and have not yet reached a more established and widely recognized status.&nbsp;</h3>

Emerging

<h3>Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour on the part of the artist as part of the works' significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.</h3>

Fiber Arts / Textiles

The quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. Freedom from representational qualities in art.

Abstraction

<h3>Art by African-American artists.</h3>

African-American

<h3>The art and science of designing and making buildings, or the style of a building.</h3>

Architecture

<h3>Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, an emphasis on light and its changing qualities, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.</h3>

Impressionism

From the Tate Museum's website: Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterized by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity.

Abstract Expressionism

Numismatics

Relating to Africa or people of African descent.

African

Eastern European art is a product of recent history. It can be traced to the division of Europe into the Western and Soviet spheres of influence of the allied victory over Germany in World War two.

Eastern European

Considered one of the most influential periods of art, featuring movements including Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism.

Early 20th Century

Skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects by hand.

Craft

<h3>The skill of making plans, drawings, or arrangements to show how a building or product is made.</h3>

Design

Asian art is diverse and rich, spanning thousands of years and dozens of countries. It is known for its ritual bronzes, beautiful ceramics, calligraphy, jades, textiles, painted landscapes, garden design, pagodas and stupas, and woodblock prints.

Asian

<h3>An artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.</h3>

Installations

An art form that combines visual art with dramatic performance.

Performance

Some of the most prominent, highly influential artists, who challenged preconceptions and pushed the limits of visual art, shaping the art world of our time.

Modern Contemporary Masters

Created in accordance with the vision of the artist as a photographer, using photography as a medium to bring something to life that only lives in the artist's mind.

Photography

The design movement in interior, product, graphic design, architecture, and urban development from roughly the 1930's to 1965.

Mid-Century

A movement in art and literature that flourished in the early 20th-century. Surrealism aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control.&nbsp;

Surrealism

An innovative discipline which seeks to unify a large range of art forms. This is creatively achieved by combining an array of artistic insights and crafts such as film, literature, performance, music and sound, drama, visual arts, or design.

Multi-Media

<h3>The depiction of landscapes in art—natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition.</h3>

Landscape

Plein air is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look.

Plein-air

Printed 2-D artwork which is designed to be affixed to a vertical surface, may consist exclusively of images, or images and text.

Poster / Lithography

<h3>A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person.</h3>

Portraits / Portraiture

<h3>These works are often stunningly beautiful, and encourage the viewer to engage with the rich history of research and experimentation that led to the piece’s conception.</h3>

Scientific

<h3>The Art of the American West is defined by geographical subject, consists of historic and contemporary works of art which focus on varying expressions of individuals, landscapes, ideals, and myths of the American West.</h3>

Western (The American West)

<h3>Borrowed from Wikipedia: In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and a bridge to postminimal art practices.</h3>

Minimalism

<h3>Occupying the space between fine art and the everyday, functional art refers to aesthetic objects that serve utilitarian purposes. The genre is remarkably inclusive, it encompasses everything from furniture and lighting to dishes and even books.</h3>

Functional Art - Jewelry / Fashion

A range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works.

Wildlife / Nature

Watches & Timepieces

Sports Collectibles

3-Dimensonal

Rare Books / Manuscripts

Western European art represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production. After the mid-19th century modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.

Western European

<h3>Artistic expression of Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, as well as Latin and Hispanic Americans living in other regions. Latin American art has roots in the many different indigenous cultures that inhabited the Americas before European colonization in the 16th-century.</h3>

Latin American and Hispanic

Comics

Large Scale (over 6')

Visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. Common forms and media include spray paint graffiti, stencil graffiti, poster art, sticker art, street installations, and sculpture.

Pop / Street Art / Graffiti

Medieval / Renaissance 

Non-Western

<h3>Art produced by self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.</h3>

Folk / Outsider / Self Taught

American Regionalism

Literary Arts

Mosiac

Includes manuscripts, prints, drawings, collages, and paintings on paper.

Works on Paper

Prints and Drawings

DPAM will be closed for DePaul University's Holiday Break from Monday, December 23 - Wednesday, January 1. We wish you all rest and relaxation during this time, and look forward to seeing you in the new year! ﻿DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) is a world-class museum located in the heart of Lincoln Park on DePaul University’s campus. DPAM is open to the public and presents three to five temporary exhibitions per year with a permanent collection of nearly 4,000 objects with strengths in international modern and contemporary art, particularly highlighting the voices of marginalized artists and communities. DPAM enriches the university’s commitments to excellence, diversity and social concerns by connecting people through art and ideas that explore the vast range of human experience and expression. We provide an inclusive platform for innovative artistic voices with a program that bridges local and global concerns.&nbsp;Image caption: Selva Aparicio.&nbsp;East of Eden, 2023. Dandelion seeds and discarded teddy bear from a child’s grave. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Daniel Delgado.

DePaul University Art Museum (DPAM)

December 24, 2024 10 am - 2:30 pmClosed for Winter Break 12/25/24 - 01/01/25The Smart Museum of Art will resume its normal hours of operation beginning 01/02/25. As the fine arts museum of the University of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art is a site for rigorous inquiry and exchange that encourages the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice. Through strong scholarly and community collaborations and a welcoming approach to its exhibitions, collections, publications, research and teaching, and public programs, the Smart Museum plays a dynamic role in expanding artistic canons, rethinking received histories, introducing new perspectives, and engaging diverse communities—locally, nationally, and internationally.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Smart Museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024. Admission is always free and open to all.&nbsp;&nbsp;Please visit our <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/" target="_blank">website</a> for a complete list of current exhibitions and programs throughout the year. Image: Installation view, works from the collection by Ivy Haldeman, Yeesookyung, Mark Rothko, and Lauren Quin

Smart Museum of Art

The premiere home for arts and culture on the North Shore. Exhibits, Wedding and Events Venue, Classes for All Ages and Skill Levels.Located in the boutique town of Highland Park, The Art Center Highland Park presents museum-quality galleries with ever-changing exhibitions of local, international, emerging, and established artists. Vibrant programming has everything from annual events to monthly artist talks and collaborations with other local cultural arts providers. Your home for creative exploration on the North Shore of Chicago.Check our website for Calls for Artists entry dates and details throughout the year.&nbsp;Image: 2022 Exhibit Fiber • Fashion • Feminism in the Center Gallery at the Art Center Highland Park

The Art Center Highland Park

ARC Gallery is an internationally recognized exhibition space that has been an integral part of the Chicago art scene since its inception in 1973. Founded during the women’s movement as an alternative to the mainstream gallery system, ARC is one of the longest running art spaces of its kind in the country. As a non-profit, woman artist-run cooperative, ARC continues its feminist tradition by providing exhibition opportunities for professional and emerging artists working in all media based on excellence of artwork, without discrimination toward ethnicity, race, gender, age, class, religious, sexual or political orientation. Image: ARC Gallery, 2022.&nbsp;Image by Nathan Keay

ARC Gallery

Woman Made Gallery is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Its mission is to cultivate, promote and support the work of women and non-binary artists through exhibitions, membership, and community dialogue programs. WMG is a space for women and non-binary artists, including trans women and femme/ feminine-identifying genderqueer. We welcome artists from our local community, regionally based, and from around the world.Since its inception in 1992 WMG has shown the artistic work of over 9,500 women and non-binary artists in 450+ exhibitions. WMG hosts up to nine exhibitions (majority open call, juried group exhibitions) per year and boasts a membership base of over 350 artists annually. To date WMG has provided professional development workshops and connected members to over 15,000 supporters via networking events and online promotion. The organization hosts conversations on the issues that matter most to women and that makes sense of the world through a feminist lens. Artist talks, panel discussions, poetry readings, among other public programs inspire community dialogue.Image: Two-Women Show 2023. Installations by Indrani Nayar-Gall. Paintings by Madelyn Turner

Woman Made Gallery

Balancing Traditional and Contemporary Art.Closed university holidays and between exhibitions.Aug 28–Oct 19:&nbsp;• Seeing Each Other: Portraits in Time and Place&nbsp;- This group exhibition features both experienced and emerging artists. Each entry explores the time-honored tradition of portraiture in artmaking in a unique way, often finding universal&nbsp;narratives and concerns within intimate and personal imagery.• Hold Still: Portraits from the Permanent Collection&nbsp;- Portraiture, like “still life” or “landscape” has been a pillar of art genres since time immemorial. We combed through the permanent collection to assemble an exhibition of portraits from Japanese actor prints to Andy Warhol Polaroids. From the gritty to the idealized, there are images of individuals, groups, the self and even animals. • Homage to Humanity: Portrait Prints by Sidney Chafetz&nbsp;- Jewish-American artist Sidney Chafetz (1922-2013) devoted his life to education and the arts. An avid reader, Chafetz employed his talents as a printmaker to depict his social and literary heroes. In this exhibition, we gathered many of his portraits into a cultural “hall of fame.”Nov 20–Dec 14, 2024 – Continues Jan 15–Feb 15, 2025Biennial Faculty Show of NIU School of Art and Design and NIU School of Theatre and Dance&nbsp;&nbsp;Image: Artists share insights into the work on display in the NIU Art Museum galleries.&nbsp;

Northern Illinois University (NIU) Art Museum 

The gallery will be closed from December 21, 2024 through&nbsp;January 6, 2025. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 7th. Rhona Hoffman Gallery, founded originally as Young Hoffman Gallery in 1976,&nbsp;specializesin international contemporary art in all media, and art that is conceptually, formally, or socio-politically based. From its inception, the gallery has launched emerging artists’ careers. In the seventies, Young Hoffman Gallery was one of the first galleries to offer exhibitions to women artists including Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer,&nbsp;and Sylvia Plimack Mangold. Since 1983, when Rhona Hoffman and Donald Young announced the establishment of separate galleries, Rhona Hoffman Gallery has continued to show young and emerging artists alongside established ones. Among the artists the gallery has exhibited and/or continues to exhibit are Vito Acconci, Derrick Adams, Spencer Finch, Leon Golub,&nbsp;Robert Heinecken, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Gordon Matta-Clark,&nbsp;Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Lorna Simpson, Nancy Spero, Richard Tuttle,&nbsp;Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and Amanda Williams. Rhona Hoffman Gallery is very active in the Chicago arts community and maintains&nbsp;strong relationships with museums, helping to place important works in their collections and within their programs. Additionally, the gallery gives exposure to artists currently&nbsp;living in Chicago such as, Julia Fish, Judy Ledgerwood, Michael Rakowitz, Richard Rezac, David Schutter, Amanda Williams, and Anne Wilson. Image: View of&nbsp;Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Rhona Hoffman Gallery

What’s inside the Block? It depends on how you look.Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art is a dynamic, imaginative, and innovative teaching, learning and research resource for the school and its communities, featuring a global exhibition program that crosses time periods and cultures and serves as a springboard for thought-provoking discussions.The Block mounts exhibitions; commissions new work; organizes lectures, symposia, and workshops; and screens classic and contemporary films at its in-house cinema.With over 6,000 artworks, the permanent collection of The Block Museum boasts rich and diverse holdings of prints, drawings, and photography and continues to expand its holdings of works that support the museum’s global and interdisciplinary mission.Always free and open to all.&nbsp;Image: Block Museum Student Associates tour The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto, 2023&nbsp;January 26–July 7, 2024: Actions for the Earth: Art, Care &amp; EcologySeptember 24–December 8, 2024: Federico Solmi: The Great Farce

Block Museum of Art

Sculpture Milwaukee produces an annual exhibition of contemporary sculpture, sited throughout Milwaukee’s downtown and the neighborhoods adjacent. Each year, established artist-curators are invited to serve as guest curators of the exhibition with Ugo Rondinone holding the post in 2022–2023.The exhibition can be viewed year-round at no cost, with works sited publicly in accessible locations. Programming that includes artist conversations, curatorial tours, and lectures by visiting curators is held throughout the year both in-person and virtually.Information regarding the works currently on view, including sculpture locations, and upcoming programming can be found on the Sculpture Milwaukee website.Support Sculpture Milwaukee by becoming a member. Members enjoy benefits that include access to additional lectures and events.Image: Maren Hassinger, Pyramid (Monument), 2022. Photo: Brian Pfister/Sculpture Milwaukee

Sculpture Milwaukee

A hidden treasure in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, Wrightwood 659 is a world-class gallery hosting powerful, thought-provoking exhibitions featuring architecture and socially engaged art since opening in 2018.Designed by Pritzker-Prize winner Tadao Ando, one of the preeminent architects of our time, Wrightwood 659’s soaring, light-filled galleries offers both intimate and monumental experiences as visitors engage with the pressing issues of our time.Exhibitions are curated by leaders in their field and are often unique to Wrightwood 659—each informed by a progressive and forward-thinking vision. They have included the works of more than 100 artists and architects such as Le Corbusier, Tadao Ando, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. The visitor experience is enhanced by highly trained gallery educators.Join the e-news list at wrightwood659.org to receive updates on exhibitions and programs.Admission to Wrightwood 659 is only available during the public showing of exhibitions. Reservations are required and available exclusively at wrightwood659.org. Walk-up admission cannot be accommodated.&nbsp;Image credit: Second floor, installation view at Wrightwood 659, 2018, © 2018. Jeff Goldberg.

Wrightwood 659

The Tarble Arts Center is the teaching museum on the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL. With an artist-centered approach, the Tarble presents an annual program of rotating exhibitions that provide experiential encounters with art of international significance and local relevance. An onsite Education Lab, Design Lab, and Collection Lab are hubs for transdisciplinary activity, positioning art as a primary tool for research, advancing knowledge, and interpreting the world we live in. The outcomes of this experimentation produce projects, publications, and opportunities that reach EIU students, community members, regional partners, and international collaborators both in the museum and wherever they are. The Tarble’s ongoing stewardship of a permanent collection of contemporary art, American Regionalism, and folk art provides opportunities for study and reflection to students of all ages.Image: Jenny Kendler and Andrew Bearnot, "Whale Bells," 2023. Courtesy the artists&nbsp;

Tarble Arts Center 

David Salkin Creative is a collaborative textile and surface-design studio that hosts a diverse exhibition program, located at the 1709 Gallery Building in West Town, Chicago. Recent educational exhibits of historic figures include Fluxus founder Dick Higgins, queer underground filmmaker Jack Smith, and Architect/Engineer Myron Goldsmith. Solo Exhibits of contemporary artists include Dominic Palarchio, Katie Rauth, Aron Gent, fields harrington, Austen Brown, Paul Levack and Rami George.Image: Dominic Palarchio "You had done nothing wrong", 2022. Image Credit: Aron Gent

Socio-Political

Other Specialties

Chicago Gallery News