When Ruth Duckworth arrived in Chicago from London to teach at the University of Chicago’s Midway Studios in 1964, she planned to stay for a year. Instead, she lived in the city for nearly fifty years until her death in 2009—half her life. It is strange, then, that she is still primarily known as a […]

What is poetry and why do we do it? This exhibition examines the practice of poetry as a form of communication, linguistic innovation, political performance, and embodied presence—considering how poetry can be a lens for understanding humanity. Ranging from an ancient fragment of papyrus to contemporary video works, this diverse collection of objects speaks to […]

Ted Stamm: In Transit celebrates the work of Ted Stamm (1944–1984), an artist whose gregarious practice expanded abstract painting into his everyday life. Employing stencils and spray paint, mail art, games of chance, collaboration, and site-specific performances, the artist blended contemporary experience with modernist abstraction. This small, focused exhibition centers on a selection of Stamm’s paintings […]

Calling on the Past invites visitors to experience the Smart Museum’s collection anew, through a sensory exploration of color, texture, and form. In lieu of customary chronological or geographical divisions, such as those that have often guided the display of the collection in the past, this installation draws on the breadth and depth of the Museum’s holdings to […]

The sixties were a long time coming. The sixties keep coming back. For many parts of Africa, to refer to the 1960s is to gesture broadly toward a time of great transformation: the postcolonial turn. That decade’s beginning marks a wave of national independence movements coming to fruition in all parts of the continent with […]