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Reading Room Exhibition

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Visit us between 1:30-5pm on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday to see In Context: Ọlọ́wẹ̀ of Isé’s Veranda Post, and Worldviews.

The Franke Reading Room features artworks from the Art Institute’s collection along with cases displaying library and archival materials. 

Wooden sculpture of seated king surrounded by family.

Olowe of Ise

In Context: Ọlọ́wẹ̀ of Isé’s Veranda Post

A veranda post (òpó ògògá) made by Ọlọ́wẹ̀ of Isé shows a Yòrùbá king (ògògá) in a network of social and spiritual power. Although it now appears as a freestanding sculpture, this veranda post was created as an architectural element for the palace reception courtyard in Ìkẹ́rẹ́, Nigeria. A distinguishing feature of royal architecture, elaborate veranda posts were flexible elements that could be moved and modified to respond to changes of leadership, environmental conditions, or the evolving design preferences of the royal family.

There are many stories to tell about a single artwork. From its relationship to architecture to poetry, over the coming year we will share materials from the library and archives collections that highlight various dimensions of this dynamic sculpture.

An orange seashell or flower bud or ear canal emerges from darkness to press up against the picture plane alongside lush green flora. A painting reminiscent of a lacquer box or botanical illustration.

Kurt Seligmann

Several nude people, each with a different skin hue, relax languidly underneath trees in a rural landscape. The shapes in this painting are simplified, soft. But overall they remain recognizable. Looking upward—toward the background—an oval-shaped portal in the tree copse opens toward a pink mirage. An unconcerned, utopian group, but in somber colors.

Bob Thompson

A dramatically skewed perspective captures mostly sky and a red-fruited tree in paint. A tilted, unresolvable view of a blue hill, or maybe a tree-topped walled garden, with black triangular voids at the corners of the frame. A tiny figure, a motif of squares.

Amy Sillman

The full moon casts a beam of light across an expansive body of water. Dark shapes in the foreground—two spindly trees intersected by a crossbar and slanted bank—frame the scene and divide it into six panes. Pale gray sky and gray-blue water bleed into each other at the horizon line.

Alex Katz

A large and vibrantly colored abstract painting. The abstract shapes in muted orange, purple, green, and blue suggest a cityscape amongst mountains and trees.

Eleanor Coen

An indescribable diptych of two nearly identical painted scenes. The curve of a lakeshore, speckled grays, mosaic greens and yellows. Smears of ghostly people, salt ponds, dunes, sunlight?

Irving Petlin

In Context: Ọlọ́wẹ̀ of Isé’s Veranda Post accompanies an installation of modern and contemporary paintings around the room. This installation, titled Worldviews, reflects the great lengths to which artists go to see the world in new ways. The featured works examine different vantage points on landscapes, psychic and earthly, and natural phenomena in an exploration of subjectivity and what bridges us to the past. 

See what’s on view in the Reading Room.

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