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A woven textile in shades of brown, blue, and metallic gold. On a mud-brown background are a series of many small gridded square shapes. Each is coppery gold with a halo of blue behind it and many fine blue threads crossing the square laterally, all evenly spaced. Bisecting each square vertically is an unruly tuft of brown fiber.

Inside the Exhibition
The Alchemy of Weaving

Learn how contemporary textile artists from across the globe have advanced the ancient and seemingly magical practice of turning thread into cloth.

Black-and-white photograph of an open paved roadway seen through a car windshield, low vegetation on either side and an overpass in the distance.

Inside the Exhibition
The Road to DRIVES

Traveling South Africa’s N1 highway in the ’90s, artist Jo Ractliffe began a photographic journey that would lead to an exhibition in Chicago.

A pastel-toned drawing outlined in ballpoint pen of the sun rising between mountain peaks, the curved earth undulating in waves of multiple green shades. Cursive text at upper left reads, “Mt Calvalry near Jerusalem in East Asia by Joseph E. Yoakum.”

Inside the Exhibition
Crossing Paths: The Friendship and Partnership of Joseph Yoakum and Whitney Halstead

Respect and affinity between the artist and professor helped bring recognition and acclaim to Yoakum’s poetic drawings of the world.

The Creative Process
What You Don’t See: Meditating on Korean Monochrome Painting

Meet three Korean modern artists for whom painting is a deeply spiritual practice.

In a dark warehouse space, a single shaded floor lamp illuminates various rectangular wood-trimmed works, each elevated by two supports and arranged in a circle. Criss-crossed lengths of wood tied with brightly colored material lean in the foreground on the right.

Inside the Exhibition
“With No Fear or Fence”: An Experiment in Collective Exhibition Making

The Chicago art collective Floating Museum, several curators, and dozens more artists and art supporters came together to create a brand-new and highly collaborative presentation.

An interactive sculptural artwork features wooden cutouts in various shades of brown varnish in the shapes of earth's land masses. The cutouts are affixed to a blue wooden panel with sliding tracks that allow them to merge together and come apart when manipulated.

Inside the Exhibition
Toward a Borderless Imagination

The curatorial team of Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica introduces one of Pan-Africanism’s key tenets: the idea of remapping the world.

Painting of two boys, one white and one black, standing side by side with neutral expressions against a neural background.

Perspectives
Art as Catalyst: Three Ways to Talk with Children about Race

Images can provide a starting place for introducing young children to concepts of race and difference and affirming their identities.

Interpreting the Collection
Strategic Reserves of Hope: Peter Blume’s The Rock

In the devastated landscape of Blume’s world, mystery and hope strike a vibrant balance.

From the Conservation Studio
The Cycle of Destruction and Repair: Conserving a Thanjavur Painting

After undergoing extensive as well as inventive conservation, this beautiful rendering of Shiva Nataraja and his attendants is now ready for public view.

A painting heavy in blue and green hues of a cluster of light-skinned nude figures lying, sitting, and standing together outdoors with the suggestion of white fabric either being pulled on or taken off.

Inside the Exhibition
Paul Cezanne: The Artist’s Artist

Cezanne’s sensation-driven yet meticulous approach to painting largely defies theoretical explanation, and his works have long fascinated artists in particular.

One Theme, Multiple Voices
Kinds of Red

Four staff members find stirring and evocative shades of red in artworks from around the world.

A close-up detail of Monet's "Water Lilies" painting featuring pink flowers and green lily pads against bright-blue water, with clearly visible brushstrokes.

Inside the Exhibition
Color, Chemistry, and Creativity in Monet’s Water Lilies

A research conservator and a conservation scientist offer an up-close look at the history and makeup of key pigments in one of Monet’s iconic paintings.

The Collection in Context
Celebrating the Year of the Ox

This Year of the Ox tour of collection reveals the long and complex relationship between bovines and humans across time and in cultures around the world.

A light-skinned blonde woman, Heather Reinholtz, stands in the entryway of the Art Institute of Chicago's shop in the Modern Wing, the words "The Modern Shop" written in block letters on the glass door to her left. She wears a burgundy dress. Behind her, through the doors, is a sun-drenched gift shop filled with books and other items.

Meet the Staff
Heather Reinholtz, Executive Director, Retail and Dining

Get to know the always exacting, hospitality-minded people person behind the museum’s shopping and dining experiences.

A painted wooden boat with 15 wooden figures, all painted with dark skin and hair, shirtless, and white cloth around their lower halves. Fourteen figures are seated as if rowing; one figures stands facing sideways at the back of the boat.

Inside a New Installation
Journeying through Life and Death along the Nile

An upcoming installation provides fresh perspectives on the endlessly fascinating art and culture of ancient Egyptians, offering new views of their ideas of the afterlife and the daily life that came before it.

Inside an Exhibition
About the Rose: Igshaan Adams and Hendrik Folkerts in Conversation

Curator Hendrik Folkerts and Igshaan Adams, the multidisciplinary artist from Cape Town, discuss the artist’s expansive and radical approach to weaving as a medium and as a practice.

A photo shows a young, light-skinned woman with light-brown hair smiling and facing the viewer. Behind her and to her right is a balcony rail, beyond which extends the light-filled, white expanse of the Art Institute of Chicago's Griffin Court, within the Modern Wing. Glass doors and windows hint at a park just beyond.

Meet the Staff
Lauren Makholm, Director of Production, Publishing

With a passion for storytelling and attention to detail, she brings the museum’s print and digital publications to life.

Outside Perspectives
Chicago Selects: Six Different Ways of Looking at the Collection

Curator Zoë Ryan invited artists, designers, and architects to use works from the museum’s collection as a means to make vital connections and start timely conversations. Here are six selections.

A man and woman stand before the second of three large stone Buddhist figures set on wood pedestals, a staircase visible beyond them.

Anniversary
100 Years of Arts of Asia

The department celebrates its centenary with a look at some of the spectacular works and key figures that have shaped the collection.

Image of Persian velvet panel that entered the museum in 1924

Collection Spotlight
Reading Arthur Upham Pope in Tehran (and Chicago)

There will always be a constant battle in my heart and mind.

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