Art Design Chicago is a platform for collaboration and exchange developed with cultural practitioners throughout Chicago. The initiative seeks to catalyze transformative approaches to co-creation and community engagement and to stimulate expansive narratives of Chicago art and design, past and present. This round of grants includes support for Art Design Chicago exhibitions, public programs, and resources.
Exhibitions
6018North, Chicago, Illinois, to support Myth of the Organic City (September 2024–June 2025), a broad-ranging exhibition that provides an overview of Chicago’s early designs, historical development, and contemporary usage of its water, land, and air, $75,000
Albertine Foundation, New York, New York, to support Opening Passages: Artists Respond to Chicago and Paris (April–July 2024), a multi-site photographic exhibition in Chicago that features recent bodies of work by ten artists who engage the dynamic social landscapes of either Chicago or Paris, $40,000
Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, to support All Power to the People: Elizabeth Catlett’s Legacy in Chicago (June–August 2024), an exhibition that highlights the printmaking practice and impact of artist and activist Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), $100,000
Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, Chicago, Illinois, to support beLONGING: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago 1900 to Now (September 2024–December 2025), an exhibition exploring identity and place through diverse works, $50,000
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Chicago, Illinois, to support Victoria Martinez: Braiding Histories (March–July 2024), a one-person exhibition that features the art of Chicago-based creative Victoria Martinez, $80,000
Chicago History Museum, Chicago, Illinois, to support Chicago Designs for Change (May 2024–June 2025), an exhibition that highlights Chicagoans of the 1960s–70s who created art as a catalyst for social change alongside contemporary artists who make art that addresses social issues, including immigration, $150,000
Chicago Public Library Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, to support Pilsen Days: Photographs by Akito Tsuda (June–December 2024), an exhibition that makes visible the photograph collection of works by Japanese photographer Akito Tsuda, $110,000
DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, Illinois, to support Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917–1967 (September 2024–February 2025), the first retrospective and most comprehensive solo presentation of Edgar Miller’s work to date, $110,000
Design Museum of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, to support Letters Beyond Form: Chicago Types (November 2024–April 2025), an exhibition that looks at typography (the shape and design of letters) within Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods to investigate design legacies and their contemporary echoes, $125,000
Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois, to support A Love Supreme (January–April 2024), an exhibition in which designer Norman Teague responds to jazz musician John Coltrane as muse, providing parallels to Teague’s own life and artistic career, $50,000
Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), Chicago, Illinois, to support Inverse Surveillance (October 2024–1st quarter 2025), an installation created by Chicago-based artist Assia Boundaoui with the Arab and Muslim American communities in Chicago that takes the shape of a full-scale labyrinth, $59,000
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, Illinois, to support Chicago as Catalyst: Immigrant Communities Nourish Self-Taught Artists (working title) (October 2024–April 2025), $125,000
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, Illinois, to support Radical Craft: Arts Education at Hull-House, 1889–1935 (September 2024–July 2025), an exhibition, catalogue, and series of craft workshops that explore the history and legacy of arts education at Hull-House in the early 20th century, $124,000
Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Evanston, Illinois, to support Anishinaabe Art: Stories of Today (September 2024–September 2025), an exhibition that examines contemporary approaches to traditional Woodlands style art, $54,000
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois, to support Dawit L. Petros: Prospetto a Mare (September–December 2024), a solo exhibition building on artist Dawit L. Petros’s ongoing exploration of links connecting colonization across time and space, $125,000
National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, Illinois, to support 130 Años: México in the Chicago Columbian Exposition (working title) (April–August 2024), an exhibition that examines the 1893 World’s Fair as a platform for expressions of cultural identity and delves into the similar objectives of many Chicago and Mexican artists, $150,000
National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, Illinois, to support Still Here: Linking Histories of Displacement (May–December 2024), an exhibition that explores the histories of displacement of Indigenous people and African American families, $150,000
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, to support Immigrant Printing in Chicago (December 2024–March 2025), an exhibition that reflects on the lived experiences of immigrant printers, designers, and bookmakers in Chicago, $40,000
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, to support Indigenous Chicago (September 2024–January 2025), part of a multifaceted initiative developed in a partnership involving the Newberry, $125,000
Puerto Rican Arts Alliance, Chicago, Illinois, to support Persistence: The Lions’ Roar in the Puerto Rican Arts (Persistencia: El Rugir de los Leones en la Plástica Puertorriqueña) (June–November 2024), $125,000
Rebuild Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, to support Theaster Gates: When Clouds Roll Away: Reflection and Restoration from the Johnson Archive (May–August 2024), $200,000
South Asia Institute, Chicago, Illinois, to support Seen and Unseen: South Asian American Art in Chicago (May–September 2024), $100,000
South Side Community Art Center, Chicago, Illinois, to support ReSOURCE: Art and Resourcefulness in Black Chicago (October–December 2024), a wide-ranging historical and contemporary exhibition that focuses on Black artists in Chicago who work with found objects and repurposed materials, $150,000
The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, to support Woven Being: Indigenous Art Histories of Chicagoland (working title) (January–July 2025), an exhibition that offers critical perspectives on the art history of the Chicago region, $150,000
UIC Gallery 400, Chicago, Illinois, to support Learning Together: Art, Education, and Community (September–December 2024), an exhibition that centers the progressive art pedagogy of a diverse group of Chicago artist educators in the mid-to-late 20th century, $150,000
Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, Illinois, to support Agency: Craft in Chicago from the 1970s–80s and Beyond (September–December 2024), an exhibition primarily focused on fiber, ceramics, jewelry, wood, and glass that highlights the contributions to Chicago’s visual and cultural fabric made by immigrants, $108,000
Public Programs
American Indian Center of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, to support Indigenizing Urban Intertribal Arts, a series of artmaking workshops led by Native practitioners that includes contemporary expressions of traditional Indigenous techniques in feather fans, moccasins, quillwork, and Hand Drums, $50,000
Chicago Art Department, Chicago, Illinois, to support Seeds IV: Healing Stages, an annual initiative that centers BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) voices and cultivates cross-cultural healing through multilayered celebrations, $25,000
Folded Map, Chicago, Illinois, to support unBLOCKED, an initiative led by social justice artist Tonika Johnson that is a response to racist Land Sale Contracts in the 1950s and ’60s and their lasting impact on today’s residents, $50,000
Opendox, Kingston, New York, to support Designing For Dignity: A Convening of Possibilities 02, Deem Journal’s second symposium, to be held in person at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and virtually, $50,000
Public Media Institute (PMI), Chicago, Illinois, to support Artist-Run Legacies: Conversations between Generations of Artist-Run Culture in Chicago, $50,000
Research and Learning Resources
Chicago Collections Consortium, Chicago, Illinois, to support A Digital Look at Chicago’s Art Fairs and Art Festivals (working title), a digital exhibition of archival material drawn from an array of collections that documents Chicago’s rich history of art fairs and art festivals and their impact on the diverse communities they serve, $16,000