In a renovated, bowstring truss building in Skokie, Illinois, a joint venture between (northern) Western Exhibitions and WHO Modern officially opened its doors this past weekend to celebrate the launch of its shared space featuring contemporary art, midcentury modern design, vintage furniture, and decorative objects. The opening event, which took place on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022, celebrated the work of Geoffrey Todd Smith, a Chicago-based artist, and marked the debut of a new community destination initially envisioned by long-time Skokie-resident, Zach Williams, collector and building owner. The creative brainchild of Williams, the space brings together iconic designs and contemporary artwork by artists from Western Exhibitions’ 20-year-long history, and is backed…
-
-
Expressions of Life
The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, located in White River State Park on the historic lands of the Miami and Lenape peoples in downtown Indianapolis, officially debuted its reimagined Native American Galleries on Saturday, June 25, 2022. The opening, which coincided with the 30th annual Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival on June 25 and June 26, 2022, builds on the museum’s ongoing transformational $55 million capital and endowment campaign known as Project 2021. Since 2016, the campaign has sought to not only rethink permanent galleries, highlight the art of the Native peoples of the Great Lakes region, and expand and renovate community gathering spaces on the museum…
-
In community
The River North Design District of Chicago celebrated the art and design community with its sixth annual River North Fall Gallery Walk, an event that took place on September 10, 2021, comprising 17 design showrooms, as well as kick-off and after parties. At this year’s event, a total of 25 artists and 18 designer vignettes were featured and displayed in each showroom until October 11, 2021. Within each participating space on opening night, guests walked into a transformative experience—exquisite displays of art and design, the gathering of Chicago’s art and design community, and various food and drink pairings courtesy of event sponsors. Great Lakes By Design Magazine had the opportunity…
-
Momentum in medium
Uplifting, multi-modal, and expressing hope amid challenging times, the exhibition “Illuminate” by Springboard Arts Chicago—one of Wicker Park’s latest arts tenants—brought a timely curation of fresh artworks to the gallery’s opening in November 2020 through February 2021. This spring, the gallery has built off its inaugural exhibition with a new exhibit, “Momentum,” which embraces the challenges that “Illuminate” brought to light, using them as a catalyst of change and for fueling forward motion. “We had to keep moving forward. We’re in a time in our world when there are lots of walls put up; we’re stopped sometimes, because COVID is stopping us and all sorts of things that we would…
-
A Designed Life
Creative, persuasive, stimulating, and versatile; design and its many sub-fields have long been applied to large-scale world issues in politics, economics, and culture. The 20th century is rich in examples of design’s influence in the shaping and the response of relevant world events, from the economical office building boom that helped spur the International Style, to the ideological and aesthetic movement of Midcentury Modernism that traversed seas—from Le Corbusier to the Eames—to popularize in the United States with its functional post-war sensibilities. One of these relevant moments of globally responsive design, however, has often been left out of the American midcentury design lexicon. In the early 1950s, in an attempt…
-
IFWTO: expression in fashion
In a celebration of Indigenous expression in fashion and the arts, the second edition of the biennial Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto hosted runway presentations from 16 designers, a series of panel discussions on topics like land-based fashion and fashion journalism, a virtual art exhibition, and more, online last week November 26 through November 29, 2020. Co-founded by Artistic Director Sage Paul in 2018, IFWTO features distinctive and progressive Indigenous-made fashion, craft, and textiles, and is a celebration of these mediums’ foundations in Indigenous knowledge and ways of life. Foundationally, the festival celebrates and advances current Indigenous designers, while welcoming audiences to experience their work in accessible ways. “All of us…
-
Springboard Arts
Art and architecture will have a sublime fusion within the new Springboard Arts Chicago gallery in the city’s vibrant Wicker Park neighborhood this fall. The gallery, which is expected to be unveiled November 28, 2020, is a 4,500-square-foot space following the establishment of Springboard Arts Chicago’s online presence earlier in the year. It is envisioned as a place where inviting, design-forward architecture and interiors encourage the exploration of a diverse, upcoming program of exhibits in which visitors can discover invigorating works of art and meet their makers. The Springboard Arts Chicago’s premier exhibition, “Illuminate,” will showcase the work of 15 artists such as mixed-media artist Paul Branton, photographer Gail Mancuso,…
-
Detroit style
Between the mass production of accessible, timeless car designs, and the artistic innovation that pushed the automotive industry into each new age, Detroit’s influence on American car design, technology, and manufacturing has remained since the turn of the 20th century when Henry Ford touched down his Detroit Automobile Company and Charles Brady King test drove the first self-propelled carriage along Woodward Avenue, reaching speeds up to five miles per hour. In homage to this remarkable past, the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, or DIA, is unveiling a special exhibition, “Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950-2020,” which will capture groundbreaking, artistic, and transitional moments in Detroit car design…
-
Other such stories
Exhibitions in art and its many related fields often serve as a catalyst for new ideas, a shift in perception, and at times, recognizable change. It is frequently used as a forum in which to engage audiences and peers, to spark conversation and innovation, and to provide opportunities for emerging and established talent. There is a statement or question often posed, challenging, inspiring, and disrupting the routine. During the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, an international architecture and design exhibition held from September 19, 2019 through January 5, 2020 throughout downtown Chicago and its network of partners across the greater neighborhood area, that statement reflects upon social, geopolitical,…
