Arts + Public Life
As a neighborhood platform for arts and culture in Washington Park, Arts + Public Life provides residencies for Black and Brown artists and creative entrepreneurs, arts education for youth, and artist-led programming and exhibitions.
Plan your visit
Visits to the Arts Incubator are by timed reservation. Learn more about special hours and make a reservation to visit.
Dawoud Bey: Portraits from Chicago (1993–2001)
May 21–August 28, 2021
Arts + Public Life opens Toward Common Cause with an exhibition of works by Chicago-based Dawoud Bey, who has photographed South Side youth across decades of artistic practice. In the 1990s, he invited them into his studio, seated them against single-hued studio walls, and fragmented their faces across multiple 20 x 24-inch Polaroids. In the early 2000s, he took street photographs of South Side youth as he came across them on sidewalks and steps. As a whole, these portraits make visible a group who are not fully recognized by society, activating the sitters’ inner worlds for viewers to contemplate.
Make a reservation to visit Arts + Public Life
Other initiatives
CHOP IT UP: Black Wall Street Journey
June 9, July 8, and August 12
Arts + Public Life is also hosting a three part conversation about the Black economy in conjunction with Rick Lowe’s Toward Common Cause project, Black Wall Street Journey.
Related
Join Arts + Public Life this summer for a three-part conversation about the Black economy. Artist Rick Lowe and journalist Natalie Moore team up to dish and dissect the intersections of race and economic development. Presented in conjunction with Black Wall Street Journey—a hub for neighborhood regeneration initiated by Lowe in Washington Park—and anchored by…
Join Arts + Public Life this summer for a three-part conversation about the Black economy. Artist Rick Lowe and journalist Natalie Moore team up to dish and dissect the intersections of race and economic development. Presented in conjunction with Black Wall Street Journey—a hub for neighborhood regeneration initiated by Lowe in Washington Park—and anchored by…
Engage in the themes of Toward Common Cause through a weeklong exchange between teachers, educators at multiple Chicago museums, and artists at the center of the exhibition. This Summer Teacher Institute offers participants—classroom teachers at any grade and any subject matter, teaching artists, and cultural educators from arts or community-based organizations—to engage deeply with the…
Join Arts + Public Life this summer for a three-part conversation about the Black economy. Artist Rick Lowe and journalist Natalie Moore team up to dish and dissect the intersections of race and economic development. Presented in conjunction with Black Wall Street Journey—a hub for neighborhood regeneration initiated by Lowe in Washington Park—and anchored by…
For Dawoud Bey, portraiture is a process through which the artist and the sitter meet in the middle. Each portrait begins with Bey gaining consent from someone to serve as his sitter. From there, Bey takes the time to become familiar with them by engaging in conversation, so that his camera can do more than…
I first began to explore art in a social context after being challenged by a high school student who looked at my earlier political work and said it wasn’t what people needed. People needed solutions. And he said, if you are an artist and you are creative, why can’t you create a solution? That was the turning point that got me thinking about how to produce work that was not only symbolic and poetic but also had a practical application.