Artbash 2026: Opening Night
ArtBash 2026: Contemporary Practices Exhibition,
LeRoy Neiman Center, 37 S. Wabash Ave.
Opening Night: March 27th, 4:00PM-6:30PM,
Exhibition Dates: March 27th - April 11th,
First year students from the Department of Contemporary Practices (CP) exhibit new interdisciplinary art and design works. Students have the opportunity to participate through site specific proposals, an open call for work, and by faculty selection.
Organization: Contemporary Practices. Building Address: 37 S. Wabash Ave.
Friday, March 27, 2026, 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC1: Event Space 102, Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC2 Lounge 203, Sharp 327 SP 327, Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC1ES1, Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC2 Table 1, Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC2 Table 2.
Lauren Lee McCarthy Lecture
Lauren Lee McCarthy, LAUREN. Photo by Jane Kratochvil, Sebastian Bach, courtesy of Ford Foundation Gallery,
Join us for a lecture by artist Lauren Lee McCarthy followed by an audience Q&A.
Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Explore the Visiting Artists Program homepage for visitor information, recordings of past events, and more.
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living. She creates performances inviting viewers to engage. To remote-control her dates. To be followed. To welcome her in as their human smart home. To attend a party hosted by artificial intelligence. McCarthy is the creator of p5.js, an open-source creative coding platform that prioritizes inclusion and access with more than 10 million users worldwide. She is also a professor at University of California, Los Angeles Design Media Arts. McCarthy’s work has been recognized by Creative Capital, United States…
Organization: Visiting Artists Program, Architecture, Interior Arch, Mitchell Lecture. Building Address: 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago.
MONUMENTS: Hamza Walker in Conversation with Mechtild Widrich
Join us for a special conversation with the curator of MONUMENTS, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and The Brick. This event is free and open to the public and attendees can register here.
MONUMENTS: Hamza Walker in conversation with Mechtild Widrich,
Hamza Walker is the current director of The Brick (formerly LAXART) and recipient of the 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Among the recent exhibitions he has organized is MONUMENTS, currently on view at two venues in Los Angeles, and Elizabeth Paige Smith: Unshade Me of You and Gregg Bordowitz: This Is Not A Love Song both at The Brick. With an impressive career that includes his more than 20-year tenure as associate curator and director of education at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society, Walker's approach to contemporary art and curatorial practice promises a rich and insightful dialogue.
Mechtild Widrich, Professor and Chair of the Department…
Organization: Dean's Office, Painting and Drawing. Building Address: 112 S. Michigan Ave. ACCOUNT-FUND-ORG # for billing: 702.
Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
MacLean Center Ballroom.
Spring 2026 Undergraduate Exhibition
Public Reception: April 11, 12:00–5:00 p.m.
Presenting work by SAIC's graduating seniors, this culminating exhibition features the ambitious and innovative interdisciplinary work of the next generation of artists, designers, and scholars. It is a living example of the crossing of disciplines and the challenging of assumptions that SAIC encourages in each student.
Hours, Mondays–Saturdays 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
The galleries are open to the public. All visitors must present a valid government ID for entrance.
Organization: Exhibitions. Building Address: 33 E. Washington St.
Friday, April 3, 2026, 11:00 AM – Saturday, April 11, 2026, 6:00 PM.
SAIC Galleries Street Level, SAIC Galleries Lower Level 1, SAIC Galleries Lower Level 2.
Cecilia Vicuña Lecture
Cecilia Vicuña, Cloud-net, 1998, street performance, New York. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by César Paternosto. © 2025 Cecilia Vicuña,
Join us for a lecture by artist Cecilia Vicuña followed by an audience Q&A.
Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Explore the Visiting Artists Program homepage for visitor information, recordings of past events, and more.
Cecilia Vicuña (born Santiago de Chile, 1948) is a visual artist, poet, filmmaker, and activist based in New York. She created the autonomous concept of "Precarious Art" in the mid-1960s in Chile to name what disappears. Her poetic work in space, performance, and visual arts is considered a decolonizing vision that anticipates ecofeminism.
“Arte Precario” stands as a new independent and non-colonized category for her precarious works composed of structures that disappear in the landscape, which include her quipus (knot in Quechua), envisioned as poems in space. She was a co-founder of Artists for…
Organization: Visiting Artists Program. Building Address: 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago.
Spring Art Sale
Celebrate creativity, community, and culture.
On Friday, April 10, 124 SAIC students will have work available for purchase at SAIC’s 24th annual Spring Art Sale. From paintings to jewelry, each one-of-a-kind piece is handcrafted. Whether you're looking for unique gifts or simply want to support local artists, this event is the perfect opportunity. The SAIC Spring Art Sale is free and open to the public. Participating artists receive 100 percent of their profits.
The sale will take place Friday, April 10 from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the SAIC Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue.
The bi-annual art sales are hosted by Campus Life, a part of the Office of Student Affairs. Questions about the event? Email us at saicartsale@saic.edu.
Organization: Campus Life. Building Address: 112 S. Michigan Ave.
Friday, April 10, 2026, 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM.
MacLean Center Ballroom.
AIADO Mitchell Lecture: Cheryl Durst
An exceptional communicator and leader, Cheryl Durst has spurred progress, driven change, and encouraged the expansion of the interior design industry. As the executive vice president and chief executive officer of the IIDA, Durst is committed to achieving broad recognition for the value of design and its significant role in society through both functionality and engagement in everyday work spaces and the built environment. Durst oversees the strategic direction of IIDA and leads the association's International Board of Directors and its professional staff, all of whom support the work of 15,000 members in 58 countries.
She has been referred to by Interior Design magazine as "an ambassador for innovation and expansion and a visionary strategist." For her leadership in the industry, she was inducted into the prestigious Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2016. Durst holds dual degrees in journalism and economics and is a member of the Board of Trustees for both the New York School of Interior Design and the…
Organization: Architecture, Interior Arch. Building Address: 37 S. Wabash Ave. ACCOUNT-FUND-ORG # for billing: 547.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC1: Event Space 102.
An Evening with Maryam Tafakory
, Mast-del, Maryam Tafakory, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and LUX. The works of Jarman Award–winning artist Maryam Tafakory are gripping meditations on desire, erasure, and resistance. Layering imagery from post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, archival documents, autobiographical fragments, and found sound, Tafakory excavates speculative histories of female intimacy and solidarity censored by the state and excised from official records. Her tactile assemblages—swaths of saturated color, half-hidden figures, and text—reflect on the limits of representation while unsettling the West’s reductive understandings of Iranian life and history. She presents three recent works—Daria’s Night Flowers (2025), Razeh-del (2024), and Mast-del (2023)—charged portraits of pleasure and defiance in the face of coercion and oppression, alongside a special live performance that expands on questions of omission, absence, and memory. Followed by a conversation with Maryam Tafakory and audience Q&A. Presented with support from the…
Organization: CATE, Film, Video, New Media, and Animation, GSFC. Building Address: 164 N State St.
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
Gene Siskel Film Center Theater 1.
Linda Sormin Lecture
Linda Sormin, Uncertain Ground, 2025, ceramic and mixed media installation, dimensions variable, Gardiner Museum, Toronto. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid,
Join us for a lecture by artist Linda Sormin followed by an audience Q&A.
Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Explore the Visiting Artists Program homepage for visitor information, recordings of past events, and more.
Linda Sormin’s ceramic and mixed media sculptures and site-responsive installations embody vulnerable and fragmented parts of human experience. Since the early 2000’s, Sormin has established a distinct visual and material language, using raw clay, fired ceramics, found objects, and interactive methods. She integrates writing, video, sound, and hand-cut paintings with clay, metal, and wood. Sormin’s research and writing cast light on how her work has always been influenced—though at times unwittingly—by cultural practices in her family histories rooted in Thailand, China, and Indonesia.
…
Organization: Visiting Artists Program. Building Address: 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago.
Art History Graduate Symposium
Graduating students from the MA in Art History program will present their work.
Organization: Art History, Theory, & Criticism. Building Address: 112 S. Michigan Ave. ACCOUNT-FUND-ORG # for billing: 0.
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
MacLean Center Ballroom.
Haegue Yang Lecture
Haegue Yang, Approaching: Choreography Engineered in Never-Past Tense, 2012, dOCUMENTA (13). Photo: Nils Klinger,
Join us for a lecture by artist Haegue Yang followed by an audience Q&A.
Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Explore the Visiting Artists Program homepage for visitor information, recordings of past events, and more.
Since the mid-1990s, Haegue Yang (b. 1971 in Seoul, South Korea) has lived and worked in Seoul and Berlin and currently teaches at her alma mater, the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Spanning a vast range of media—from collage to kinetic sculpture and room-scaled installations—Yang’s work links disparate histories and traditions in a visual idiom all her own. The artist draws on a variety of craft techniques and materials and the cultural connotations they carry: from drying racks to Venetian blinds, hanji paper to artificial straw. She is known for her multisensory environments that activate perception beyond the…
Organization: Visiting Artists Program. Building Address: 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Tuesday, May 5, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago.
Graduate Exhibition Two 2026
The culminating presentation of new and ambitious work by MFA, MDes, MArch, MArch-IA, and MSHP candidates in SAIC’s class of 2026. Graduate Exhibition Two is the second of two graduate exhibitions this spring.
For more information and artist profiles, you can visit SAIC Shows 2026,
Hours, Mondays–Saturdays 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
The exhibition will be open on Sunday, May 18th, during regular hours to coincide with Commencement.
The galleries are open to the public. All visitors must present a valid government ID for entrance.
Organization: Exhibitions. Building Address: 33 E. Washington St.
Friday, May 8, 2026, 11:00 AM – Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 6:00 PM.
SAIC Galleries Street Level, SAIC Galleries Lower Level 1, SAIC Galleries Lower Level 2.
MFA in Writing Graduate Reading
Graduating students from the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program read selections from their work. Join us for a surprising evening including, but not limited to, fiction, nonfiction, and text off the page. Discover what writing becomes when students adapt the practices of their studio-artist peers.
Organization: Writing. Building Address: 112 S. Michigan Ave. ACCOUNT-FUND-ORG # for billing: 528.
Friday, May 15, 2026, 4:30 PM – 7:30 PM.
MacLean Center Ballroom.
Art History Senior Thesis Symposium
Senior BA/BFA Art History students will present their research.
Organization: Art History, Theory, & Criticism. Building Address: 112 S. Michigan Ave. ACCOUNT-FUND-ORG # for billing: 522.
Saturday, May 16, 2026, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM.
MacLean Center Ballroom.
BFA in Writing Thesis Reading
Students graduating from SAIC’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Writing program read, perform, and otherwise represent their work in traditional as well as hybrid and experimental forms, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, scripts, electronic media, and performance.
Organization: Writing. Building Address: 37 S. Wabash Ave.
Saturday, May 16, 2026, 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
Sharp LeRoy Neiman Center LNC1: Event Space 102.
MAAE Thesis Symposium
Thesis presentations, discussions and related activities lead by the 2nd year MAAE graduates.
Organization: Art Education. Building Address: 37 S. Wabash Ave.
Sunday, May 17, 2026, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM.
Sharp 326.