Articles & Videos | The Art Institute of Chicago
Skip to Content

Articles & Videos

MOST POPULAR

  1. 1
    article Sisters and Brothers of America: Swami Vivekananda in Chicago
  2. 2
    highlight What to See in an Hour
  3. 3
    highlight Queer Artists and Art
  4. 4
    video Reframing “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884” | Artwork Spotlight
  5. 5
    video Alma Thomas’s Starry Night and the Astronauts | Art Institute Essentials Tour

Exhibition Focus

Explore the stories behind some of our current exhibitions.

Collection From the Curator Contemporary Art Chicago
  • A rectangular quilt composed of various fabrics in dark or muted colors in a 4-by-5 section grid. Each section has a horizontally striped fabric as a background. Overlaid is a thick X shape in solid black, and overlaid on top of that is a square of a different striped fabric. Two stripes of black separate the outside columns from the two inner columns.
    Exuberant Experimentation: Christina Ramberg’s Late Works
    by ⁠Thea Liberty Nichols

    Discover how quiltmaking opened up new worlds of creativity for the beloved Chicago artist in the mid-1980s.
  • A ceramic sculpture made to look like crushed cardboard packaging. The package features a beer can on a red background with black and white accents and lettering, some words in English and others in Japanese. The left side of the sculpted box looks particularly crushed and frayed, and the words "Super 'Dry'" are visible in large lettering on its side.
    Ceramic Innovation: Japan’s Women Take the Lead
    by Janice Katz
  • 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.
    The Alchemy of Weaving
    by Melinda Watt
  • Tanaka Yu Fukuromono Press 300ppi 3000px Srgb Jpeg
    Member Lecture: Radical Clay—Unexpected Ceramics from Japan
  • Copy Of 2023 Aic Carousel 4
    A Third Time Around for Two Carousel Horses
    by Maura Flood and Robin Schnur
    • Explore Our Stories

    Got a favorite genre of art or topic? Or looking to hear directly from artists and curators? Browse our categories to find articles and videos that speak to your interest.
    Conservation Exhibitions From the Curator Staff Picks Contemporary Art Impressionism Japanese Prints Ancient Art Chicago New Acquisition From the Artist
    Find more articles

    Videos

    Browse our YouTube channel
  • Hartwellmemorialwindow Thumbnail Video
    The Hartwell Memorial Window | Artwork Spotlight
    5:44 July 1, 2021
  • Video
    Bisa Butler’s The Safety Patrol | Art Institute Essentials Tour
    3:33 May 5, 2021
  • A sculpture against a gray background shows a female figure with conical breasts and elongated arms holding a drum on her head and sitting on a stool. The drum is almost twice the woman's height and has figures of animals and geometric shapes carved around its middle. A stretched piece of hide forms the top of the drum. Video
    Female Caryatid Drum (Pinge) | Art Institute Essentials Tour
    4:23 April 1, 2024
  • A woman in a black Victorian dress and hat gazes at her sidelong reflection in a mirror. Video
    Lecture: #5WomenArtists—New Narratives in the Americas Collection
    53:41 March 7, 2024
  • Thumbnail Canova Onlineversion Web Video
    From Sketch to Stone | Canova: Sketching in Clay
    12:30 January 9, 2024
  • Varo Thumbnail Website Wtitle Video
    Remedios Varo: Science Fictions | Exhibition Stories
    5:20 October 6, 2023

    • Conservation Spotlight

    Go behind the scenes with conservators and conservation scientists to uncover secrets about artists' materials, practices, and even works thought to be lost.

    Conservation Collection Exhibitions Modern Art Arts of America Textiles Ancient Art
  • J11588 017 Media
    The Image Reappears: Discovering the Origins of a Puzzling Dalí
    by Caitlin Haskell and Jennifer R. Cohen

    Learn how detective work by curators and conservators uncovered the lost history of a Dalí painting in our collection.
  • Statueofyoungdionysosdetail
    An Ancient Survivor
  • Blog Csos Lions 1
    Conversation: Cleaner and Greener—Conserving the Lions of Michigan Avenue
  • A woodblock print in blank ink on cream-colored paper of a unique geometric shape repeating with slight variation, touching but never overlapping its adjacent occurrences to form an amalgamation. Each shape within the larger composition displays a prominent wood-grain pattern.
    Lygia Pape: The Making of a Print
    by ⁠María Cristina Rivera Ramos
  • Fig 1 Overall
    Red-Handed: Exposing Renaissance Velvet Workshop Practices
    by Anna Dumont, Isaac Facio, Ken Sutherland, and Giovanni Verri

    • Highlights

    Take a tour through the galleries or from your computer at home.

    More to Explore

    Check out some popular stories—from the recent and not so recent past.

    Conservation Museum History Contemporary Art Arts of America Arts of Africa Ancient Art Chicago New Acquisition
  • A lively and vibrantly colored painting dense with figures that take up the entire canvas. These include a wizard-like man with a long white beard in a black top hat, spectacles, and a bright-blue robe adorned with celestial imagery. Robed revelers pass behind him on white horses, and he is flanked by two figures: to the left, a medium-skinned woman in a yellow dress holds a cone-shaped telescope aloft and peers into it with one eye, while at left, a light-skinned child wearing a cone-shaped party hat holds a horn-shaped noisemaker to their mouth.
    Year in Review: 2023 Additions to the Collection
  • A black-and-white photograph shows a large, dark, carved sphinx in profile with a visible ribcage sitting on a rectangular base, the enormous white bust of a pharaoh looming behind it at right.
    (Re)viewing Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute
    by Ashley Arico
  • A self-portrait by Andy Warhol. Warhol appears from the shoulders up, his figure centered on a dark gray background. He wears a black shirt, that contrasts with the pale pink of his skin. Warhol looks directly at the view, his chin up and green eyes aimed directly forward.
    13 Things You Might Not Know about Andy Warhol
    by ⁠Communications staff
  • Sculpted head of a medium-skinned man in a beige headdress with geometric pattern and distinctive stirrup-shaped top piece.
    Ancient Portraits in Clay
    by Andrew James Hamilton
  • A black-and-white image shows two silhouettes, a lighter one inside of a darker one. Other figures—faces, spirals—appear inside the lighter silhouette.
    The Art of Friendship
  • Archibald Motley Nightlife Original
    Chicago Stories: A Celebration of Our City
  • Early photo of two guard dogs and handler outside in the yard
    A Museum’s Best Friend: Guard Dogs at the Art Institute
    by Robby Sexton
  • An ancient Greek vase is shown. The vase is painted with a depiction of human figures.
    From Ancient Greece to Chicago

    • Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.
    Learn more

    Image actions

    Suggested Terms