Hyde Park Art Center is one of the few places in the region with the space, flexibility, audience, and reputation to support Chicago artists by catalyzing ambitious new projects. Our exhibitions help artists through the entire process of making bold work that enrich their careers and spur public discourse on important subjects.
Offering artists, particularly women and artists of color, the resources to dream big with minimal constraints, we invite site-responsive works and encourage experimentation. By doing so, we aim to launch careers, inspire other artists and facilitate conversations about sustainable practices and equity in the field.
Since 1939 we have been at the forefront of contemporary art in Chicago, fostering generations of makers.
“Before I knew that I was an artist, I’d just hang around Hyde Park Art Center. It was the place where culture was happening regularly on the South Side. Eventually, I asked or I may have been asked to think about an exhibition. And it was really that project that created a conceptual shift in me, from feeling like a kind of clay-maker to feeling like I had something to offer contemporary practices. For me, it was a really important first launching pad to my career.” – Theaster Gates, artist
“[The Art Center] does a really great job incubating artists at every stage of their career.”
Ground Floor brings together work by Chicago’s most promising emerging talent, offering a single destination to discover diverse artists whose work demands to be seen and supported. Ground Floor—so named because it provides a crucial platform for young artists and fills the entire lower level of the Art Center—is an ongoing biennial project.
Occurring every three years, Not Just Another Pretty Face allows the Art Center to play matchmaker for artists and potential art buyers, facilitating a fun, accessible commissioning process that builds relationships between artists and patrons, creates a new base of support for artists, and invests in the vitality of Chicago’s cultural community.