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Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Here, There: New Perspectives on the Collection

November 7, 2024 - February 22, 2025

Here, There: New Perspectives on the Collection is a guest-curated exhibition featuring modern and contemporary artworks from the Illinois State Museum. Three guest curators, Mariela Acuña, Sheridan Tucker Anderson, and Allison Lacher were invited to explore and bring a fresh perspective to the museum’s nearly 100-year-old collection of Illinois and regional artists. Their curatorial projects speak to themes of nostalgia, home, belonging, and sites of history in American art.

The Here, There exhibition came out of curiosity about whose experience we reflect in our collection. The guest curators explored the collection for underrepresented and historically marginalized artistic voices. The exhibition was made possible through the support of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s Re-envisioning Permanent Collections initiative.

The curators have been in conversation around what a museum collection can tell us about ourselves. Is the collection a place of memory and nostalgia only? How are stories remembered? Are the records complete? What insight and experience do we bring to compare with the stories told in the collection? Can museum objects speak neutrally? How do we challenge the idea of the single story?

The Terra Foundation for American Art, established in 1978 and having offices in Chicago and Paris, supports organizations and individuals locally and globally with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogues and encouraging transformative practices that expand narratives of American art, through the foundation’s grant program, collection, and initiatives. 

Read more about the exhibition on our blog.

Miyoko Ito (1918-1983), Sacramento, 1975, oil on canvas, museum purchase, 1980.31.2
Raeleen Kao, Stories, 2020, etching and aquatint, museum purchase, 2020.41.2
Kathleen Blackshear (1897-1988), Red Marine Life, 1949, conte on paper, Gift of Thomas and Stella Kapsalis, 2015.24.1
Rosalyn Schwartz (1952-), French Blue II, 1999, oil on canvas, museum purchase, 2001.60.1
Clarence William, The Congo, c. late 1950s, carved wood and concrete, museum purchase, 1960.44.1
Doug Ischar (1948-), Belmont Rocks Series #12, 1983, gelatin silver print, museum purchase, 1985.104.1

Artists featured: Alberto Aguilar, Frey Michael Austin, Rodney Baker, Kathleen Blackshear, Jonathan Michael Castillo, Eldzier Cortor, Katherine Dudley, Michele Feder-Nadoff, Theaster Gates, Azadeh Gholizadeh, Doug Ischar, Michiko Itatani, Miyoko Ito, Zehra Khan, Raeleen Kao, Basil Kincaid, Linda Lewis Kramer, N. Masani Landfair, Lester Lashley, Jin Lee, Robert Middaugh, Joseph Josué Mora, Clifton Pearson, David Philpot, Daniel Smajo-Ramirez, Jason Reblando, John Schacht, Rosalyn Schwartz, Charles Sebree, Rafael E. Vera, Clarence Williams, Derrick Woods-Morrow, Joseph Yoakum

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