R

News

Aug 24, 2017

The Ren at Expo Chicago, NYABF, and CABF

A large print of a child looking through a light window

Danh Vō, Gustav’s Wing, 2012, installation view in Uterus at the Renaissance Society. Photo: Tom Van Eynde.

Peruse Renaissance Society publications and more at three off-site events this fall. We’ll have some of our most recent titles available for purchase, including Mathias Poledna: Substance, Irena Haiduk: Seductive Exacting Realism by Marcel Proust 12, and Ben Rivers: Ways of Worldmaking.

EXPO CHICAGO takes place at Navy Pier in Chicago September 13-17. At our booth we’ll have a selection of...

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Nov 30, 2016

New Student Membership

A crowd fills the room at an exhibition.

Guests at the opening of Peter Wächtler, Secrets of a Trumpet in Feb 2016

The Renaissance Society invites students from Chicago-area institutions to join our new membership program. Membership is free and open to undergraduate and graduate students in all areas of study.

Sign up now for:

  • Updates on Renaissance Society exhibitions and events
  • Monthly student newsletter featuring resources and archival content
  • Invitations to quarterly open house events just for...
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Nov 29, 2016

Support New Art on #GivingTuesday

Mixed-media sculptures cover gas masks perched on poles, bags with a megaphone resting at the base of each pole.

Kevin Beasley, Your face is/is not enough (detail), 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo: Tom Van Eynde.

Dear friend,

We’ve always felt that the Renaissance Society is at its best when it serves as an engine for artistic production. By that measure, 2016 has been an incredible year, with every exhibition featuring a new commission, from Peter Wächtler’s Secrets of a Trumpet to Sadie Benning’s current installation, Shared Eye.

Kevin Beasley, whose performance and installation, Your face is/is...

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Oct 07, 2016

Join the Ren's Student Committee

A group of students looks at works displayed on tables under glass.

Students at the Ren

The Renaissance Society is located on the fourth floor of Cobb Hall, where we present contemporary art exhibitions along with a regular program of events and publications. Founded in 1915 by a group of University of Chicago faculty members, we are an independent, non-collecting museum that combines a flexible, experimental ethos with focused, rigorous inquiry.

The Ren’s Student Committee is...

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Sep 14, 2016

Hamza Walker Appointed Executive Director of LAXART

Hamza Walker works at a desk covered in papers.

Hamza Walker in Renaissance Society offices in 1994, the year he joined the institution

Hamza Walker, the Renaissance Society’s longtime Director of Education and Associate Curator, has been appointed Executive Director of LAXART in Los Angeles. LAXART is a 10-year-old independent, non-profit art space presenting experimental exhibitions and public art initiatives. Walker will begin his new post there on October 1, 2016.

Hamza joined the Ren in 1994 where his curating, writing,...

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Aug 11, 2016

Rodney Graham at EXPO CHICAGO

A musical staff with seven quarter notes, with a line connecting each note to a ball rolling down a triangle

Rodney Graham, School of Velocity and Parsifal notebook sketch, 1995.

Rodney Graham’s 1995 Renaissance Society exhibition featured two time-based musical installations, School of Velocity (1993) and Parsifal (1990). The former combined the piano exercise of the same name with Galileo’s equation of the acceleration of falling objects to create a piano piece that grows progressively slower. Based on a few bars of music from Wagner’s composition of the same name,...

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May 20, 2016

The Ren Announces Largest Gifts in 100-Year History

A patchwork umbrella covers a dark, head-shaped sculpture, which itself covers a gas mask.

Kevin Beasley, Your face is/is not enough (detail), 2016. Commissioned by the Renaissance Society for Between the Ticks of the Watch, Apr 24–Jun 26, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo: Tom Van Eynde

We are delighted to announce that the Renaissance Society has received three leading gifts to its Next Century Fund, a campaign to underwrite the production of ambitious new artworks.

The Edlis Neeson Foundation, the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, and the Zell Family Foundation have each pledged $500,000 for a total of $1.5 million. These donations represent the largest gifts in the...

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Dec 01, 2015

Support the Ren on #GivingTuesday

#GivingTuesday logo

Today, December 1st, the Renaissance Society is participating in #GivingTuesday, joining thousands of individuals and organizations around the world in a global movement that celebrates and supports giving.

Over our 100-year history, the support of our community has been crucial to making the Renaissance Society the platform for ambitious contemporary art that it is today. This...

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Nov 13, 2015

The Ren at Medium Cool

Books and gifts wrapped in silver, beige and black paper

Photo, Jarrod Turner; art direction, Ria Roberts; styling, Bettina Yung

We’ll have a selection of Renaissance Society publications new and old available next weekend at Medium Cool, a temporary gift shop featuring “a cornucopia of thoughtfully designed objects and printed matter.”

Saturday, November 21, 12-6PM
Sunday, November 22, 11AM-5PM
Prairie Productions, 1314 W. Randolph St., Chicago, IL 60607

Other exhibitors include: Amigos Publishing, Candor Arts,...

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Sep 14, 2015

Nora Schultz at EXPO CHICAGO

Three-dimensional mixed-media collage on a white background

Nora Schultz, Parrot’s Mind Model Magazine (1), 2014

During Parrot’s Mind Model Magazine—Performance, which took place in February 2014 on the final day of Nora Schultz’s solo exhibition at the Renaissance Society, the artist produced a series of unique works that are available to purchase this week at EXPO CHICAGO.

Working with five assistants, Schultz repurposed materials from her installation by pulling individual elements into an...

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