111 S Michigan Ave
Chicago, Illinois IL 60603
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Join the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Visiting Artists Program for a new season of artists talks by today’s most influential makers and thinkers. Formalized in 1951 with an endowment by Flora Mayer Witkowsky, the Visiting Artists Program has featured more than 1,000 international artists, designers, and scholars representing more than 70 countries. All events are free and open to the public. Learn more.
Samuel R. Delany
September 10, 6–7:30pm CT
Join via Zoom
Filmmaker, novelist, and critic Samuel R. Delany is the author of countless award-winning books, such as Babel-17, Dark Reflections, Nova, and Dhalgren. Presented on the occasion of the exhibition In Your Face: Barbara DeGenevieve, Artist and Educator on view at SAIC Galleries through December 7.
Carmen Neely
September 17, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Carmen Neely is an abstract painter whose work is characterized by vibrant strokes against soft backdrops, evoking catharsis as she navigates the complexities of interpretation, offering a vulnerable exploration of selfhood. Each brushstroke embodies layers of identity, values, and memories spanning generations.
Fatimah Tuggar: Bill and Stephanie Sick Distinguished Visiting Professor
October 1, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Interdisciplinary artist Fatimah Tuggar uses dialogue and discovery among disciplines and cultures as a central artmaking approach. In her work, technology is a medium and subject that serves as a metaphor for power dynamics combining objects, images, and sounds from diverse geographies and histories to comment on how technology impacts local and global realities.
Dread Scott: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series
October 15, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Dread Scott (BFA 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encourages viewers to reexamine cohering ideals of American society. In 1989, the US Senate outlawed his artwork because of its transgressive use of the American flag. Scott became part of a landmark Supreme Court case when he and others burned flags on the steps of the Capitol.
Olalekan Jeyifous
October 22, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Olalekan Jeyifous is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work reimagines social spaces that examine the relationships between architecture, community, and the environment. He was co-commissioned to design a monument for congresswoman Shirley Chisholm as part of the City of New York’s “She Built NYC” initiative, and has garnered numerous awards, including the Silver Lion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Martin O’Brien
November 11, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Martin O’Brien works across performance, writing, and video art, using long durational actions, short speculative texts, critical rants, and performance processes in order to explore death and dying, what it means to be born with a life-shortening disease, and the philosophical implications of living longer than expected.
Lucy McRae
November 18, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.
Artist Lucy McRae leads a multidisciplinary art-research studio investigating the impact future technologies have on human evolution. McRae pioneers a new story for how future technologies will fundamentally alter intimacy, reproduction, biology, and health—shining light on the ethical implications of genetic engineering.
About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
For more than 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking among the top programs in the nation by US News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities.
