Skip to Content
A flag in the style and pattern of the British Union Jack, with a cross and an X, features a black, green, and red color scheme. A flag in the style and pattern of the British Union Jack, with a cross and an X, features a black, green, and red color scheme.

Highlights

Panafrica across Chicago

Share

A constellation of exhibitions and events at the Art Institute and across the city that explore ideas around freedom, solidarity, and place from artists throughout Africa and the African diaspora.

EXHIBITIONS AT THE ART INSTITUTE

Panafrica Days

March 5–8, 2025

Screenshot 2025 02 06 At 120 33pm

Join us for the season’s culmination—a four-day series of events and activities happening across the city and jointly organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Black Arts Consortium at Northwestern University, Chicago Humanities, and the Neubauer Collegium at University of Chicago.

Highlights include:

  • Public art by Moataz Nasr
  • Voguing with Yná Kabe Rodriguez
  • Conversation with Jo Ractliffe and Yonamine
  • Experimental jazz with Chicago’s AACM and Ntone Edjabe
  • Artist talk with Wangechi Mutu
  • Discussion with the Otolith Group
  • Symposium with Ebony Patterson, Hélio Menezes, Huey Copeland, Kodwo Eshun, Krista Thompson, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Marilyn Nance, and Moses Serubiri—and a keynote by Koyo Kouoh and Louis Chude-Sokei
Learn more and register

Exhibitions around Chicago

Events around Chicago

Presented by the Art Institute of Chicago in partnership with the Neubauer Collegium, Chicago Humanities, and Arts + Public Life.

Images: Mónica de Miranda. Still from Path to the Stars, 2022. Courtesy of Studio of Mónica de Miranda; Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar), founded 2002. Mascon: A Massive Concentration of Black Interscalar Energy (detail), 2024. Composited and edited by Jasmina Metwaly. Courtesy of the artists and greengrassi, London; Ayrson Heraclito. Cabeça de Nanã, from the series “Bori” (Feed the Head) (detail), 2009, printed 2023. Purchased with funds provided by Suzette Bross Bulley; Beatriz Santiago Muñoz. Still from The Crow, the Trench, and the Mare (El cuervo, la fosa y la yegua), 2021. Committee on Photography and Media Purchase Fund; Kerry James Marshall. Africa Restored (Cheryl as Cleopatra) (detail), 2003. The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Susan and Lewis Manilow; Ingrid Pollard. Photo by Emile Holba; Wangechi Mutu. Tree Woman (detail), 2016. National Museum of African Art (NMAfA), Museum purchase, Women’s Initiative Fund.A promotional image for Equiano.stories; vanessa german. Master Blaster. Or, boombox from the 5th dimension (detail), 2024. © 2024 vanessa german. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York; Dawit L. Petros. Istruzioni (Transits, Trajectories, Invisible Networks), Part III, 2021–23. Courtesy of the artist; John Akomfrah. Four Nocturnes, 2019, installed in The Unintended Beauty of Disaster, Lisson Gallery, London, 2021; Isaac Sutton. Portrait of Eartha Kitt (detail). Johnson Publishing Company Archive and Theaster Gates Studio, courtesy Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution; Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar of the Otolith Group at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, October 29, 2014. Via Guggenheim.org; Richard W. Saar. Betye Saar in her Laurel Canyon studio, 1975. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles; A still from Sarah Maldoror’s short film Monangambééé, 1968. © René Vautier, Courtesy of Annouchka de Andrade.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share