CHICAGO, IL.- This winter, the Driehaus Museum presents its most expansive contemporary exhibition to date, A Tale of Today: Materialities, that invites viewers to discover the history and architectural richness of the Museum through the eyes of fourteen artists rooted in the Midwest. An idea of guest curator Dr. Giovanni Aloi and organized by the Driehaus Museum, this dynamic, three-floor exhibition includes works from artists Rebecca Beachy, Jonas Becker, Olivia Block, Barbara Cooper, Richard Hunt, Industry of the Ordinary, Beth Lipman, Luftwerk, Dakota Mace, Bobbie Meier, Laleh Motlagh, Ebony G. Patterson, Jefferson Pinder, and Edra Soto, working across a variety of disciplines. A Tale of Today: Materialities will be on view at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie Street, from February 7 to April 27, 2025.

The works in the exhibition each respond to a material in the Nickerson Mansion, home to the Museum, producing a site-specific dialogue that connects the fabric of the building to distant shores, traditions, and ideologies. Featuring intimate displays and large-scale interventions, A Tale of Today: Materialities reflects upon the significant role of material histories in the creation of the current social, cultural, and ecological environments.

The artists featured in this exhibition have created, adapted, and restaged artworks in response to objects and materials in the Nickerson Mansion, bringing to light compelling and often forgotten histories in which the material itself is just as important as the message it conveys through its design. Whether exploring ecological concerns, identity, or technological transformations, A Tale of Today: Materialities underscores that materials are inextricably tied to the stories we tell about the world we live in.

Among others, several artists engage with the materials that fueled the rapid urbanization of the Gilded Age. Jonas Becker’s installation of coal sculptures alludes to coal’s critical role in the industrialization of Chicago’s stockyards, while Industry of the Ordinary casts clay from the Chicago Riverbed to create an installation that reflects the reconstruction of the Nickerson Mansion as a fireproof fortress after the Great Chicago Fire.

Similarly, through a sculptural intervention of light bulbs arranged into a constellation, Luftwerk explores the technological shift from gas to electric illumination, which transformed the Nickerson into an early modern marvel of electrical innovation.

The works connect the past and present of the Nickerson Mansion in original and compelling ways, such as Olivia Block’s haunting video projections of animals, which reference the absent taxidermy trophies that once populated the first and second floors of the building during the early 20th century. Beth Lipman responds to glass – a prominent material across the Nickerson Mansion – with a sculpture representing Sphenophyllum, a genus of plants that went extinct 251 million years ago, as a way of reflecting on the fragility of life. Works such as Block and Lipman’s represent shifts in attitude about the natural environment from the mansion’s early inhabitants to the present.

Visitors will also discover Richard Hunt’s Divided Growth, a steel sculpture which takes the shape of the firebird or phoenix. Inspired by Stephanie Dabney, the first African American ballet dancer to perform the title role of Firebird with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the phoenix becomes a symbol of rebirth of both African American cultures and Chicago after the 1871 fire.

Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lisa M. Key states, “It has been wonderful to work with Dr. Aloi, whose own unique perspective on the connection between art and nature supports the concepts of this exhibition. This exhibition explores how materials themselves can be storytelling devices, bridging our modern times with those that came before.”

Guest Curator Giovanni Aloi adds, “For this exhibition at the Driehaus Museum, it was clear to me that I had no other choice but to directly engage with the building’s incredibly rich material essence. I became fascinated with the idea of following materials, tracing the often invisible connections that tie this one-of-a-kind architectural gem to a multitude of historical, ecological, and cultural universes. It was wonderful to steward the creative approaches of this group of artists through this process.”

Conceived in 2019, the A Tale of Today series fulfills the Museum’s mission to help audiences understand the relevance of the past—particularly the history of the Gilded Age—through different lenses, and to see the present with new eyes. Past iterations include solo exhibitions of notable contemporary artists Yinka Shonibare CBE (2019), Mika Horibuchi and Nate Young (2020), Theodora Allen (2022), and Sif Itona Westerberg (2024), whose works engaged with the Museum’s historic environment to allow visitors to appreciate the enduring appeal of its remarkable interior art and design.

A Tale of Today: Materialities is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city's artistic heritage and creative communities. A Tale of Today: Materialities is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.