The Art Center Highland Park is home to museum-quality galleries, and throughout the year, TAC exhibits new contemporary artworks by local, regional and national artists. The Art Center exhibits artists ranging from emerging to established artists, featuring both 2D and 3D works in a variety of media. The Art Center’s galleries are the premier location on the North Shore for free, cultural, visual arts experience.
Exhibition Procedures:
- The Art Center Highland Park offers open calls for entry throughout the year. Artists may link on our website and on entrythingy.com.
- There are limited invitational opportunities to be a guest juror for the open calls.
Absurdity, In Dada We Trust
June 23-August 5, 2023
Opening Reception: June 23, 5:30-8:00pm
Collaboration between The Art Center Highland Park, Chicago Women’s Caucus for Art, and Stola Contemporary Art
When the world goes mad, the arts go Dada.
Racism and extremist nationalism are empowered and bullies are applauded. Women’s rights are being set back by 50 years, and the LGBTQ community is dangling by a thread as individual rights are regulated but assault weapons are not. Social media has highjacked news and the term ‘alternate set of facts’ has become the norm, no longer just the brunt of jokes. The world is witnessing a new level of insanity.
For artists, it’s a clear call to look to the past for guidance and take a stand. How? In a word: Dadaism. Created as a reaction to the absurdity of war and the propaganda of WWI, Dadaism was the reaction of a group of artists from another time in history when the world was on the brink of madness. That is why The Art Center Highland Park, Stola Gallery, and Chicago Women’s Caucus for Art are building a coalition to fight back against the current trend toward insanity. How this collaboration is happening is by combining our efforts to invite as many other art institutions, theatre companies, filmmakers, dance companies, writers, musicians, and creatives to participate in our communal movement/exhibit -Absurdity: In Dada We Trust.
TAC is searching for artists whose work addresses the theme of Absurdity: a world on the brink of madness. Entries can be in any medium and groups, companies, and individuals are all welcome to submit. Entire organizations can join our project and help us expand the concept as far as we can all imagine. To inquire about separate exhibitions, institutions, or gallery participation please contact Caren Helene Rudman, crudman@theartcenterhp.org
Featured artist and guest juror for TAC exhibition, Sally Edelstein, is a New York artist and blogger who uses propaganda and media of the past to draw comparisons to today’s issues. Her blog, Envisioning the American Dream, probes the ways that advertising and media alter our perceptions of race, class, and gender.
Curators and jurors will be looking for artworks that reflect how ABSURDITY is a sign of the times. A wide interpretation of the theme will be considered.
The entry fee is $35 for up to 3 pieces of work. All entries must be received by May 29th, 2023.
Submit Here
Borders & Boundaries Redefined (Cindi Elkins Gallery)
August 11-September 23
Opening Reception: Sept 8, 5:30-8:00pm
August 15- end of partition closing event
Call for entry with a broad interpretation about how we define space, whether the literal borders in art, or the arbitrary lines delineating physical spaces such as states and countries, or the symbolic boundaries that separate self from others. We are searching for art that explores how we define borders, stretching the confines and constrictions that often come with “staying in the lines”.
The entry fee is $35 for up to 3 pieces of work. All entries must be received by July 14, 2023.
Submit Here
Guest juror, Pritika Chowdhry- Partition Anti-Memorial Project
Pritika’s expansive exploration of the effects of the partition in India will accompany Borders and Boundaries. Pritika Chowdhry is an artist, curator, and writer whose artworks are in public and private collections. Pritika’s solo retrospective was exhibited in the South Asia Institute of Chicago in 2022. Pritika has exhibited her works nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions including the Weismann Museum in Minneapolis, Queens Museum in New York, the Hunterdon Museum in New Jersey, the Islip Art Museum in Long Island, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, the DoVA Temporary in the University of Chicago, the Brodsky Center in Rutgers University, and the Cambridge Art Gallery in Massachusetts. Pritika is the recipient of a Vilas International Travel Fellowship, an Edith and Sinaiko Frank Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts, a Wisconsin Arts Board grant, and a Minnesota State Arts Board grant.
Born and brought up in India, Pritika is currently based in Chicago, IL, USA. Pritika has an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual Culture and Gender Studies from UW-Madison. Pritika has taught at Macalester College and College of Visual Arts, both in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 2007, on the 60th anniversary of India’s Partition, Pritika Chowdhry created her first work in response to the Partition, titled Queering Mother India. As Chowdhry researched feminist historiographies and recounts from her own family she soon found that the glorified storytelling surrounding the Partition of India failed to include experiences of women, marginalized groups, and global ties. As her research progressed, a complex web of interconnected geopolitical events emerged. Continuing to build on the series by excavating counter-memories each large-scale installation or anti-memorial functions as an entry point to healing processes and bearing witness.