Gallery 400 Street Side exhibit offers windows to art 

Walking outside Gallery 400 on the north end of the UIC campus, people can take in the eye-catching work of two Chicago artists whose collage presents fresh-faced girls, bold colors, geometric designs and the empowering message: “Art Powers Bold Futures.”  

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The installation in Gallery 400’s windows is from local artists Tonika Lewis Johnson and Joe “Cujo” Nelson, co-founders of Chicago’s Englewood Arts Collective. It’s the latest in the gallery’s rotating public art project, Street Side.  

Street Side allows artists to take over the large bays of the gallery’s north-facing windows along Van Buren Street to share art with the local community, said Denny Mwaura, UIC Gallery 400 assistant director and exhibit curator.  

“It is a venue for artists to make two-dimensional work and display it publicly to the West Loop neighborhood,” Mwaura said. “We give them all sorts of freedom with the space. Sometimes, the projects displayed are in tandem with the exhibition we have on view in the gallery.”  

The current window installation, “Art Powers,” will run until the end of April.  

In the Englewood Arts Collective, Nelson and Johnson have collaborated to bring art to their native Englewood neighborhood by transforming a vacant building into an artists’ studio and exhibition storefront and distributing grants to young Black and brown artists. They’ve also beautified public spaces with murals, hosted pop-up art events in abandoned lots and worked with neighbors to rehab their homes. Their social actions repair the disinvestments Black communities face, Mwaura said.  

“Art Powers” harkens back to when they were younger and were part of the city’s Gallery 37 art initiative, now known as After School Matters. The installation connects with the gallery’s on-view exhibition, “Learning Together: Art Education and Community.” It centers on a diverse group of Chicago K-12 artist educators from the mid-1960s through the 2010s, highlighting how their practices across neighborhoods have fostered imagination, autonomy, cultural heritage within Chicago Public Schools, alternative school networks and community organizations. The “Learning Together” exhibit has been extended until March.  

Joe “Cujo” Nelson. (Photo: Courtesy of Joe “Cujo” Nelson)
Chicago-based artist Tonika Johnson (right) and UIC professor of Sociology Maria Krysan pictured.
Tonika Johnson (right) and Maria Krysan.(Photo: Akilah Townsend)

“During their travels from Englewood to the Loop for this after-school program, they got to know each other,” Mwaura said. “Art Powers is an amalgamation of that experience. It demonstrates how art connects people, and the transformative power art education has within youth and communities. I wanted their project for Street Side, to be inspired by and expand on some of the themes explored in the ‘Learning Together’ exhibition.”  

In addition to being part of the Street Side exhibit, Johnson, along with UIC sociology professor Maria Krysan, will discuss and read from their book, “Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It” in the Gallery 400 Lecture Room, 400 South Peoria St. on Feb. 20.  

Mwaura will lead the discussion, which will explore their book as well as Johnson’s work on the “Art Powers” window exhibit.  

The book is a collection of stories and photos focusing on how “don’t go there” messages influence and perpetuate segregation in Chicago. Johnson and Krysan met through their shared passion for anti-segregation work, and the stories paint a rich picture of life in a segregated city, said Mwaura.  

“The book dives into why there is a common misunderstanding that South Side and Englewood are bad neighborhoods. It locates fear as being the denominator towards this attitude,’” Mwaura said. “Testimonies of transplants and white residents from Chicago’s neighborhoods discuss the circumstances in which they’ve been informed to avoid some of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods.”  

The book discussion is part of the gallery’s interdisciplinary efforts, Mwaura said.   

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