The forthcoming Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has announced the final round of artist commissions that will decorate its campus in the Windy City’s South Side when it opens in June.
The latest set of commissions will be realized by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jeffrey Gibson, Rashid Johnson, Hugo McCloud, Martin Puryear, Lorna Simpson, and Norman Teague.
Several of the works will be directly about Barack and Michelle Obama. Crosby will make a portrait of the former president and first lady, that will incorporate “archival imagery, family albums, historical ephemera, and cultural touchstones,” according to a release. It will be on display in the Main Hall. Gibson has created a suite of 17 prints that reference political buttons from the Obama campaigns.
Campos-Pons’s Still Holding the Scent of Flowers is a mixed-media installation that will be placed near the museum’s Oval Office exhibit, and it will re-create the now destroyed White House Rose Garden. McCloud’s Hidden Reflection will go in the private dining room and illustrate different locations that are important to the former president.
“From the very beginning, we imagined the Obama Presidential Center as a place where art would deepen our visitors’ curiosity and inspiration,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said in a statement. “These extraordinary artists bring forward different stories, perspectives, and styles that reflect the richness of our shared values. Their works will invite every visitor to see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves, and inspire them to bring change home.”
Puryear has created an outdoor sculpture to honor the late civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis via Bending the Arc, a 34-foot-long beam that Puryear hand-carved in wood and then was 3D-scanned and fabricated in stainless steel. Similarly, Teague has created eight wooden benches that will be spread out throughout the museum.
Artists like Johnson and Simpson will create new works as part of their ongoing series, with one of Johnson’s “Broken Men” mosaics earmarked for the center’s teaching kitchen and a Simpson icescape for the seminar room in the private presidential suite.
The eight commissioned artists join 22 previously announced ones, bringing the total number of new works produced for the center’s 19.3-acre campus to 30. This latest cohort will join works by Carrie Mae Weems, Julie Mehretu, Mark Bradford, Theaster Gates, and the late Richard Hunt.
In a statement, Obama Presidential Center Museum founding director Louise Bernard said, “Their contributions will anchor the Center in a vibrant artistic legacy that speaks to the values President and Mrs. Obama championed: openness, engagement, and a profound respect for the diverse stories that shape our nation. Each artist brings a distinct voice and practice that transforms our public spaces into places of reflection, joy, and connection.”
