For the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), art is part of the foundation. When it opens June 19th on Chicago’s South Side, the 19.3-acre campus will be anchored by a series of major new commissions. The Obama Foundation has announced its final group of artists, including Native American artist Jeffrey Gibson, Nigerian American artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby, American photographer Lorna Simpson, and Chicago-born artist Rashid Johnson.
The new commissions will spread across the new campus. The center announced that all the artworks will be woven into spaces where visitors will gather and move around. This design is intended to reflect the Obama family’s focus on community and public life, positioning art as part of the center’s identity.
“Art at different scales will activate key spaces throughout the campus, inviting the public to discover, experience joy, and reflect on the relationship between creativity and innovation in a healthy democracy,” Virginia Shore, curator of the Obama Presidential Center art commissions, and Louise Bernard, director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum, told Artsy in a joint statement.
Crosby will present a portrait of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama that uses archival images and personal photographs. The texturally layered composition will also include cultural references to the city, where the Obamas still live part-time. Meanwhile, María Magdalena Campos-Pons will design a replica of the White House Rose Garden in Still Holding the Scent of Flowers, which will be situated near the Oval Office replica. The installation will combine floral and edible plant forms, nodding to Michelle’s advocacy around food and health.
Gibson’s Yet With a Steady Beat (2026) will feature 17 circular prints that evoke Native American hand drums and political buttons. These prints—each measuring 18 inches in diameter—will grapple with sociopolitical imagery as well as iconic symbols of popular culture. Elsewhere, Johnson’s Broken Men is a large-scale mosaic of obscured figures that reflects on the complexities of lived experience. This commission will be housed in the center’s Teaching Kitchen.
Simpson created Durative (2026) for the OPC, one of the latest works from her “Ice” series. It depicts another one of her painted glacial icescapes and will appear in the seminar room. To create this work, Simpson layered silkscreen images of smoke and glaciers, while also dripping acrylic paint onto fiberglass. In the private dining room, Hugo McCloud’s Hidden Reflection (2026) is inspired by locations that are important to the former president’s life. The painting blends references to geospatial mapping with abstraction, tracing how memory and place shape personal history.
Martin Puryear contributed a monumental sculpture in the center’s central plaza, which is inspired by the idea of “bending the arc” towards justice, a frequent refrain of Martin Luther King Jr. The sweeping, curved form turns this idea into a physical gesture. Norman Teague, meanwhile, created a series of eight wooden benches made from solid walnut.
“The artistic program evolved and expanded over time and aligns with the legacy of President and Mrs. Obama and their enduring belief in the power of arts and culture as a reflection of our nation’s soul, in the President’s own words,” Shore and Bernard said. “During their time in the White House, they reimagined it as the ‘People’s House,’ opening its doors to a broader range of voices, perspectives, and creative expression. In that spirit, our program seeks to embody this ethos through a diverse selection of artists.”
One of the most striking commissions will be Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu’s 83-foot-tall facade, which was announced in September 2024. The stained-glass window, titled Uprising of the Sun (2026), is “an invitation to every visitor that they are welcome to be a part of the Center’s mission,” Mehretu said at the time.
Many of the artists working on these commissions have ties to Chicago, particularly the city’s South Side, where the museum will be located. These include previously announced commissions by Richard Hunt, Theaster Gates, and Tyanna J. Buie. “Selecting artists with meaningful ties to Chicago was an intentional curatorial choice, reflecting our commitment to embedding the city’s energy, its communities, and the Obamas’ enduring legacy within every facet of the Center’s art program,” Shore and Bernard said.
Previously announced commissions include works by Lindsay Adams, Mark Bradford, Nekisha Durrett, Spencer Finch, Jay Heikes, Jenny Holzer, Jules Julien, Idris Khan, Maya Lin, Aliza Nisenbaum, Jack Pierson, Alison Saar, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others.
