Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center has art at its core – The Art Newspaper

The Obama Presidential Center, an eight-storey museum focused on the legacy of former US president Barack Obama, will open on Juneteenth (19 June) this year on Chicago’s South Side. Ahead of the inauguration, the museum has partnered with Expo Chicago to preview its contemporary art commissions and broader curatorial vision with two special sections at the 2026 edition of the fair.

The $850m institution broke ground in 2021. It was designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in collaboration with the Chicago-based firm Interactive Design Architects. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and the local firms Site Design Group and Living Habitats oversaw the landscape design that integrates the building into the 19.3-acre campus of Jackson Park, which includes the Obama Foundation, a new branch of the Chicago Public Library and outdoor and indoor public spaces.

Louise Bernard, the director of the museum, explains that the building was designed vertically to minimise its footprint in the park, and thus “lends itself as a beacon on the landscape”. Like Obama’s trajectory from a community organiser to the US president, the building “speaks to the metaphor of ascension, of a movement from the grassroots to a sense of collective action”.

The ‘pilgrimage effect’

The forthcoming museum has commissioned more than 25 site-specific works, most of them by artists who have close ties to Chicago, including monumental sculptures and installations that merge with the architecture throughout the campus. Bernard and the curator, Virginia Shore, sought to “balance luminary figures with more emerging artists who will become established figures over time”, Bernard says, like the artists Tyanna J. Buie and Nekisha Durrett.

Shore adds: “We think about the power of the National Portrait Gallery portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald and the remarkable development of Sherald’s career since then. We have also seen how the arts have a ‘pilgrimage effect’, drawing people in to pay homage to this particular moment in history and to the power of this representation.”

The museum leaders also emphasise the inclusion of artists from a diverse range of backgrounds. Shore says that the commissioned artists are “changemakers” whose practices connect to the broader mission of the museum, which is to “inspire, connect and empower people to change their world”. The works have “overlapping themes like civic engagement and action, memory and heritage, community and connection, and resilience and hope”.

There is no singular way into to the complex, with entrances in the north and south. A monumental painted glass window titled Uprising of the Sun by Julie Mehretu is visible on the northern façade of the museum building and reflects on Obama’s speech at the 50th anniversary of the protest marches in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery. Inside the museum, Jack Pierson’s Hope, a sculpture made from found letters that echo Obama’s campaign message, is installed at the check-in area. In the main lobby, Kiki Smith’s Receive, a bronze sculpture of the moon and stars, celebrates our connection to the cosmos, while This Land, Shared Sky by Marie Watt and Nick Cave unites Indigenous and African American textile traditions with elements of movement and sound. An adjacent room holds Mark Bradford’s City of the Big Shoulders, a painting that spans three floors of the museum and honours Chicago.

The commissions “will be continually activated through programming to ensure that they are always in dialogue with other thinkers and practitioners, as well as with the artists themselves”, Bernard says. “We’re working predominantly with living artists—other than the late Richard Hunt—to think about art as means to draw in audiences that are both local and global.”

Bernard adds that the Obama administration deeply “understood the importance of the arts in a thriving democracy” and how the “arts are very much about how we revitalise spaces and how we help people to feel energised and engaged”.

Permanent displays to prompt self-reflection

When the museum opens in June, permanent exhibitions will include Toward a More Perfect Union on the first level, a show focused on the beginnings of democracy in the United States, the formative years of the Obamas, the sociopolitical period of the 1960s to 1990s, their early careers in Chicago as community organisers and the 2008 presidential campaign. Other exhibitions, such as We the People onlevel five, champion the ongoing work of the foundation and encourage visitors to also “see themselves as social actors and changemakers”, Bernard says.

The curatorial vision of the museum is rooted not just in the Obamas’ stories but in the “people, movements and milestones that came before them”, Bernard adds. Its art initiatives will evolve and grow over time with an artist residency and public programmes including talks, performances and artist-led initiatives. In the coming years, it will also open a 5,000-sq.-ft white cube space for temporary exhibitions.

“We imagine a programme that perhaps balances more historical and topical exhibits with exhibits that focus squarely on artists in the broadest sense,” Bernard says. “We understand that opening the centre is just the beginning and want to always ensure that the campus feels accessible and programmed in an engaging and compelling way that reaches wide audiences across age ranges. That is the work we will continue to develop going forward.”

‘The idea of changemaking’

At Expo Chicago, Bernard—who has a long relationship with the fair, having spoken at its directors summits in 2022 and 2024—has curated sections that introduce viewers to the museum as a “cultural institution that lifts up the idea of changemaking”, she says, and focuses on the commissioned art that audiences can look forward to seeing when the museum opens.

A section called Embodiment is informed by the architecture of the Obama Presidential Center, bringing together a mix of the commissioned artists as well as artists who are not commissioned but whose work is “within the spirit of the museum”, says the fair’s director, Kate Sierzputowski. In that section, Anton Kern and Regen Projects will show works by Aliza Nisenbaum; Sean Kelly will have works by Hugo McCloud, Idris Khan and Lindsay Adams; and Gray will be presenting works by Theaster Gates and Richard Hunt, in addition to works by Rashid Johnson, McArthur Binion and Torkwase Dyson.

Another section called Evolution will feature archival materials and ephemera from some of the commissions created for the centre, where viewers can see the studies, preliminary drawings and tools that helped to create the works that will activate the museum. “It’s an engaging way for people to understand the artworks, the programming and the concepts that will make up the centre,” Sierzputowski says.

She adds, “I hope visitors get excited about this new institution in Chicago [that] is going to add to a robust lineup of museums in the city. When I’m talking about Expo Chicago to people who don’t live in Chicago, they often reference the Art Institute of Chicago or the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. We’re thrilled to expand beyond just those two stalwart museums to include the Obama Presidential Center.”