Look Up from Your Cup

Restaurants, cafés, and bars have become legitimate springboards for emerging artists—and good places to buy their work at attractive prices.

Ease Your Sticker Shock

Many first-time buyers are taken aback by the prices, even for pieces from emerging artists who are not in great demand. But making art costs money. This expense breakdown for a recent work by Chicago sculptor Alex Chitty puts things in perspective.

How to Buy Art

Go Deep on a Genre

You can’t be an expert on everything. So rooting yourself chiefly in a single style is a smart way to begin collecting. To get you started, here are some artists doing bold work in major genres.

Nathaniel Mary Quinn Transforms His Fractured Past into Arresting Art

The painter’s new exhibit, Nothing’s Funny, renders comedy icons in his signature disjointed style.

How Do You Remake a Museum? We Asked Ali Gass

The new director of the Smart Museum wants to make it a more modern institution.

The Next Generation of Chicago Afrofuturism

Meet the women exploring the African diaspora through sci-fi, fantasy, and poetry.

Esmirna Garcia on Bridging the Gaps Between Pilsen’s Past, Present, and Future

The CEO of Pilsen Fest—which kicks off Friday—discusses the Pilsen Family Encounter project, gentrification, and more.

How Augustus Rose Was Inspired to Write One of the Year’s Best Chicago Books

We know we’re only halfway through the year, but that’s how much we love The Readymade Thief, a thriller combining cults and Marcel Duchamp.

Photo and Audio Project Shows “Inner Light” of Everyday Chicagoans

Forget the “acerbic” stories that pepper your Facebook feed, photographer Abigail Zoe Martin says. Her project teaches us about the people of Chicago in a different way.