Aesthetics of Power

Aesthetics of Power

Curator: Mahwish Chishty

Opening Reception: Friday, October 3, 2025, 5-8pm

As tools of harm grow more remote, outsourced, and hidden, their impacts continue to rapidly shape our lives. While the mechanisms may be out of sight, their impact remains immediate, shaping the human experience, memories, and the cultural archive. This exhibition highlights work that responds to this contradiction: a world where power hides in plain sight, but leaves its unmistakable marks.

Aesthetics of Power, an exhibition juried by artist Mahwish Chishty. This show looks closely at how aesthetics can be used to express layered, quietly disruptive ideas. We are drawn to work that surprises, that reveals itself slowly, and that occupies the fragile space where beauty unsettles rather than soothes.

Artists in this exhibition reflect on how aesthetic interpretations carry the weight of history, how beauty might obscure or reveal power, and how what is finely wrought can also bear witness.

• Exhibition dates: October 3-24, 2025

• Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.