Join the working members of ARC for a special exhibition showcasing their own artwork.
Opening Reception: Friday, April 3, 5–8 PM
The Given Distance
Curated by William Lieberman
The Given Distance is an exploration of the default condition or inherent barrier that artists face in fully communicating their internal experience to others. This exhibition points to the role of the artist, whose work attempts to bridge that distance.
This members’ exhibition brings together work by all artists of ARC Gallery, highlighting the range of voices, perspectives, and approaches that make up the gallery’s community. Working across diverse media and styles, ARC’s members present artworks that reflect their individual attempts to translate personal perception into visual form, collectively exploring the space between inner experience and shared understanding.
Vivian Lu & Rose Tianyu Qi: Don't Look At Me
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026, 5-8pm
Don't Look At Me is an interactive installation in which a life-cast wax sculpture is progressively destroyed by the attention of its viewers. Cameras track visitor gaze in real time; when a viewer looks at the body, a robotic arm directs heat to the observed area, causing the wax to soften, deform, and disappear. The sculpture does not reset. Over the course of the exhibition, it becomes a record of collective attention — a topography of looking rendered in material loss.
The work draws a line from the oldest structures of social control to the automated surveillance systems of the present. The interaction requires nothing of the viewer but what they already do: look at a body. No conscious decision to participate, yet the system is already running. The viewer becomes both agent and subject of the same apparatus — observing, being observed, and observing themselves within a loop that mirrors the power dynamics we all inhabit. The wax cannot be restored. Neither can we.
Exhibition dates: May 1-29, 2026
Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm
This program is supported by a grant from the Athena Fund.
Misa Yo: The Shape of Many
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026, 5-8pm
The Shape of Many explores how repetition transforms into form, questioning when accumulation is perceived as unity and when labor becomes invisible. Working across bronze, wood, glass, and ceramics, the exhibition brings together small, repeated gestures that build into larger sculptural installations
Individual units merge into cohesive structures, where traces of making remain embedded but not immediately apparent. Bronze surfaces record touch through natural patination, while wood and clay extend into continuous, line-like forms that shift between drawing and structure in space.
By allowing labor to recede beneath the surface, the work invites a slower encounter, where perception evolves over time. The exhibition also reflects on material histories and the presence of women within physically and traditionally male dominated practices. Through subtle, tactile experiences, The Shape of Many encourages viewers to reconsider how value, effort, and form are recognized and understood.
Exhibition dates: May 1-29, 2026
Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm
This program is supported by a grant from the Athena Fund.
Miya Hannan: Resonance
Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026, 5-8pm
This exhibition presents a series of soot drawings and sculptures that explore the presence of human life embedded within the landscape. Using soot—a fluid, fragile residue of combustion—the work evokes traces of bodies and histories that have disappeared yet continue to linger. Sanded chairs, with portions of their structure removed and reduced to skeletal forms, represent the erosion and absence of physical presence. The instability of these materials reflects the transformation of human existence, as physical forms shift into memories and stories carried by others. Together, the works create an environment that invites slow looking and quiet reflection.
Although the work is inspired by particular historical and personal events, the exhibition avoids direct narrative and instead emphasizes resonance and ambiguity. It brings together opposing conditions—presence and absence, visibility and invisibility, silence and sound—to reflect the ways the body and memory operate. Through material transformation and spatial composition, the work considers how human histories persist within the natural world and continue to shape it.
Exhibition dates: May 1-29, 2026
Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm
This program is supported by a grant from the Athena Fund.
A.R.C. Gallery proudly awards fully funded Solo Exhibitions to multiple artists each year. These exhibitions made possible by a generous grant from the Athena Foundation in support of making solo show opportunities accessible to a broader audience. Visual artists of all disciplines, ages and geographic locations are encouraged to apply. The artists are selected by the A.R.C. cooperative based on the quality of their work and commitment to their practice.
Members
ARC GALLERY & EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, SINCE 1973.
ARC Gallery is an internationally recognized exhibition space that has been an integral part of the Chicago art scene since its inception in 1973. Founded during the women’s movement as an alternative to the mainstream gallery system, ARC is one of the longest running art spaces of its kind in the country. As a non-profit, woman artist-run cooperative, ARC continues its feminist tradition by providing exhibition opportunities for professional and emerging artists working in all media based on excellence of artwork, without discrimination toward ethnicity, race, gender, age, class, religious, sexual or political orientation.
Gallery Hours:
Thursday & Friday: 2 – 6 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 12 – 4 pm