Exhibitions in the Altgeld Galleries
(Since 2004 Renovation)

January 8, 2013 - February 23, 2013

Vice + Virtue

Vice; immorality and wickedness, and virtue; moral goodness and righteousness, are often considered mutually exclusive. This exhibition explored the dynamics of innocence and sin, while allowing for areas of overlap or intersection.

Southeast Asian Exhibition Suite: August 28, 2012 - November 17, 2012

Current Views and Actions: Photography and Performance Documentation from Phnom Penh

Featuring work from young cambodian artists Khvay Samnang and Lim Sokchanlina, two of the founding members of the artist collective, Stiev Selapak (Art Rebels) in Phnom Penh.

Karen: A People on the Border

Documentary photography of the Karen people on the Thai-Burma border. Photos by Robert Gerhardt.

Transnational Identity: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia

Performing art forms typical of Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, Laotian, and Thai cultures.

Music for the Divine

Musical instruments and traditions of Burma (Myanmar), from the court to expressiona of ethnic and cultural identites.

March 20, 2012 - May 25, 2012 

The Golden Age of Wordless Novels and Arist Illustrated Books: 1971-1951 (April 5, 2012 - May 25, 2012)

This exhibition was coordinated by the museum studies 656 class, and explored the revival of relief printing in books during the early part of the 20th century.

Graphic Novel Realism: Back Stage at The Comics

Featured the original works from contemporary graphic novels, including private reference materials and process work.

Francisco Goya: Satirical Caprices 

Selections from Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos, originally published as a bound folio in 1799.

January 10, 2012 - February 25, 2012

New To The Collection

This exhibition highlighted selections of recent aquisitions by the NIU Art Museum.

November 29, 2011 - February 25, 2012

NIU School of Art Faculty Exhibition 

Work by NIU School of Art Faculty from all areas of Studio & Design as well as documentation of scholarship from the divisions of art Education and Art History.

The New Art Examiner, "Chicago's Independent Voice of the Visual Arts," 1973-2002

Didactic exhibition exploring the history and significance of The New art Examiner.  Curated by Art Historian Barbara Jaffee.

 A Private Haiku: Ceramic Work of Helen Merritt.

 In the House: Sculpture for the Home

Group exhibition of contemporary tabletop and wall sculpture in various media and techniques explore a variety of concerns, issues, processes and techniques. Artists: Jerry Bleem, Juan Angel Chavez, Michael Ferris, Michael Gross, John Himmelfarb, Gary Justis, Michael Ransdell and Margaret Wharton.  Guest curated by sculptor/educator/collector Michael Bennett.

 
Small scale contemporary metalwork and jewelry. Invitational group show organized by guest curator Jamie Obermeier, Associate Professor, Metals Coordinator, and Board of Directors, SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths).

Summer Hall Case Exhibition continued visual art and sound

Dirt and Glitter, The Graphic Design of Vaugn Oliver

Curated by Assistant Director Peter B. Olson

March 29 - May 14 - 2011
Wassily Kandinsky: Klänge

Early abstraction pioneer and theorist, Wassily Kandinsky, a "synesthetete", explored sounds (Klänge) through both the word in poetry and the image in woodcut to create an intimate tome of the same name here presented with both sides of the pages individually framed allowing the viewer/listener/reader to experience the visual and auditory word together. 

A display of contemporary, international, non-traditional music scores inspired by John Cage's Notations (1968).  Curated by New York composer Theresa Sauer, author of an anthology of 165 composers' visual music scores.  Concert featuring works employing non traditional music notation with visiting artist/scholar Theresa Sauer, and friends, in collaboration with NIU Music faculty.

Sheet Music and Record Albums - Graphics of Their Time

The styles, concerns and issues of each era are explored through the combination of popular song and period graphics.

April 8 - May 14, 2011
Music to my Eyes: Musical Instruments as Visual Art

Explores musical instrument ornamentation and interprets its relation to the instrument's primary audotory function. Selected audio recordings of exhibited instruments will augment the exhibition's visual impact. Organized with students enrolled in "Exhibition Interpretation," a graduate-level Museum Studies course.

Early Spring 2011

Early Spring exhibitions explore the visible and invisible in landscape and portraiture.

January 25 - March 11, 2011

Best Face Forward: The Presented View:

Studio portrait photography, both historic and contemporary, of the famous, the unknown and the infamous. An exploration of the in/visible curcular relationship between photographer, subject and audience. Group show featuring work by Dawoud Bey, Nora Herting, Andy Warhol, and anonymous/unknown work from the 19th and early 20th century.

in/VISIBLE:

Contemporary artists explore the nature of place as both a physical presence and an evocative mood. Change, constant and inexorable, is the essential fact that so un-nerves us all; what is here now, was once elsewhere, and is on its way to yet another context. Artists include Margot Balboni, Amy Caterina, Ethan Jackson, Nina Rizzo, Hazel Walker, and Michelle Wasson. Curated by Karen Brown, Professor of Drawing, NIU School of Art

Transcendental Objects: The in/Visible Museum Staff Invitational:

Museum staff interpret the ArtLab theme of Visible/Invisible by curating the Hall Case Gallery. Cases by John Benson, Bradley Cahill, Erin Coleman-Cruz, Heather Hines Green, Brandon Kirkman, Tom Robertson & Siew Lian Lim

Fall 2010 Exhibitions

Late fall exhibitions look at metaphors related to garments and ritual in fashion and death.

October 21 – December 4, 2010

Check our our Fashion Faux Pas blog

South Galleries: INside Out

Contemporary conceptual group show metaphorically looking at fashion with all its implications: glamour, charm, distraction, absence, longing, memory, play, gender/class authority, technology/labor issues. Artists hail from Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, New York and Berlin, work in sculpture, photography, video and installation and include: Jane Brucker, Diane Simpson, Jean Marie Casberian, Pate Conaway, Mike Rea, & Manual Pardo. Guest-curated by Karen Brown, Director of Bad Dog Gallery, DeKalb.

North Galleries: Patty Carroll: Anonymous Women

If a woman is “defined by her wardrobe,” Chicago photographer Patty Carroll pushes the limits in her scathing series of draped figures depicted in Anonymous Women. Feminist wit and humor bites hard.

Hall Case Galleries: Day of the Dead Artist Invitational:

Alum and student artists invitational Artists included Chicago fiber artist Michelle Rameriz, DeKalb sculptor Juan Ortiz, DeKalb printmaker/performance artist Ramon Santo.

Early Fall 2010 Exhibitions

Rotunda Gallery: Autumn Leaves: A Century of Fall Fashion

The 20th century examined through its aesthetic, historical, and socio-cultural impact on daily fashion. Autumn Leaves celebrates the particularly rich and sumptuous fabrics and ornamentation of ladies’ fall fashion displayed decade by decade side by side with historic events of the autumn season. Curated by Barbara Cole Peters from her own extensive collection. Barbara Cole Peters will present Curator’s talks on September 9, at 5:15 and 6:00 in the gallery.

August 24 – October 2, 2010, North Gallery: Legacy in Lacquer: A Living Art from Burma

Selections from the NIU Burma Art Collection explored the technique, manufacture and processing, style and design of a medium and art form that has evolved in Burma for over a millennium. Curated by Catherine Raymond, Director, NIU Center for Burma Studies.

August 24 – October 2, 2010, South Galleries: StAGES of Transition

Group show examining the stages of life. Featuring work by Boston-based photographer Nicholas Nixon, DeKalb artists Jeffrey Adams, Karen Brown, Deb Grall, and New York sculptor Christina Bothwell among others . Curated by NIU Art Museum Director Jo Burke.

August 24 – October 2, 2010, Hall Case Galleries: Judith Brotman: Natural Selections

Chicago artist Judith Brotman’s Natural Selections glorifies nature through the leaves she has embellished and marvels at humanity for its endeavors to reach beyond the given.

Late spring 2010 exhibitions explored the impact of the artwork and arts projects of the new Deal Era

April 8 – May 28, 2010

This Great Nation Will Endure
Compelling and memorable images of the Great Depression from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documentary photography project coordinated by Roy Stryker. Traveling exhibition organized by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum includes photographs and films.

 Coming of Age: The WPA/FAP Graphic Section and the American Print
New Deal prints and graphics spread the word for American unity and survival and put artists to work through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Co-organized with students enrolled in “Exhibition Interpretation,” a graduate-level Museum Studies course taught by WPA scholar and printmaker Peter Van Ael.

New Deal Era Images and Objects
Changing exhibits related to the New Deal period including novels on loan from rare Books and Special collections of the University Libraries and glass and ceramic ware of the depression era on loan from local collectors.

January 19 - March 5, 2010 - Pop Culture Exhibition Suite

Midwestern BLAB! 2 
Exhibition focused on the work of midwestern artists Don Colley, Tom Huck, Teresa James, C.J. Pyle and Fred Stonehouse, featured in the acclaimed pages of BLAB! an anthology of sequential and comic art, illustration, painting, and printmaking. Curated by Monte Beauchamp.

Cannonball Press: Root HOG or Die

Mike Houston and Martin Mazorra run the explosive Cannonball Press in Brooklyn, New York and presented their take on the current economic situation.

Video of Cannonball Press at NIU Art Museum

Heroes, Villains and the American Zeitgeist

 Comic books from the Rare Book and Special Collections of the University Libraries. From Captain America to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen these comics demonstrate the telling of morality tales of their time. Curated by Lynne Thomas.

October 27 – December 5, 2009, All Galleries: NIU School of Art Faculty Exhibition

Gallery spaces were filled with recent work by NIU School of Art Faculty including Art History, Art Education and Design displays in the Hall Case Gallery, a video/performance space in the North Gallery; and installations in the turrets off of the South Galleries. This exhibition will highlight the work of over fifty practicing Illinois artists who also share their love of art by teaching at the university.

August 25 – October 10, 2009, Technology and Art Suite:

Rotunda Gallery: Jessica Gondek, Recent Paintings and Prints: Imperfect Models

Solo show of abstract work by Montgomery artist Gondek who begins with compositions created via 3-D modeling programs that are then collaged and overprinted to reinterpret and humanize the computer-generated forms. The intermingling of hand and mechanical approaches in the work prompts a collision between intuition and computation.

Group exhibition of new media including digital printmaking and photography, rapid prototyping, and computer animation used by artists to examine three-dimensional form and space in ways that are at once familiar and strange, real and imaginary, combining fact with fiction. Includes digital photographs by Gloria DeFilipps Brush of Duluth, Minnesota; sculpture, video animations and digital prints by Gerald Guthrie of Champaign, Illinois; and sculpture and computer animations by Elona Van Gent of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Curated by Jessica Gondek, Loyola University, Chicago.

Karen Hanmer: Retro Tech

Chicago artist Karen Hanmer looks back at early forms of technology to see their impact on us. Her History and Technology series of artist books link the creative process of the artist with that of the inventor, explorer or scientist through first person accounts and archival photographs and artifacts. Her installation, Beaut(e) Code, documents interviews with software engineers regarding what they find beautiful or compelling about well-written software and the act of programming.

Summer 2009, Community Windows III
Posters Created for local Cultural Institutions and Museums with support from The DeKalb County Community Foundation.

Participants include:

Ellwood House Museum

Joiner History Room

Just Make It Happen

Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Kishwaukee Valley Art League

Nehring Center Gallery

NIU Anthropology Museum

Stage Coach Players

Shabbona-Lee-Rollo Historical Museum

Sycamore Historical Society & Museum

Late Spring Printmaking Suite - March 24 - May 9, 2009

Jay Ryan: Flock

 Colorful silkscreen posters produced in "The Bird Machine", Ryan's shop where he creates colorful, limited edition silkscreen posters. Driven less by technological fads than by old-fashioned visual inventiveness and hard work, Ryan's designs have become highly sought after worldwide.

Käthe Kollwitz, Images of Death and Life

 A survey of prints by renowned German artist famous for her unmistakable graphic style, empathic humanity and mordant social commentary. Eva Marie Worthington, Director of the Worthington Gallery, Chicago will present a lecture on Saturday April 18 at 2:30 in Altgeld Hall, room 315.

The Mayor of Palookaville

 Hand-printed, hand-bound books by David Johnson, a mid-career artist from Indiana. Johnson's tools are deceptively simple: relif printing, etching and letterpress. His observations are shrewd, compassionate and introspective views of the people around him and the places they inhabit.

Moonlight Cocktails are the Thing

This exhibition summarizes a lifetime of remarkable achievements by printmaker David Driesbach, who weaves rich narratives into complex, colorful and whimsical prints. Co-organized with students enrolled in "Exhibition Interpretation" a graduate level Museum Studies course.

Crossing Thread, Crossing Boundaries:

January 20 - March 6, 2009

Contemporary fiber materials, concepts and process. Curated by Ellen Roth Deutsch and featuring work by: Renie Breskin Adams, Mary Bero, Ilse Bolle, Judith Brotman, Sun Choi, Cat Chow, Susan Etcoff Fraerman, Christine LoFaso, Danny Mansmith, Darrel Morris, Lindsay Obermeyer, Yvette Kaiser Smith, Sharon Wright and Betsy Youngquist.

Push, Pull, Scrub, Drip...Drip...

Exploring "surface" as a particularly unique characteristic of the painting process. Curated by NIU Painting Professor Frank Trankina and featuring Dan Devening, Jim Lutes, Dorothee Joachim, Tracy Miller, and Tim Doud.

School of Polish Posters Continued.

Facilitated by NIU Associate Professor of Design, Aleksandra Giza and featuring contemporary Polish Poster design.

Common Ground:

October 21 - December 6, 2008

A Selection of Contemporary Illinois Ceramics featuring work by: Dan Anderson, Chris Berti, Charity Davis-Woodard, Paul Dresang, Erin Furimsky, Shane Harris, Steven Hill, Doug Jeppesen, Jim Kearns, Ron Kovatch, Yih Wen Kuo, Tyler Lotz, Ron Mazanowski, Kurt Webb and Matt Wilt.

Belief Made Tanible

 
Through December 6, South Gallery

Aspects of Burmese Buddhism featuring sculptures, textiles, tattoos, and household objects. Curated by Catherine Raymond, Director of the NIU Center for Burma Studies.

Maley/Hand: Journey Toward Healing:

October 21 - December 6, 2008

Poignant collaboration between collage artist Janette Maley and her husband documentary photographer Art Hand that chronicles their experience with Janette's breast cancer.

Global Matrix II

A Contemporary Review of Fine Printmaking developed by the Purdue University Galleries. Global Matrix II features artists from 22 countries. North and Rotunda Gallery

Community Windows

June through August 2008
A series of posters celebrating local cultural institutions

Participating institutions include: Art Attack, Joseph F. Glidden Homestead & History Center, The Blackwell History of Education Museum and Milan Township One-Room School, DeKalb Area Women’s Center, Gurler Heritage Association, Regional History Center, Sandwich Opera House, Waterman Area Heritage Society and Museum

NASCAR

(NIU Art museum Summer Collection Art Rental program - formerly Art to Lend)

Annual Art to Lend exhibition of artwork from the permanent collection that is available to hang in secure campus offices.

Gabriel Bizen Akagawa: CrateSpace

March 25 - May 10, 2008,

Rotunda Gallery

NIU students and community members will participate, via a series of workshops with artist Gabriel Bizen Akagawa, to create an installation designed to explore humanity's relationship to the natural world in the 21st century. Art-shipping crates will be reused and recycled with the aim of creating work that reverberates on both personal and social levels.

A wikisite for the show is here.

Peggy Macnamara: Nature Paintings

March 25 - May 10, 2008

North Gallery

Large-scale watercolor paintings of indigenous flora and fauna as depicted by the Field Museum of Natural History's Artist-in-Residence, Peggy Macnamara.

Specimens and Studies

March 25 - May 10, 2008
Hall Case Galleries

Scientific specimens and taxidermied studies coincide with our spring nature-themed exhibitions.

Examining Audubon

April 8 - May 10, 2008

South Galleries

Co-organized with Museum Studies students enrolled in Art 556, “Exhibition Interpretation,” this exhibition will focus on issues of connoisseurship, museum presentation and preservation as demonstrated through the many editions of John James Audubon prints made over the years.

"Adventures with John James Audubon" program with storyteller Brian "Fox" Ellis: 5pm on April 8 in Altgeld 315.

Ayomi Yoshida: Yedoensis

January 15 - March 7, 2008

Rotunda Gallery

Contemporary Japanese artist Ayomi Yoshida, fourth generation in the Yoshida printmaking dynasty, will be in residency for approximately one month installing a work that will both contrast and augment the Ukiyo-e and Sôsaku Hanga displays in the other galleries. Her large-scale site-specific installations explore the physical aspects of the woodblock printmaking process. "Prunus x yedoensis" is the scientific name for a cultivated yoshino cherry tree. According to the artist, "Cherry trees seem to burst into blossom allat once, and after a day or two, drop thier petals just as quickly. In Japan they have long been emblematic of life's evanescence."

This exhibition, along with the accompanying exhibits of prints and objects from the Richard F. Grott Family, is part of the project "National/International Conciousness in Japan: Self, Place and Society During the Ninteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries."

A publication, supported in part by the Japan Foundation, is forthcoming.

The Gallery Notes for this exhibition are available in PDF form.
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Ayomi has created a blogsite for this exhibition.

Revisiting Modern Japanese Prints:

Selected Works from the Richard F. Grott Family Collection
January 15 - March 7, 2008
South Galleries

Mid-twentieth century Sôsaku Hanga (creative print movement) prints from the Museum's Richard F. Grott Family Collection will be examined thematically to explore Japanese concepts of nationalism and internationalism in the modern era.

This exhibition, along with the accompanying exhibits of pottery and ukiyo-e prints, is part of the project "National/International Conciousness in Japan: Self, Place and Society During the Ninteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries" and honors the generous donation of artwork from the Richard F. Grott Family to the NIU Art Museum.

The exhibitions were co-curated by NIU Assistant Professor of Art History Helen Nagata and NIU Professor Emerita Helen Merrritt with the assistance of NIU graduate and undergraduate students participating in Art History and Museum Studies courses.

The Gallery Notes for this exhibition are available in PDF form.
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exhibition catalogue

Sponsored in part by a Venture Grant from the NIU Foundation, the James and Helen Merritt Foundation of the NIU School of Art, the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, Friends of the NIU Art Museum and the ArtsFund 21.

Ukiyo-e Prints from the Richard F. Grott Family Collection

January 15 - March 7, 2008

North Gallery

Highlighting a recent gift of Japanese prints to the NIU Art Museum, 19th century Ukiyo-e prints from the Richard F. Grott Family will be examined thematically. Co-curated by Helen Nagata and Helen Merritt.

The Gallery Notes for this exhibition are available in PDF form.
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A separate Gallery Note sheds light on the Ukiyo-e printmaking process.
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Japanese Pottery and Other Objects from the Richard F. Grott Family Collection

January 15 - March 7, 2008

Hallcase Gallery

Objects such as Bizen and Oribe ceramics, iron teapots and a wooden carving augment the exhibitions in the North and South Galleries. The Gallery Notes for this exhibition are available in PDF form.
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2007 Exhibitions

NIU School of Art Faculty Biennial October 30 - December 8, 2007 All Altgeld Galleries All four gallery spaces will be filled with recent work by NIU School of Art faculty in a variety of studio media including painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, fiber, jewelry, metalsmithing, and design, as well as research and publications in art education, art history, foundations and design. A related series of lectures is now listed on our events page Visit the School of Art's website.

	Body Politic Contemporary artists explore the social and political ramifications of identity August 28 - October 13, 2007 South Galleries What we think about when we contemplate our corporeal selves, and what others assume about our identity based on their observations, make for unpredictable and fertile territory, out of which can spring myriad allusions and interpretations, including this exhibition. Artists include Molly Carter, Mary Dritschel, Anni Holm,Coke Wisdom O'Neal, Karen Savage and Jennifer Yorke. A brochure is available.

Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Book Art August 28 - October 13, 2007 Hall Case and North Galleries  A national traveling exhibition of handmade artist's books that celebrate the persistence of the artistic impulse in a nation troubled by tyranny and war. Curated by Nada Shabout at the University of North Texas, the exhibition presents work by seventeen artists spanning three generations. More photos and information are here.

Some Enchanted Evening 100 Years of Evening Gowns (1900 - 1999) August 28 - October 13, 2007 Rotunda Gallery An aesthetic, historical and socio-cultural look at exquisite designer gowns from the extraordinary collection of Barbara Cole Peters. Curated by Peters with extensive written commentary which will examine cultural developments of the twentieth century decade by decade. A brochure is available.

	Community Windows a series of posters celebrating local cultural institutions May 14 - August 11, 2007 Hall Case Gallery Participants included: DeKalb Municipal Band, Egyptian Theatre, Kiswaukee Valley Heritage Society, Malta Historical Society, Marie Louise Olmstead Memorial Museum, Midwest Museum of Natural History, NIU Community School for the Arts, and the Sandwich Historical Society. We would like to thank the DeKalb County Community Foundation for support of this project.

	High & Low: Chicago Hand Bookbinders March 20 - April 21, 2007 Hall Case Galleries Touring exhibition of the Chicago Hand Bookbinders 2007 annual thematic group show. This was the 2nd exhibition in our series exploring artist-made books (the first being 2006's Ars Libris).

	The Uncertainty Principle: Drawing in the Golden Age of Worry March 20 - May 12, 2007 South Galleries The intimacy and immediacy of drawing makes it an ideal medium for quick response to the groundlessness and uncertainty that we find ourselves surrounded by in this “Golden Age of Worry”.  Artists included: Charles La Belle, Shona MacDonald, Judith Burns Mc Crae, Audrey Niffenegger, Geoffrey Todd Smith, Harrison Storms, Deb Sokolow, Stas Orlovski and Chris Uphues. Curated by Karen Brown. Poster available.

	Mark Arctander: Surveillence February 8 - March 24, 2007 Rotunda Gallery 10-year retrospective of Chicago artist Mark Arctander’s work with found objects.   Arctander humorously manipulates ordinary objects through contextual change to deliver an out-of-the-ordinary visual experience and new insight. Brochure available.

	The Heart of Africa January 16 - March 9, 2007 Hall Case Galleries and North Gallery Provides a glimpse of the Congo through palm fiber (raffia) presentation mats and clothing, ceremonial knives and carved wooden boxes, cups, and ancestral figures. Presented in collaboration with the NIU Antropology Museum.

	Beggars and Choosers: Motherhood is Not a Class Privilege in America  January 16 - February 17, 2007 South Gallery Sixty images by 47 of the leading documentary photographers in the United States.  Beggars and Choosers offers a strong, positive image of mothers that society may not deem quite “proper” - women considered by some to be too young, too poor, too gay, too disabled, too non-white or too foreign. Curated by Rickie Solinger and traveled by Wake Up Arts, this exhibition aims to stimulate new thinking and conversation about motherhood, public policy, media, and politics as well as to present an outstanding set of photographs.

	From Heaven to Earth: A Ritual to the 37 Nats September 21 - December 16, 2006 North Gallery The first American exhibition devoted to the popular Burmese Buddhist ceremony, the “Ritual to the Thirty Seven Nats” will explore the history and practice of this intriguing cultural phenomenon through a display of seventeen Protector Spirit statues on loan from the Burma Art Collection at NIU.  Programming in conjunction with the Center for Burma Studies.

	Blue Sky, Black Earth:  Meditations on the Meeting of Sky and Land Oct. 26 - Dec. 16, 2006 Rotunda and Hallway Case Galleries Group exhibition of abstract and representational Illinois landscapes which focus formally and metaphysically on the interplay of big sky and flat land.  Artists include: Anya Antonovych, Jay Paul Bell, James D. Butler, Michael Dubina, Ulrich Eigner, Harold Gregor, Michael Johnson, Andrew John Liccardo, Jeffery A. Little, Charlotte Rollman, Alice Vrazo-Delzer and James Winn. Artists’ journals & sketches, working drawings and photos, and plein air studies were also on display. Co-curated with Douglas Johnson, Executive Director of the McLean County Art Center in Bloomington, IL, where the exhibit traveled in early 2007. Brochure available.

	Location Uncertain August 29 - November 18, 2006 South Galleries 9 Contemporary Berlin and Chicago artists follow up on an initial international collaborative exchange called “Location Matters” exhibited at Mbassy Gallery in Berlin in January, 2006.  In this second exhibition venue, the artists are temporarily (and temporally) brought together again to share their ongoing dialogue, collaborative strategies, and imposed limits and directives for creating new work “together” across cultural and geographical spaces.  Artists include Berliners Jan Bauer, Werner Gasser, Helga Natz, Karina Nimmerfall and Daniela von Nayhauss, and Chicagoans Karen Lebergott, Tom Denlinger, Michael Piazza, and Mary Patten.  Catalogue available. There was a parallel exhibition at Lake Forest College from Aug. 31 - October 8, 2006; and another at Beacon Street Gallery in Chicago during the month of September.

		Sordid and Sacred: Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings from the John Villarino Collection August 29 - October 14, 2006 Rotunda Gallery Rarely-seen series of etchings by the seventeenth-century Dutch master unrivaled in his keen and sensitive observations of humanity. Organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA. Catalogue available.

	Regional Illinois Potters I: Northwest August 28 - September 30, 2006 Hall Case Galleries First exhibition in an annual series highlighting contemporary ceramics from various regions in Illinois.  Artists included Ken Bichell and Stephanie O’Shaughnessy of the Menominee Wood Kiln, Charles Fach, Kent Henderson, Bill Farrell and Delores Fortuna of Galena, and Paul Eshelman and Adrienne Seagraves of Elizabeth, Illinois.

	Contents of the DeKalb Centennial Time Capsule May 24 - through August 11, 2006  Hall Case Galleries Buried during DeKalb's Centennial in 1956 and recently exhumed for the Sesquicentennial, the time capsule is a treasure trove of photographs and artifacts of life in the mid-twentieth century.

	POP! Contemporary Textiles influenced by Popular Culture March 28 - May 13, 2006 South Galleries
	Group exhibition featuring humorous, poignant and critical works by Susie Brandt, Judith Brotman, Amanda Browder, Bonnie Ward Klehr, Jeff Hand, Christine LoFaso, Ai Kijima, Mark Newport, and Karen Reimer. Curated by Christine LoFaso, Associate Professor, Fine Arts Studio, Fiber, NIU. Catalogue essay by Shannon Stratton.

	Shot in the Arm March 21 - May 13, 2006 North Gallery
	Exciting new additions to the NIU Art Museum collection of original prints include works by Endi Poskovic, Bill Fick, Michael Ferris, Tom Huck and Karla Hackenmiller, all artists who have participated in recent years as Visiting Artists at the NIU School of Art Printmaking Department.

	Ars Libris March 21 - May 13, 2006 Hallway Gallery Artist's books from  the collection of  Adrian R. Tio

		roll-run-hit-run-roll-tick-tick- January 17 - May 13, 2006 Rotunda Gallery
		The sculpture/sound exhibition by Korean-born Chicago artist Jin Soo Kim will return to Illinois after having traveled the country for three years. Fittingly, the work deals with travel and displacement. The installation, consisting of eight steel tunnels and an audio element featuring layered sounds of ticking clocks, breaking light bulbs and clanging plates from railroad tracks, emphasizes the physical and psychological nature of travel, experience and memory. A Brochure is available with an essay by Dominic Molon. The DeKalb venue changed monthly with the additional installation of workshop creations exploring similar themes.

	February 2006 Workshop participants: Stephanie Bruton Jen Evans Yen-Hua Lee T.J. Lemansky April Macatangay Dan Mattingly Sherry Patterson Daniel Prow Michelle Ramirez John F. Regan Mike Taylor
March 2006 workshop participants: Christine Aguirre Timothy Dwyer Kristin Kleckler Mike Knierim Neen Koebbe Yen-Hua Lee April Macatangay Marcie Oakes Gwen Rodig-Brown Jess Witte
April 2006 workshop paricipants: Melissa Bruck Kristine Chisamore Mike Knierim Yen-Hua Lee April Macatangay Bianca McGraw Rosie Presti Scott Stier Kimberly Strom

	Joan Truckenbrod: Estuarine Spaces South Galleries January 17 - March 11, 2006
	A solo show of video and multimedia installations by noted Illinois artist and leading pioneer of digital art, Joan Truckenbrod. Her work probes the threshold between the physical world and the virtual world in an immersive undulating manner that speaks of ritual and transformation.

	necessary angel North Gallery January 17 - March 11, 2006
	A selection of hand-printed broadsides from the Chicago Poetry Center featuring original visual art and previously unpublished poems.

		Bob Emser: Shadow Drawing Rotunda and North Galleries August 22 - December 10, 2005
		Exhibition of recent work by internationally known Illinois sculptor Bob Emser. Creating both small scale and large outdoor sculpture, Emser deals with each piece's internal structure and how that structure is supported or becomes visible on the exterior.

		Confessions of a Dadaist: The Era of Existence, 1979-2005, Part II: The Imagery of Helene Smith-Romer South Galleries August 22 - December 10, 2005:
		This mid-career retrospective of Chicago artist Helene Smith-Romer expands and investigates the Dadaist approach to life from a contemporary feminist perspective.  In her collages, artist's books, writings, and as curator of the 'I Due Art 4 You Museum', she humorously explores and evolves the traditional Dadaist ideology and employment of technology. Smith-Romer challenges both the visual surface and the viewer as she simultaneously orchestrates and balances elements of incongruity from the unconscious versus conscious, chaos versus order, the copy versus the original, found objects versus mass produced items, fabrication versus truth, and chance compared to randomness.   Catalogue with essays by Janina Ciezadlo and James Hugunin.

	(Super Spatial):  An installation by Thomas Skomski Rotunda Gallery March 31 - May 14, 2005
	Skomski's artistic involvement with water began as an undergraduate student when he placed sculptural forms into the lagoon at Northern Illinois University. Since then he has expanded his investigations to include the unique properties of water such as light refraction and fluid dynamics. His current work examines the presence of wave action in all phenomena.

	Unseen/Unnoticed/Unspoken: Duplicity of Word and Image North Gallery March 31 - May 14, 2005
	Recently back from a Fulbright Scholarship in Estonia, Illinois artist and NIU alum Rebecca Keller exhibited both the assemblages she created there and new work inspired by her trip.

		The World of Burmese Buddhism South Galleries October 23, 2004 - May 14, 2005
		Curated by Catherine Raymond, Director of the Center for Burma Studies at NIU, this exhibition of Buddhist artifacts dating from the eleventh through twentieth centuries will explore facets of Burmese Buddhist Art and religious practice.

	Misleading Trails Rotunda and North Galleries January 18 - March 13, 2005
	Artists Enrique Chagoya, Xiaoze Xie, Hai Bo, Dan Mills, Hong Hao, Ai Weiwei and Vernon Fisher create provocative art filled with layered images and information, leading the viewer away from their initial response, and down numerous trails full of unexpected meanings. This exhibition was organized by the artists, China Art Archives and Warehouse, Bejing, and the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University.

	Highlights from the Permanent Collection Rotunda and North Galleries Oct 18 - Dec 12, 2004
	This exhibition showcased some of the finest pieces in the NIU Art Museum collection including prints by "old masters" such as Durer, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Daumier and Vuillard, tentieth century artists like Josef Albers, Karel Appel, Hans Bellmer, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Henry Moore and Man Ray; Chicago favorites like Ed Paschke, Robert Lostutter, Phyllis Bramson and Ivan Albright, and contempoary figures such as Ida Applebroog, Robert Arneson, James Rosenquist, David Salle and Donald Sultan.

Altgeld Hall was closed for major renovations between 1998 and 2004.

View exhibits in the former Altgeld space, originally an auditorium on the second floor.