Exhibitions and Events

The Jack Olson Gallery hosts a range of exhibits and special events each year, with a focus on the work of NIU students and faculty. View photos from past exhibits.

Current Exhibition

The Risk Worth Taking

The Risk Worth Taking” draws a personal narrative arc beginning with Jim Crow era stories told to Kevin by his grandfather, through early mentors at Historically Black University, Arkansas at Pine Bluff, AfriCOBRA artists, through the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1993, the national stage with the 1996 Olympics Mural in Atlanta, the 9/11 attacks, and the current attacks on voting rights and gerrymandering.

Cole will conduct a lecture to accompany the exhibition on Thursday, October 15 at 5 p.m. in Jack Arends Hall. That will be followed by an exhibition reception from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Jack Olson Gallery.

Cole, who earned his Master of Fine Arts in drawing from NIU as a Rhoten A. Smith Scholar in 1984, says that the exhibition works strive to celebrate and call attention to the work yet to be done in fulfilling the promise of democracy, an experiment in process for 250 years.

The School of Art and Design is partnering with Huskies Vote, a campus-wide initiative that strives to provide Northern Illinois University students with everything they need to know in order to participate in their elections.