Germane Barnes exhibits Black radical vision for the future of architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago this fall

This fall, the Art Institute of Chicago will be exhibiting the first-ever solo museum treatment of the groundbreaking work of Germane Barnes, the 2021 Wheelwright Prize winner and designer famous for his investigations into the politics of architecture.

Titled ‘Columnar Disorder,’ the show brings together Barnes’ Rome Prize-winning research into African diasporic traditions and classical architecture. Three alternatives to the more common Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian forms, each serving as stand-ins for Labor, Migration, and the beauty of Black life and cultural Identity, will be on display with construction help from the local Allied Craftworkers Administrative District Council 1. 

Barnes will use them to recast long-held notions of the Western canon for architecture while sprouting new questions about race and the economy in the contemporary sense. In this way, he reintroduces many of the narratives on hand recently in his 2023 Venice Biennale Griot presentation about Africa and its diaspora communities as the "future of architecture."

The Chicago native is teaching currently at the University of Miami School of Architecture. There, he has been active in realizing several similar interventions and other curatorial projects focused on sociological implications apparent in vernacular architecture, including a now-open 'Play-House' show at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami.

“My research of African diasporic spatial legacies has only emboldened my pride in Black stories and the desperate need for their telling,” he says. “The opportunity to share this work in the city that shaped me is an incredible feeling.”

Irene Sunwoo, Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute adds: “This exhibition serves as [a] testament to Barnes’s ambition to radically transform the field.” 

Your chance to see the 'Columnar Disorder' begins September 21st. The final day for the exhibition is January 27th, 2025. Barnes will join curator Lisa Çakmak and writer Mabel O. Wilson for a discussion of the exhibition from 2:00 to 3:00 pm on the day of the opening.