{"article":{"id":7724,"title":"Manny Singletary: A New Art Collector Embraces Chicago","excerpt":"","body":"

Manny Singletary pictured at Cao Fei (photo taken at Art Gallery NSW, in Sydney)



By BIANCA BOVA


Bianca Bova: Thanks for participating in the interview, Manny. You mentioned when we first discussed the possibility that you still think of yourself as new to collecting, as well as new to Chicago, correct?


Manny Singletary: Yes, I've been in Chicago just a few years, since 2021. I was born in Ohio, and I lived in a small town north of Columbus called Mount Vernon, and that's where I went to school, both high school and college. Then I got a job as a software engineer. My background is in computer science and software engineering, and now I'm an insurance tech consultant. I’m based in Chicago but my work has me traveling. I've been to Brazil, Poland, Canada a number of times, and Australia a few times, even living there for a short period.



BB: Did your move to Chicago coincide with your interest in art? Or is that a lifelong pursuit that has just found its rhythm here? 


MS: For a long time I was a “normal” consumer of art. I listened to music, went to the odd museum every once in a while, but I didn't like going to art museums. I thought it was too pretentious and stuffy. I didn't understand what I was looking at, and I didn't understand how to interpret art. And so I just felt that it was like I was of that mindset that a lot of people today are, a lot of my friends feel this way, where it's like, “That's a red square on the wall! Why is this in a museum?”



BB: The “My kid could do that” mentality.


MS: Right, and I think that comes from not understanding that things have context. Then I took an art history class in college, and when I got a little bit educated to understand that it’s not that complicated. It's a vocabulary problem. It's an experience problem. I took it upon myself as a challenge, because I am a very realistic person, I think. At the time I thought that art as a general practice, that artists that I had met and known were not very realistic. It didn't seem like a realistic career path. I didn't really understand it. I just thought, “What's this contribution they're making?” So now, as someone who has many friends in art and someone who has an art collection, I feel extremely different about it. I feel almost the opposite now. I have a deep appreciation for my friends that create, and I feel humbled every time I walk into an art space. I think that shift happened when I was able to start interpreting art through the lens of community, not through the lens of consumption. When I was able to actually have conversations with gallerists and artists and curators, then I ended up with a lot more empathy, and I grew to really appreciate and love art and what it does contribute. 



BB: I'm curious how you went from garnering an initial appreciation through an art history class, to this entry point you discuss as community, because there's a gap between sitting in a classroom looking at slides–or whatever, digital reproductions now, I guess–of famous art, and embedding yourself in a community that can be fairly cloistered.


MS: Yeah, there's black swan event that created that switch. And that black swan event was called, I moved to Chicago and wandered into Heaven Gallery. I was just wandering around on Milwaukee Avenue shortly after I arrived in town, and saw a sign that said “art gallery and vintage store upstairs.” I like fashion, I like vintage clothes a lot, and I thought it was kind of cool to see that with art, so I just went upstairs. There was house music booming, and like Afro beats vibes and I was just like, “This is like a fun space!” I had always experienced art up until that point in these spaces that were more: don't speak too loudly, there’s white walls, everybody's dressed up. Art felt like an event, like a venue, and galleries were a place to feel important and feel wealthy and for people to feel like they want to be around finer things. So I found that a way more interesting way to interpret art could be through an indie gallery. Then eventually I learned Heaven's a nonprofit, and got to know Alma Wieser, the owner. The biggest thing for me was I could go up to the pieces of art, and I could ask questions, because I had had that barrier lowered enough that I felt comfortable. And that’s because Heaven is built to be accessible, right? 



Clockwise from top left: Edra Soto, Kat Bawden, Fengzee Yang, Hope Wang, Delia Pelli-Walbert, Jan Brugger, Jaclyn Mednicov, Belinda Fox, Sophia Muys (top right of cluster), Kendal Murray (bottom right of cluster), Yae Jee Min (left of cluster), Andrew Kuo



BB: It’s non-threatening. 


MS: Exactly. It's a space that's built to serve the broader Chicago. I felt like I could go in there confidently. For the first 12 or 18 months I was in Chicago, that's the only gallery I went to. 



BB: Did it not occur to you to go to other spaces, or were you only comfortable at Heaven, and didn't feel like you'd be as welcome in other spaces? 


MS: To be honest, I didn't know about other spaces! Remember, I just wandered into Heaven, so I also just kept coming back. That's something funny about Heaven–and it's not a good or a bad thing–but Heaven's kind of in their own little world. Later on, I’d get involved with Gertie as an EarlyWork member, and that’s a whole other thing, that’s their job, to bring you to this place you've never heard of. They’re a cultural plug, is their whole theory.


But before I knew about any of that, I just never thought to ask Alma, what are other spaces I should check out? I had never been to a gallery opening in my life, until I went to my first one of Heaven, and I didn’t start buying art right away either, it was just a community thing for me. I started to branch out through my friendship with Francine Almeda, because Francine, at the time, was involved with Heaven. She was also running a space called Jude, and I started to check that out. At the time the idea of spending $500 on a piece of art seemed like madness to me. I have a frame TV, on which I can see infinite amounts of art for basically free, and my attitude at the time was that that’s good enough. The idea of owning a piece of art was just another decision of consumption. Francine sold me my first piece of art though, a Hope Wang work, and that changed my thinking. 



BB: Was it just the conversation with Francine, or was there something about that work that broke the threshold for you, and you thought: I need to have this in my house. I need to live with this. 


MS: I think the thing that broke that threshold for me was I felt like I just liked the piece for what it was. I thought it was cool. I didn't know Hope, and didn’t meet Hope until years later. And Francine is not a super pushy salesperson, then, or now. I think she said something like, “This piece reminds me of your aura,” which was a bold thing for her to say, because she didn't know me very well. And so I was just like, “Oh, that's a good line. You got me there.” So I bought it, and I didn’t really even know how to hang it up. But bringing that into my home, my thinking changed. At Heaven, at the time, work was like $1,000 or sometimes less. So I think I bought like, 15 to 20 pieces from Heaven over the next 18 months. 



BB: How did your collection begin to develop beyond those initial acquisitions?


MS: I don't collect from Heaven as much as I used to. There are different things I value about collecting now that I think Heaven doesn't necessarily cater to. They're a big community space, where now, the last piece I bought was from Patron. I really like working with Patron. I’ve met Julia ​​Fischbach and Emmanuel Aguilar, the founders. They're great. I find that they’re more white glove service, and they're more integrated within the art world. 



Painting by Isabella Mellado



BB: A different tier of the market, certainly. 


MS: Yeah, and so I've kind of moved on, I'm getting more into the methodology of collecting, rather than just seeing it as a form of shopping. 



BB: You started going to art fairs just this year as well, I understand? 


MS: Yes, I went to Art Basel Miami in 2024, and I went with the gallerists Fawn Penn and Delia Pelli-Walbert and the artist Micah Sweezie. Obviously, everyone's heard of Art Basel Miami, as a cultural thing. 



BB: Sure, you know about the parties even if you don’t know about the art.


MS: Exactly. So I told myself, I have no expectations, it’s like if I were to be invited to an F1 race. Like, I don't care about F1 at all, but I would go for vibes.



BB: Culture as spectacle. 


Manny Singletary: Totally. It wasn't my idea to go to Basel. But last year I started spending more time in galleries, and getting more involved in the art world, and meeting more people. Francine had started her new space Tala, and I had sponsored one of the Tala shows, and then I sponsored Sam Reynolds’ first benefit for ReMATCH, which I thought was great, but I felt like I was still in the community-driven art world. I still think Tala is a community space more than a commercial gallery, I think Francine fashions it more as a space intertwined in the community.



BB: She's got the reading room and the retail space. Clearly it operates with different priorities than a gallery, strictly speaking.


Manny Singletary: Right. It's easy to tell that Francine cut her teeth working for Alma and Heaven.



BB: Oh, definitely, that’s very legible.


MS: So then during the Exhibition Weekend gallery walk that Gertie put together, I visited Old Friends. 



BB: I remember that, I believe that’s how you and I first were introduced to one another. 


MS: Yeah! You were there too, that show you curated was up. That was my first time going to a traditional commercial gallery. Which is not to say Old Friends is not for the community, but their goal if I had to put it on paper is ultimately to do right by their artists–to sell their work and help them gain prominence. 



BB: I’m obviously biased having some limited involvement in the program over there, but yes, I’d agree, Old Friends is a gallery operating under the traditional definition. 


MS: Talking with Fawn and Delia, that’s when I started asking a lot of questions about the art world, what that really looks like in Chicago. They were the ones that taught me, that filled in a lot of the gaps in my interests. It was around October or November, and one of the things Delia told me was “You need to go to Basel Miami. It's coming up, it’s not that expensive to go. Book a flight, get a hotel, and we’ll take care of getting you into the fairs and the rest.” The idea was: you need to see the top of the mountain, in order to understand what you’re looking at in Chicago. It sounded fun, and I honestly had no idea how privileged I was to go with them. Looking back, they were very generous in doing that for me. They’re professional art dealers, they had their own objectives and their own goals being there. To take along someone who had never even been to a fair before, to guide me through things and introduce me to people was really nice. We went to Art Basel, we went to Design Miami, we went to Scope, we went to NADA, we went to UNTITLED, and then we went to the Perez Museum. 



BB: That’s a lot of ground to cover. 


MS: I was appreciative that they wanted me to see it all, and that definitely helps develop your taste, but by the end, yeah, I was honestly very overwhelmed. But I learned a lot, and it gave me a lot of questions. The first thing I realized was that fairs are not really for artists, they’re for dealers and collectors.



BB: An art fair is no place for an artist, as I always say. 


MS: That’s what I uncovered–and, art as a business and as a market, because I'd only ever seen art as a community, an activity to build community and foster it until then. So that was my first ever exposure to art as a market. I felt like the dealers there were kind of–not playing pretend, but–this idea of “We are entering a business transaction. I'm cutting you a check for $10,000. We're negotiating this. We're doing a deal.” It was not a community building activity at all, but something very capitalistic, very financially-driven. 



BB: To that end, did you acquire anything in Miami, or was it more of an exploratory trip for you?


MS: I did acquire some work in Miami! I acquired two Bill O'Brien works from Ackerman Clark. And I met John Schmidt for the first time! It was funny to me, because the gallery is not far from where I live at all. Sometimes it's easier to build relationships when you're not at home, though. 



BB: Speaking of home, and art fairs, what did you think of EXPO Chicago, then? 


MS: Well, I don’t like that our 'Art Week' is also EXPO Art Week, you know, instead of say, Chicago Art Week. I found that seeing Miami's Art Week, Miami felt like a venue to see art from all over the world. Miami is a great playground of a city. It's got great beaches, there's great food, and I feel like everybody gathers in Miami to see the art and to throw parties and have fun. I was mostly visiting convention centers and venues that had art from galleries from all over the world, not going out into galleries in Miami.


This was my first ever year going to EXPO too, and I went and I did the VIP program, I did private collection visits, and I did the UMMO party and all that type of stuff. Instead of, “we're bringing the whole art world into Miami and Miami's the venue,\" I felt like EXPO was bringing the art world into Chicago to experience the best of Chicago's art scene. It seemed like it was about getting collectors in, for collectors to have access to Chicago's art scene. Abby [Pucker], of Gertie, also seems to be very focused on a rising tide lifting all boats, so to speak, raising the prominence of the Chicago scene in a global context. Her events felt like they are about getting people to understand that Chicago's got a great art scene, right? I feel like a lot of the events in Miami were not focused on highlighting Miami as a city, even though its a great one. 



BB: Basel Miami is about delivering the art world to you, and EXPO–at least nowadays–is about trying to bring Chicago to the art world’s attention. 


MS: Yes, I would say that's fair. But I still think it’s an important anchor to the Chicago art scene, and I’ll definitely keep going, keep checking everything out. 



BB: Well sure, it’s like the circus–it's in town, so you go.


What type of collection are you trying to build? 


MS: I’ve never been asked that question before. It's a great question. At first I never thought about my art collection that deeply, and I didn't really think of it as “curating,” I was just buying stuff to support my friends and people that I liked. Now the types of things I want to collect changed a little bit, now it has a context to build from. I think I've got like, 30 to 40 pieces in this collection now. I’ve been making more intentional acquisitions now, and I started doing a bit more research on the recent ones.



BB: Do you collect in a vacuum? Do you make singular acquisitions, or when you say intentional, do you mean you now concern yourself with how the works fit into the overall collection? 


MS: Yeah, I find that having a dedicated context helps me, especially to arrange things better, visually in the space. There are pieces in my bedroom that were definitely influenced by work that was already there. Also, at first, it didn't occur to me that artists sell their work and it just disappears, they don’t see it again. It's a weird relationship between artists, dealers, and collectors. In a funny way I feel like I don't truly own the works on my wall.



BB: It’s true of all artwork that no one really owns it. If you’re lucky, you're a steward of it while you're alive, and you try really hard not to fuck it up.  


MS: Yeah. I feel they are being lent to me in a way because they are a part of an artist's practice. This is very dramatic sounding, but I feel like I own a piece of their practice and a piece of their soul in some way. I feel like I've had a lot of artists tell me, “I'm glad this piece is with you,” and that feels like it is an honor. Every piece also has a story for me in my collection as well, it all feels very personal. 



BB: After you began collecting, you also founded a nonprofit, Vibrant Chicago. Can you tell me about what led you to do that? 


MS: Sure. I'm a patron, I'm a collector, so I'm gonna get the best side of a lot of things for that reason in the art world, if I'm being totally honest with myself. But even so, I've had to in a way write my own ticket into art based on the fact that I don't have an inherent right to be in the art community. I don't create art. I don't have a background in art history. I'm someone that lives in a high rise and makes a decent amount of money doing work in tech and that's great but, inherently, no one has to pay attention to me, and nor should anyone for me doing absolutely nothing. It’s a lot of active work on my part to attend events, to show up for the artists and the galleries that I support, and I will put in as much effort as I can.


What I found very endearing was that Chicago's art scene has given that same amount of energy back to me when they didn't need to do that. It's not a requirement at all. And I found that to be very touching, especially because it's a community of sharing, like Document and Volume and Rhona Hoffman and all these guys all in the same building. Everyone sharing space together. Things feel more collaborative than competitive here. We've got a lot of art schools, there's a lot of indie spaces, apartment galleries. It's a lot of bootstrapping, and there's a lot of cheap real estate in the city, and warehouses, and people can kind of start up projects, there's a lot of pop ups. Vibrant Chicago is meant to support all of these cultural spaces. I felt weird not having a cultural space of my own, not having a place to build community instead of just participating in it. Now Vibrant has a space at Mana Contemporary, we have started to do some programming, we had our first panel talk at SoHo House during EXPO Week. We are a non-profit organization, and what makes us different is we have this multi-year partnership approach to philanthropy. By providing recurring, flexible unrestricted funding for Chicago-based spaces, we’re able to support their long-term, independent growth. 



BB: Do you think you’d be doing this no matter where you were? 


MS: I feel very privileged to be in a position in Chicago where people want to have my business and want to help me build this collection, and see my perspective as valid. Would I have this experience in New York? I don't know, maybe. Maybe New York would be totally fine. Maybe, like, if I were to develop my perspective in another part of the world entirely, maybe it'd be fine. I don't know. But I am in Chicago, and I’m glad I’m in Chicago. It’s working out so far. 


#

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Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.


The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.





Nikko Washington – 

Artist


“I’m thrilled to further expand my artistic and design practice by introducing other mediums into the mix. I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change and devoting a lot of time in the studio as well. Fall/winter is my favorite time to create new works. 


I have an upcoming solo show with VSG Contemporary that I am excited about. The work will delve further into the topics of cultural mythology and how these tales and narratives have helped shape my worldview. 


Also, it wouldn’t be right if I left out my excitement for this upcoming season of Chicago sports.”


Nikko Washington


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Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher




This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue. Purchase a copy or subscribe.




Andi Crist



BY ALISON REILLY


Andi Crist’s warm, engaging demeanor is evident in the first few minutes of our conversation. Generous with her time and forthcoming in her observations, she cares deeply about building relationships through her art making. Crist grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, devoured art classes, wrote songs and played music in high school, and moved to Chicago to study visual art at Columbia College. In 2024, she received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a woodworker, sculptor, ceramicist, and conceptual artist, and she teaches at Illinois Institute of Technology. We discussed her multidisciplinary practice, her experience working as an art handler, preparator, and fabricator, and how she thinks about labor, creativity, and value in the art world. 



CGN: You grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. How did that environment shape your point of view as an artist?


Andi Crist: That’s such a funny question. Nobody’s ever really asked.


CGN: Oh, really?


AC: Yeah, maybe because I never was super connected with the arts community down in Birmingham. I moved to Chicago in 2007, so it’s been 20 years since I lived in the South. I was definitely one of those art kids—one art credit was required in high school, and I graduated with like seven. I was surrounded by artists who had a big impact on me, because they were working artists. All my art teachers were trained in Alabama and then continued to teach and work in Alabama, which gave me this desire to try to expand my community outside of what I was familiar with.


CGN: Do you identify as a Chicagoan?


AC: My family still lives in Alabama, and I go back every year. I love being in Alabama. Maybe now being in Chicago for almost 20 years, I identify as a southerner living in the city. I carry on the social qualities of a friendly southern person [laughs]. 


CGN: You have a varied art practice—woodwork, ceramics, mold making. What drew you to those types of fabrication methods and that type of art making?


AC: My dad is a carpenter and a hobbyist woodworker, but his career was psychology, and my mom was a professor and an incredible craftswoman. I absorbed my mom’s model of creativity, which is to try a bunch of different things and not necessarily finish them but to try to learn as much as I can by just going for it. My practice over the years has become an exploration of conceptual elements of what makes art art and not just craft. Do you have to be a master craftsperson or a professional artist in order to make something that resonates with people?


I make a lot of work that references the mode of making and requires a variety of different media. I just finished teaching a ceramics production class where students learned how to produce molds, think about positives and negatives, and get into a level of production rather than just handicraft as a way to multiply their output.


I got into fabrication because I’ve always liked working with other artists. I have a background in theater and gallery work. I’m a voracious learner, and I like being able to share those skills with my community. Then I end up making work about that. It’s a self-feeding cycle.


Andi Crist, Artist’s Ladder, 2023. Photo: Jeff Perlman



CGN: Thinking about your background as an art handler and preparator—how did you get to the point where you were making work about that experience?


AC: In 2010, right before I graduated from Columbia, I was living in a storefront in West Logan Square with my partner at the time. We started a gallery called Autotelic in the space and had to build it out using the worst tools with very minimal resources. Then we started curating shows there and that meant helping other artists figure out how to install their work in our unusual space. Eventually, I gained the reputation for knowing how to do that type of work. I started getting invited to work in museums and galleries. 


The Holocaust Museum was the first museum I worked at, and as difficult as that subject matter is, that experience was really important to me because I was learning more about the larger world of gallery work. As an artist working as a preparator, you’re straddling both sides of that space. You’re really seeing how the sausage is made. You’re hearing all the conversations about artists, curators, the process of exhibition making. There is a lot of information you can gather about the economics of the art world by just being the person that has the know-how to touch and handle artwork. Eventually that started feeding into my art practice because I wanted to make work that was contributing to a conversation around art as a type of job. It fueled a methodology of seeing everything in the world as the result of a long line of processes that required effort and thoughtfulness by many hands.



Andi Crist, Fair Warning, 2025.



CGN: The title of your recent exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum—Live, Laugh, Lo—sorry, not Live, Laugh, Love—Live, Laugh, Labor.


AC: [Laughs] That’s what everybody does.


CGN: I love the title—it’s perfect. You incorporate humor along with thoughtful critiques about labor and value in your work. What role does humor play? How does it help you connect with your audience?


AC: One of my biggest criticisms of art with a capital A is how easily it can be overly intellectualized. I think that’s why I end up making a lot of work that references things that already exist or have some kind of real purpose. It’s important to give people a foothold so there’s an obvious place to board that train of thought. As an artist—maybe this is me getting into a sweeping argument about what artists should be—but I personally believe in intellectual accessibility. Humor is a swift way to drop defenses and allow people to come in without feeling like they are not getting the joke or not understanding. I like to make work that can hold both of those things at the same time—it’s funny on the surface level, it’s kind of cheeky, but there’s also another way to look at it that is intellectually clever. There is a joy in the attempt to “get it”. Like the satisfaction of grasping how a crossword puzzle actually works.


It’s also so much a part of my personality. I take myself seriously as an artist, but my ego isn’t at the heart of it. It’s really something that I do because I love to make things, and I love to connect with other people. My parents raised me on puns, creating those language relationships between things and people and space. Understanding a joke is the same way that we understand art, and while neither of my parents would consider themselves artists, they taught me how to think about art.



Andi Crist, 69 Bananas




CGN: Your work, Artist’s Ladder, explores hierarchies, workplace cultures, and institutional values. What experiences shaped your reflections on these themes?

 

AC: The ladder piece distinctly represents the complicated relationship between front of house, back of house, and the hierarchy of labor. Who is the artist in those relationships? How much does another person’s knowledge and expertise contribute to the success of another artist?


There are enormous, industrialized art practices out there, warehouses full of people making things, and those people are also artists. When you make work that involves other people, it’s important to acknowledge their contributions. I’ve had complicated interactions with other artists who are like, ‘Hey, do you want to collaborate with me on this thing?’ but really they just want me to make their idea. I made Artist’s Ladder while I was in grad school at UIC, and it really represented my relationship with a lot of other artists, because I could be an actual support structure for them. Then it turned into this absurd physical thing. It’s extremely overbuilt with inlaid racing stripes made of exotic hardwood, and a butcher’s block-style plaid top. It’s not really like an FU as much as it is asking for acknowledgement of my skills and the essential support structures that exist.

 

CGN: I want to ask you about another piece, Five O’Clock Somewhere, a wool rug that resembles a children’s play mat. I work at a library, and it reminded me of rugs I see all the time. It’s a peaceful image of an office park with a large fountain surrounded by a parking lot. I’m curious why you chose a rug as the medium to depict that image.

 

AC: To me the heart of that joke was that it was a landscape. I wanted it to be physically traversable. And that was, I don’t want to say controversial, but it was something that I had to talk about a lot. The critique of that work was the fact that I didn’t want to hang it on the wall and turn it into a tapestry. I really wanted it to be a rug that people could walk on. When I showed that work at Chicago Artists Coalition for the New City Breakout Artists show. There was a lot of pushback about having it on the floor and allowing people to walk on it.

 

That, to me, was such an important conversation, because, in my mind, the fact that you could walk across it and traverse it was part of how I was thinking about the object. Rugs are utilitarian–they are floor coverings. When you make art that doesn’t do anything, you don’t get to participate in that part of the conversation.

 

I enjoy sparring around art like that. I am totally tickled by the pushback. The critique of display is exciting, and sorting through the politics of utilitarianism in art spaces is fun to me. And then—it was so crazy—we ended up showing it halfway on the wall and halfway on the ground. 


Andi Crist, Five O’Clock Somewhere, on display at Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths at The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, 2025.



CGN: Oh, wow.


AC: I was like, this is the epitome of compromise! I had to build a structure so that it could hang that way safely. 

 

CGN: I would say just put it on the ground if that’s what you want to do. It’s interesting that there are still very fixed ideas about the way that art should be displayed.

 

AC: That preparator part of it, that’s what I’m all about. I was having that conversation about what physically supports the work or what conceptually supports it in the way that it’s shown. 

 

CGN: Have you always been a writer? How do your art and writing practices work together? 


AC: I can’t say that I’m a writer, it’s probably the same way that it can feel weird to call yourself an artist. But I feel like I’ve always been relatively good at writing. The first time I ever did any kind of professional writing was contributing, a long time ago, to a website called eHow. The editors would send me a title, and then I would have to research how to do that thing. Then I would write out step-by-step instructions for how to do that. 


I think that’s how I had to make myself think through my conceptual practice—I had to do the research, coagulate that into some kind of document, and then I would have stream-of-consciousness conversations with myself. “Why are we interested in this? Why would we make it this way? What would I want to talk about if someone were to ask me about this?” It’s almost like I was pre-interviewing myself. 


I think the writing is just another way for me to process that idea before I put in all of the time and energy to actually accomplish it. 


CGN: What are you working on right now? What projects do you have coming up?


AC: The biggest project that I have right now is my house. My family and I suffered a major house fire on New Year’s Day. We’ve been displaced since then and are navigating rebuilding our house. It was a total loss. 



Andi Crist, Single-Use Fireplace, 2025. Photo: Mikey Mosher.


 

CGN: I’m so sorry to hear that. 


AC: Thank you. We’re all okay, but it’s been a really tumultuous year. I moved my studio into a storefront last summer, and so most of my, at least relatively recent, work is safe, and I still have all of my materials, but my home life is starting over. I just had my first full year at this space, and it’s got a little gallery built out in the front called Coming Soon. It’s beautiful with floor-to-ceiling windows on Division and Central Park. I’ve been inviting people into the space to try things out.

 

After teaching the ceramics class, I came into a bunch of nice slip casting molds, and I’m making some really playful, weird, ceramic stuff. I want to be open and not put too much pressure on myself. Having a big studio by myself is very expensive, so it’s easy to want to make it feel like it’s worth it. But if for now all I can do is make it a resource for other people, then that will be the thing I do. Be less selfish, but more selfish with my time. Saying I can’t do that, or I don’t want to do that. It’s not my nature to say no—I’m such a yes man. I’m learning how to be a yes man for myself. 


CGN: That makes sense after going through something so traumatic.

 

AC: I have an amazing support system. Our friends started a GoFundMe. It was incredible. I’m so humbled and floored by how held I felt by Chicago. I can’t help but throw a little shout out to my Chicago people. I can see how people’s lives get totally ruined by this kind of tragedy. I feel so lucky. Chicago definitely showed its love back. 


CGN: For your project Coming Soon, are you bringing in other artists?


AC: My philosophy is that I want to be involved as little as possible. I am thinking about it more as a hosted than curated space. I’m actively soliciting proposals or ideas for workshops, meetings, book clubs—I’m down for making it a resource, whatever that means. I don’t want to over-think it, I want it to be an intuitive and organic thing, which is why I call it Coming Soon—it can be a placeholder for anything. It’s exciting. Taking my hands off the reins is a good exercise for me.


andicrist.com



Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher



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Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.


The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here. 




Debra Kerr – 

CEO, Intuit Art Museum


“Intuit Art Museum’s renovated, expanded spaces give audiences the chance to connect with art through daily art-making, third Thursday Art After Work, group Slow Looks designed to provide a mindful experience with a single work and upcoming conversations with sculptor Bill Brady (Oct. 3) and Dr. Mary Trent (Oct. 15), who curated our current exhibition on the role of scrapbook-making in Henry Darger’s art. 


On view is the thought-provoking Monumental: The Sculpture of Dr. Charles Smith, which encourages guests to consider the lack of historical representation of African Americans and Black people in America. Dr. Smith’s memorials champion Black history and stories of everyday life he sees missing in mainstream narratives. 


This fall we’re opening an exhibition of paintings by Karla Wong, an artist who immigrated from Oaxaca and who explores themes of life and death, gender identity and self-discovery.”


Intuit Art Museum

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