The Edith Farnsworth House Historic House is pleased to present the 2023 Artist in Residence exhibition, The Last of Animal Builders curated by Alberto Ortega Trejo and featuring the works of Faysal Altunbozar, Selva Aparicio, ASMA, Daniel Baird, Renée Green, Claudia Hart, Ragnar Kjartansson, Michael Rakowitz, Joshi Radin, and Thiago Rocha Pitta.  

The works in this show, selected from the Thoma Foundation’s collection and several Chicago-based artists, open a dialogue between the artists and our iconic Mies van der Rohe-designed home and surroundings. The show offers new perspectives and critiques on modern architecture, power relations in the built environment, and examines the construction of nature as an intellectual framework. Whether through video, drawing, or sculpture, the works in this exhibition engage animal, vegetal, and mineral metaphors as vehicles to suggest alternative interpretations of human becoming, social transformation, and material exchange. This show both enhances our current staging of the House and provides a fresh lens to view our space and history with a special nod to and commentary on Lord Palumbo’s former sculpture garden on the grounds.