Chicago Gallery Debuts Two New Exhibitions

- The gallery, located in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood, was founded in 2006 as "Sacred Art" and rebranded to Midwest Nice Art in 2022. It is situated across from the historic Davis Theater and represents more than 100 local and regional artists and makers. - The two current exhibitions are juried by an external art collective, also named Midwest Nice Art, which is based in Aberdeen, South Dakota. This collective, co-founded by artists and educators Tim Rickett and Epiphany Knedler, organizes national juried online exhibitions to support emerging and underrepresented artists. - "Mint Condition" was juried by the collective's co-founders and features 60 works exploring themes of perfection and new beginnings. - The concept for "Midwest Salon Deux" is directly inspired by the 1863 Paris "Salon des Refusés". That historic exhibition was authorized by Emperor Napoleon III to display the large number of works rejected by the official Salon's jury, a move which ultimately helped legitimize the burgeoning avant-garde art movement. - A notable work shown at the original 1863 Salon des Refusés was Édouard Manet's "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" ("The Luncheon on the Grass"), which created a scandal due to its depiction of a nude woman casually lunching with two fully dressed men. - The Chicago gallery's version, "Midwest Salon Deux," similarly gives a platform to works that were submitted to but not selected for the South Dakota collective's other juried shows from the past year. - The gallery's primary focus is on handmade, artist-driven items including prints, ceramics, jewelry, and home goods, with a stated preference for Chicagoland-based artists in its general collection. - The owners of the Chicago gallery since 2018 are Brandon and Kaitlin, who took over from Kate Merena, who had run the gallery since 2013.