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."