Alberto Aguilar’s first large scale survey explores how the Chicago-born and based artist’s various life roles and surroundings have shaped a searching, inquisitive practice that is grounded in, and produces, a radical everyday. Aguilar’s creative work often incorporates whatever materials he has at hand and has extended into collaborations and exchanges with others, including his own family. Navigating measurement and limits, of his own body or in his ready materials—whether it’s the structure of a sheet of mini legal paper or the territory of an area rug, to name a few examples—his work bridges media, from painting and sculpture to video, installation, performance, and sound as well as the use of social media and teaching as art forms.

Though his hand, direction, or intervention is typically straightforward, seemingly simple, his work has an enticing self-effacement that sparks curiosity and identification. Moreover, Aguilar’s systems-based processes build into their own monumentality, hinting at the broader implications of the deeply democratic ethos at the heart of his work. Beyond the works in the gallery space, the exhibition expanded to include interventions into Gallery 400’s home building, and extended projects off-site.

Featuring: Isabella Aguilar, Joaquin Aguilar, Madeleine Aguilar, Paolo Aguilar, Sergio Manuel Aguilar, Sonia Aguilar, Dana Bassett, Alex Bradley Cohen, Pete Fagundo, Chiara Galimberti, Kirsten Leenaars, Nazafarin Lotfi, Jorge Lucero, John Preus, Josh Rios, Alexia Rodriguez, Edra Soto, Southwest Signs, Clintel Steed, Hui-min Tsen, Rafael E. Vera, Danny Volk, Sean Ward, Jim Woodfill, and more