Gallery 400

Working at the intersection of dreams, roots, and memories, Elias Mendel’s interdisciplinary practice investigates his own familial archive and history. Their works 𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝑩𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒕 (2026), 𝑰𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒗𝒆 (2026), and 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒂 (2026) are featured in the 2026 MFA Thesis Show: 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈, on view through May 9.

Claire Burke Dain’s paintings explore human relationships with industrial structures. Working with found materials, her practice addresses the psychological impressions left by spatial design and dynamic environments such as trains and automobiles. Dain’s 𝑽𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒔 (2026) and 𝑰 𝑳𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝑭𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑵𝒐 𝑴𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒚 (2026) are on display in the 2026 MFA Thesis Show: 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑳𝒐𝒏𝒈, on view through May 9.

I’m excited to announce that @claireburkedain @danielgantner_ and I will be making some sounds in the basement of 400 s Peoria this Thursday evening at 8 pm! This improvised collaboration is brought to you by train windows, car windows, highways and interchange. This is a free event in connection to UIC’s 2026 MFA Thesis programming. Hope to see a bunch of yas! @uicmfa

YOU’RE INVITED! 📚 Join John Michael Kohler Arts Center (@jmkac ) and Tufts University Art Galleries (@tuftsartgalleries ) in Chicago with Gallery 400 (@gallery400 ) for the publication launch of “How do you throw a brick through the window…”, produced alongside the exhibition of the same name. Both the exhibition and publication take inspiration from artist and activist Johanna Hedva’s (@bighedva ) question, “How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?” Hedva’s statement questions the rights and opportunities of individuals with disabilities who navigate forms of protest 🌀 🗓️ May 21, 2026 🕑 6:00-7:30PM 📍UIC Architecture and Design Studios (@uicsoa ) 845 W Harrison St, Chicago, IL 60607 Room 1100 The evening will include a talk by contributing author Amanda Cachia (@amanda_cachia ) , who will discuss her essay in the publication alongside related scholarship from her recent book, “Hospital Aesthetics: Disability, Medicine, Activism” (2025). Exhibition co-curators and publication co-editors Tanya Gayer (@tanyagayer ) and Laurel V. McLaughlin (@lvmclaughlin ) will present an overview of the publication, including its design by Body & Forma (@bodyandforma ), essays by Amanda Cachia, torrin a. greathouse (@tagreathouse ), and Mev Luna (@mev_merized ), and the artworks and artists featured in the exhibition: Yani aviles, Chloe P. Crawford (@chlo_faux ), Nat Decker (@nat_decker__ ), Jeff Kasper (@jeffkasperstudio ), Carly Mandel (@0carl ), Jeffrey Meris (@jeffreymeris ), and Libby Paloma (@libbys_arty_party ) ✨ Free and open to all. RSVP at the link in our bio by May 7 to reserve your spot 🔗

Catherine Lyu & Naeemeh Naeemaei: A Collaborative Reading & Unreading April 23rd 5:30-6:30pm Gallery 400 A reading of the Song - Sing - Sang by Catherine Lyu in collaboration with a reading of the White Books by Naeemeh Naeemaei. Through a series of quiet, deliberate actions, Naeemeh engages with approximately ten books selected solely for their white covers, regardless of their content. She will be using them to respond to Catherine’s reading of her translations of one of her grandpa’s poems. The echoing of sounds together with the materiality of the objects forms a language of communication between the artists and their memory objects.

We are thrilled to announce that we are recipients of the @teigerfoundation hosting grant for our upcoming fall exhibition, 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 & 𝑷𝒖𝒍𝒍: 𝑻𝒘𝒐 𝑫𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑.⁠ ⁠ 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 & 𝑷𝒖𝒍𝒍 features over 35 original prints, archival ephemera, and video drawn from the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop's historic collection and archive. The exhibition traces the origins, mentorship, collaboration, and technical innovation that have made it the US’s oldest and continuously operating cooperative workshop.⁠ ⁠ Rooted in radical inclusivity, the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop opened its doors in 1947 in New York City, providing space and opportunities for artists of color amid racial segregation and the mass defunding of community arts centers after WWII.⁠ ⁠ 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 & 𝑷𝒖𝒍𝒍’𝒔 Chicago iteration will feature a supplementary exhibition with prints and archival materials that trace the city’s historical parallels to the Workshop, underscoring the artistic ecosystems Black artists developed in the mid-twentieth century and their impact today.⁠ ⁠ Congratulations to all our fellow #TeigerFoundation grantees!⁠

Catherine Lyu (@cath3rine_lv ) is a Chinese artist currently based in Chicago. She is a multidisciplinary artist, and her practice explores languages as words, images, and objects. She uses bodily knowledge like memory, sensory, emotion, and thought process to guide her decisions in art making. Her works are attempts to treat language spatially, physically, and bodily.

Elias Mendel (@elimendel ) is a London-born, Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist who creates stop-motion animations, sculptures, drawings, prints, writing and performances. He deploys this multifaceted approach to investigate the intersection between dreams, roots, and the abyss, examining legibility, language, diaspora and belonging. These concerns have emerged from his investigation into a vast family history and archive that grapples with the aftermath of fascism and the Holocaust. Mendel engages with this history through mark-making as well as working with the archival, researching, cataloguing, and writing. Alongside his artistic practice, he has a workshop teaching practice, in which he leads arts, archival, and educational workshops. Mendel is completing his MFA at the University of Illinois Chicago, and studied history and politics at the University of Manchester. He spent a year in Berlin after receiving the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. The Letters to Yesterday memorial project was developed there and was exhibited as part of the Casablanca Art Biennale (2021), shortlisted for the John Ruskin Art Prize in London (2023), and exhibited during his first solo exhibition at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre (2022). Since then, he has exhibited in New York, Chicago, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Berlin and London.

Rescheduled- STAY TUNED For date. Second performance announced! Join us for UIC MFA candidate @erinelizlynch ’s performance activation “Holding Pattern (after “Cowpoke,” 1951)”. A live vocal performance set within the installation using real-time processing, the voice is looped, shifted, and fed back, producing layers that drift out of sync with themselves. The performance draws on the Western song “Cowpoke” (1951) as a working score. Phrases repeat and degrade through accumulation, staging a failure to pass, a failure to coalesce into the legible. The voice hovers between independence and echo, bending impossible octaves and channeling the uncanny persistence of nostalgic mythology.

Billy Tucker (b. 1980) I grew up in poverty and still struggle with connection to place. While researching the Eisenhower Expressway I’ve learned how its site embodies displacement and warmth in its material lessons through observation, collaboration, and curiosity.

Erin E. Lynch (b. 1996, Chicago, IL) is an artist and filmmaker working across 16mm film, sound, installation, and text. Drawing on film history, camp aesthetics, and psychoanalysis, she approaches genre cinema as a public archive to be translated and skewed, where the uncanny stages new configurations of desire and collective life. She was named a 2025 Artist To Watch by Comfort Station (Chicago, IL).  @erinelizlynch |

Michael Cunningham (born 1982 in Long Beach, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, traveler, chef, musician and educator based in Chicago, IL. His works are meditations on the concept of home, both as a place of dwelling and a site of loss and longing. His sound-based sculptures and performances reveal the potential and aesthetic value of play through collaborative practices. @michael.t.cunningham