A Tale of Today: Materialities
February 7, 2025 to April 27, 2025
Presented by Driehaus Museum

“The Driehaus Museum is characterized by a rich history and an impressive wealth of architectural styles. The site of the Museum, the Gilded Age-era Samuel Nickerson Mansion, offers a rare opportunity to map important and often overlooked histories and genealogies. While the unique design and architecture of the Mansion have been documented and studied, A Tale of Today: Materialities proposes to investigate more deeply the materials that comprise the very fabric of the building.

“The materialities of objects and architectural features can link past to present histories in original and compelling ways. They connect different cultures and define cultural boundaries. Never inert, materials are inherently political. They are active participants in the ongoing negotiations that build our present and define our futures. There is a new prominence of materiality in art and it is a clear manifestation of our growing awareness that humans no longer are the undisputed centers of everything and that our world is the result of collaborative processes with other living and non-living, human and more-than-human agents.

“Materialities invites artists to select a specific material from the Driehaus Museum to engage in a new materialist dialogue with it. In conversation with guest curator Dr. Giovanni Aloi, the artists will research the histories of their chosen material to produce an engaged, critically aware, integrated response designed to uncover hidden cultural, historical, and ecological networks that bind”