21c MUSEUM HOTEL CHICAGO
The Art of Now
A reset in cultural engagement, 21c Chicago's museum hotel offers extraordinary art from world-renowned contemporary artists, free and open to the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Let curiosity take the lead and discover a beautifully curated experience with every stay.
Truth or Dare
Truth or Dare: A Reality Show at 21c Chicago challenges perceptions, exploring the blurred lines between truth and fiction through contemporary art.
Highlighting uncertainty and contradiction, the artworks featured in the exhibition emphasize the importance of questioning both knowledge and belief by utilizing illusion to entice, entertain, and explore the terrain between fact and fiction, presence and absence, reality and imagination. The suspension of disbelief is invoked in artworks that simulate games, maps, and tricks of the eye and hand — not to deceive but to engage and connect.
Featuring painting, photography, video, and site-specific installation, Truth or Dare speaks truth to power through unconventional, often playful juxtapositions of imagery and materials.
Rm. 921: Willea Zwey
Projected onto a 48-foot wall, Et Sic Videmus is only viewable after dusk and from the windows of 21c Chicago guest rooms with interior-facing windows. Designed to showcase immersive and experiential moving-image work in response to the unique space, Elevate: Rm 921 addresses complex issues that shape our diverse and rapidly changing world.
Et Sic Videmus (And Thus We See) is a video installation that consists of multiple clips capturing the intersections of Chicago’s natural and built environments, with water as a central element. Formed by nature yet embedded in the city’s infrastructure, water shapes and is shaped by its surroundings—flowing through riverways, lakefronts, and engineered channels. Its fluidity mirrors the project’s core themes of ambiguity, transformation, and the tension between control and spontaneity.
Willea Zwey is a multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago, whose work blends architectural precision with imaginative storytelling.
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Unison
On view from February through April in Gallery 3.
Unison is Mayumi Lake’s ongoing series of immersive mixed-media installations, sculptures, and photographic collages. The central motif of this series is Housouge, an ancient Japanese imaginary flower believed to bloom in paradise, symbolizing the delicate border between life and death. These intricate floral patterns have been passed down through Asian history and are prominently featured in sacred spaces, embodying hope within the cyclical nature of life.
During periods of social unrest - such as natural disasters, epidemics, and political upheaval - Housouge patterns historically became more large, vivid and saturated, reflecting resilience and a collective yearning for harmony. In today’s world, where the present often feels intertwined with echoes of the past, Lake’s Housouge-inspired” Unison” seeks to illuminate moments of optimism and hope amidst the turbulence of contemporary society.
Mayumi Lake(opens in new window) (b. Osaka, Japan) is a Chicago-based artist.
Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the communities surrounding each 21c Museum Hotel. Elevate provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.
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Horsepower
Natalie Clare is a Chicago-based painter who practices her craft as (sub)urban warrior, creating murals in public and private spaces in cities across the U.S. Describing the inspiration behind the work she painted at 21c Chicago, the artist says: “Horsepower, 2023 is a mural depicting horses in a slightly abstracted way. Horses are powerful animals at the peak of athleticism and strength in the animal kingdom. The animal/human connection is very strong and nature also produces endorphins, as does physical activity. The crossover is cerebral and meant to brighten the space and bring that same feeling that interacting with nature and animals does in an urban environment removed from those things.” Learn more here.
Wallworks by Nick Cave and Bob Faust
As a way to bring the energy and impetus of Nick Cave’s artwork outside of traditional museum walls, Cave, in collaboration with his design partner Bob Faust, have created nine unique patterns that pair in various ways to result in sixteen floors of Wallworks, installed in the elevator lobbies on floors 2-17.
A Peek at Truth or Dare
