City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago
Jul 05, 2025 - May 31, 2026

Sylvia Neil & Daniel Fischel Galleries
A grey rectangle covers the eyes and noses of two people with dark-brown skin kissing
A mannequin form, but the top half consists of a large floral arrangement
Drawing of two people with light, cream-toned skin facing in either direction against a blue background that fades vertically. Both wear bird-like masks, one green and one red.
Dark illustration of a silhouette holding a large item in their left hand against a background of blue abstract waves and fern-like plants
A grey rectangle covers the eyes and noses of two people with dark-brown skin kissing
A mannequin form, but the top half consists of a large floral arrangement
Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2008. Mixed media with mannequin; 100 x 25 x 14 in. (254 x 63.5 x 35.6 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Promised gift of Marilyn and Larry Fields, PG2023.21. Photo: James Prinz.
A mannequin form, but the top half consists of a large floral arrangement
Drawing of two people with light, cream-toned skin facing in either direction against a blue background that fades vertically. Both wear bird-like masks, one green and one red.
Dark illustration of a silhouette holding a large item in their left hand against a background of blue abstract waves and fern-like plants
A grey rectangle covers the eyes and noses of two people with dark-brown skin kissing
About the Exhibition

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago is an intergenerational group exhibition that highlights Chicago’s essential, yet often underacknowledged, role in the story of queer art and activism. The exhibition examines this history from the mid-1980s, when activists radically mobilized in response to the US government’s disastrous handling of the AIDS crisis. In this moment of change, activists reclaimed the historically pejorative epithet “queer” as a liberatory term, encompassing all who purposefully deviate from heteronormative society. Drawn from the MCA’s collection and other local collections, City in a Garden follows this paradigm shift in LGBTQ+ history by bringing together work from over 30 artists and collectives working in Chicago from the 1980s to the present.

These artists address queerness through diverse media and methods: documenting clandestine queer spaces in photographs, creating sculptures that challenge normative depictions of gender and sexuality, and exploring queer intimacy through drawings, paintings, and videos. City in a Garden also features archival materials related to groups who innovatively combine artistic practices with their activism. The exhibition takes its title from Chicago’s official motto, Urbs in Horto, which translates to “city in a garden.” In the context of this presentation, this motto speaks to the exhibited artists’ and activists’ utopian visions of a metropolitan sanctuary for people of all races, genders, and sexualities. As queer people continue to fight for their lives and livelihoods under ongoing and renewed political threats, these visions remain as urgent today as ever.

City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago is curated by Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator, with Korina Hernandez, Curatorial Assistant.

News: Two of my sculptures in the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago have been included in the exhibition:
Surrealism: The Conjured Life, Nov. 21, 2015 - June 5, 2016.
mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2015/Surreal…

Link to the Huffington Post review of the Surrealism: The Conjured Life exhibition: www.huffingtonpost.com/mutualart/surrea…

News:
In August 2014 the compilation: 70+ Chicago Visual Artist Oral History Archive (2010-2013) was donated to the archives of the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson and Burnham Libraries. These recordings feature interviews with 70 Chicago area artists discussing their art and careers. I was selected as one of the artists. These archival discs and the interviews were produced by Linda Lewis Kramer and Sandra Binion at the Experimental Sound Studio of Chicago.

I co-curated the exhibition, " From the Earth", with Carmen M. Perez for Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.

I co-juried with Beate Minkovski, Exec. Director of Woman Made Gallery, for a national exhibition, Equilibrium: Art for a Changing World. This exhibit coincides with the Womens Caucus for Art annual conference being held in Chicago in February this year.'Equilibrium' seeks to explore the tensions, demands and challenges inherent in living in a rapidly changing world.

EXHIBITION VENUE:
Woman Made Gallery
685 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642

DATES OF EXHIBITION
January 17 to February 27, 2014

I exhibited in SOFA Chicago Nov. 2-4 2012 as one of four artists representing Woman Made Gallery, Chicago.

I was interviewed and included in this YouTube video as part of the 20 year anniversary celebration at Woman Made Gallery, Chicago

Mary Stoppert participated in the new art expo, Miami [SOLO], in the Wynwood Design neighborhood of Miami, FL. in Dec. 2011. This was the inaugural year for Miami [SOLO] which is unique because it featured individual artists only, the only major expo of its kind taking place during Art Basel / Art Week. Miami [SOLO] joined Art Miami, Red Dot and Art Asia expos in the Design District.