Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years
July 10 - October 11, 2026
Curator-led Exhibition Walkthrough with Jenny Harris
Saturday, September 19th
11AM
Register
(Space is limited, RSVP required)
Pope.L, Gray People Gas Flick, 2014. Oil and acrylic on paper, 10 1/2 x 9 1/8 inches. Private Collection. © the Estate of Pope.L
Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years charts a provisional history of art made during the years of the Obama presidency—a period marked as much by continuity as by change. Comprising nearly forty works by a multigenerational group of artists, it centers on artistic practices that gained relevance for the ways they engaged self-reflexively with their historical moment. Stylistically varied, these artworks have been assembled for the ways they offer distinct perspectives on the shared circumstances in which they were made. While some address specific political events, the majority evoke their political context more obliquely, highlighting a set of overlapping social, technological, and aesthetic concerns that shaped the art of this era.
The exhibition’s title, Longer Than the Sky, comes from James Baldwin’s 1957 short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” and evokes the intermingling of optimism and despair that defined the period between 2008 and 2016. The story concludes when the younger of two brothers performs a stirring rendition of the blues, an event that carries the fleeting glimmer of hopefulness, even freedom. “I was yet aware that this was only a moment,” the narrator subsequently reflects, “that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky.”
Opened in 2012 at the height of the Obama years, the Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts is part of this history. Through its exhibitions and programs, the Logan Center has played a key role in supporting artistic communities on the South Side of Chicago where Barack Obama launched his political career. In keeping with this context, Longer Than the Sky situates the work of several Chicago-based artists within broader conversations about global contemporary art.
Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Jenny Harris, doctoral candidate in Art History at the University of Chicago. The Logan Center is pleased to partner with the Obama Presidential Center on related programs that will take place during the exhibition. Exhibition-related programs will be developed in partnership with Dorian Sylvain, an artist and curator who has frequently partnered with the Logan Center and was commissioned by The Obama Foundation to develop a collaborative site-specific mural at the Obama Presidential Center’s Home Court. Exhibition and programming support has been provided by the Ng Family Visiting Artist Fund, the Revada Foundation, and Friends of the Logan Center.
ARTISTS
Biographies written by Avivit Ashman, B.A.‘27
DIGITAL CONTENT
Installation views of Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years," July 10 - October 11, 2026, Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts. Image courtesy of Logan Center Exhibitions. Photograph by Travis Roozée.
PROGRAMMING
Opening Celebration
Saturday, July 11th
2-4PM
Curator-led Exhibition Walkthrough with Jenny Harris
Sunday, July 19th
2PM
Curator-led Exhibition Walkthrough with Jenny Harris
Saturday, September 19th
11AM
Register (Space is limited, RSVP required)
In conjunction with Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years, visitors are invited to explore two satellite programs opening in the fall of 2026:
CWAC Exhibitions will present an exhibition, doing our literal speed, curated by Cole Gruber and Hannah Michelle Ivanov. Built around a local collection of art-adjacent artifacts produced during the “Obama Years,” this small exhibition offers a necessarily—and inescapably—opaque window out onto the wide world of Our Literal Speed, an art-and-text undertaking based in Selma, Alabama, since 2006.
Sept 18 - Oct 9, 2026 | Cochrane-Woods Art Center, 1st and 2nd floors
Learn More about doing our literal speed
Doc Films will present the series, "There is No Center: Screening the Obama Era," organized by Avivit Ashman (B.A. '27). The series pairs commercial and experimental films made from 2009-17 that reflect the era's hopes, concerns and anxieties and will run on Sundays from October 4 to November 1.
Louise Lawler, No Drones (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times), 2010/2011/2022 [as adjusted for the exhibition Longer Than the Sky: Art of the Obama Years, 2026]. Adhesive wall material, dimensions variable to match proportions of a given wall at any scale determined by exhibitor. Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers.