Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures
Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures
Aliza Nisenbaum
Aliza Nisenbaum
Aliza Nisenbaum’s (2024 Creative Capital Awardee) Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures is a 70-foot mural for the Obama Presidential Center Library that brings together readers, writers, and symbols of learning and discovery. Textiles weave throughout the work, connecting books to growth, discovery, and gathering. Figures including James Baldwin, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Walt Whitman appear alongside everyday readers. References to Chicago, art, science, and President Obama’s words further animate the mural, reflecting the knowledge, imagination, and exchange that libraries make possible.
Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures was unveiled on June 18, 2026 at the Obama Presidential Center.
Painting & Printmaking, Visual Arts
2024
About Aliza Nisenbaum
New York City
Aliza Nisenbaum received the Creative Capital Award in 2024. Born in Mexico City, Nisenbaum makes portrait paintings that are the manifestation of exchanges with her subjects that take place over time. Collaborating with distinct communities, she employs the focused attention of observational painting to create the conditions for close-looking. Distinct social groups are at the foreground of her work, including immigrant communities, dancers, opera theater performers, members of grassroot organizations, subway, airport, and health workers. Her lengthy engagement with her subjects allows her to understand their histories and dignity beyond the space of portraiture. Recent Solo exhibitions: MET Opera (2023-2024); Queens Museum (2023); LaGuardia Airport (2022); Tate Liverpool, Kemper Museum of Art (2021); Art on the Underground Commission, London and Anton Kern gallery, NY (2019). Notable group exhibitions: Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (April 2023); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2020); Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil (2020); The Whitney Biennial, New York (2017); XV Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial, Mexico City (2012). Her work is found in collections including the Tate, The Art Institute of Chicago, The ICA Boston, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Kemper Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. From 2015 until 2021, she served as Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and Director of Graduate Studies at Columbia University School of the Arts.
Aliza Nisenbaum received the Creative Capital Award in 2024. Born in Mexico City, Nisenbaum makes portrait paintings that are the manifestation of exchanges with her subjects that take place over time. Collaborating with distinct communities, she employs the focused attention of observational painting to create the conditions for close-looking. Distinct social groups are at the foreground of her work, including immigrant communities, dancers, opera theater performers, members of grassroot organizations, subway, airport, and health workers. Her lengthy engagement with her subjects allows her to understand their histories and dignity beyond the space of portraiture. Recent Solo exhibitions: MET Opera (2023-2024); Queens Museum (2023); LaGuardia Airport (2022); Tate Liverpool, Kemper Museum of Art (2021); Art on the Underground Commission, London and Anton Kern gallery, NY (2019). Notable group exhibitions: Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (April 2023); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2020); Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil (2020); The Whitney Biennial, New York (2017); XV Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial, Mexico City (2012). Her work is found in collections including the Tate, The Art Institute of Chicago, The ICA Boston, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Kemper Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. From 2015 until 2021, she served as Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and Director of Graduate Studies at Columbia University School of the Arts.