Dreihaus: The Poor, The Rich, & The Ghosts

"A Tale of Today: Materialities" delves into the lifestyles and cultural values of Chicago's elite, examining their relationship to luxury, memory, and consumption. Contrasting the narratives of laborers, the exhibition also explores the lives of Chicago's affluent class, who reaped the benefits of industrialization.

Bobbi Meier | Decorum, 2024
Bobbi Meier's Decorum draws from classical Greco-Roman statuary to critique how wealth has historically defined and confined standards of beauty and femininity. By distorting and abstracting familiar forms, Meier challenges the idealized and patriarchal notions embedded in Victorian aesthetics, especially in spaces like the Nickerson Mansion where such ideals were celebrated.

Luftwerk (Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero) | Konstellation, 2024
Luftwerk's Konstellation is a luminous installation made of inverted Edison bulbs, referencing the introduction of electricity in elite homes at the turn of the century. The chandelier not only showcases early technological sophistication but also draws poetic parallels between domestic light and constellations, emphasizing how wealth was linked to both innovation and a sense of divine aspiration. The Edison bulbs also symbolize the flow of wealth and the illumination of privilege within these grand spaces.

Barbara Cooper | Unbound, 2024
Barbara Cooper's Unbound presents a series of unreadable books, their closed forms suggesting stories and histories lost to time. These symbolic volumes reference the personal and cultural wealth preserved behind mansion walls, reminding viewers that many narratives of the upper class remain private and inaccessible, forever bound within the architecture of privilege.

Beth Lipman | Sphenophyllum and Chains, 2019
Beth Lipman's Sphenophyllum and Chains intertwines botanical forms with glass, alluding to the entanglement of nature and industry in the pursuit of luxury. The installation uses glass to evoke extinct plant forms, marrying organic delicacy with industrial technique. The work invites reflection on the fragility of ecosystems disrupted by industrial progress and the role of wealth in preserving—and sometimes destroying—nature’s legacy.

Rebecca Beachy | Mercury’s Hearth: Coal, Electricity, Fire and Industry, 2024
Rebecca Beachy's Mercury’s Hearth: Coal, Electricity, Fire and Industry reimagines a coal hod as a globe adorned with a star map of the night of the Great Chicago Fire. Situated near copper cones evoking the blaze itself, the installation connects the mansion’s post-fire rebuilding to the broader narrative of industrialization, environmental cost, and human ambition driven by progress.
Across the room from the installation, on the bookshelf, are a collection of small copper cones—which could nod to and represent the fire that ravaged the Nickerson Mansion during the Chicago Fire.