Daywatch: Intuit Art Museum has its big reopening

Chicago Tribune

29-05-2025

Good morning, Chicago.
Where most museums would open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Intuit Art Museum, following a landmark $10 million renovation, reopened to the public recently with a ribbon-tying.
Public officials and other guests turned to their neighbors and connected the ends of their ribbon scraps to create a long, interconnected artwork that will remain in the museum's collection.
It was an apt way to ring in a new chapter for this West Town institution. Since its founding in 1991, the museum has collected work by self-taught artists, often called 'outsider art.' Before that, it was called 'art brut' or 'primitive art.'
But all those terms are — forgive the pun — on the outs. After receiving a transformative grant from the city's Department of Planning and Development to refurbish its space, Intuit took its facelift as an opportunity to rebrand. What was formerly 'Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art' now avoids the divisive 'outsider' terminology to simply become 'Intuit Art Museum.' It has a catchy acronym to boot: IAM, pronounced 'I am.'
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