Instagram story viewer> @tala.chicago> Posts

tala.chicago

@tala.chicago

5.7K

followers

0

following

𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 | Jesús Hilario-Reyes @morenxx_x
@minor.attractions 10/13-17 | @lolaogbara @rolandknow
@asianow 10/20-24 | @jon_cuyson

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

This is just the beginning 🕯️

Tala is not even 8 months old and yet so much has already blossomed for it as a gallery and gathering space. We could not be more grateful for every single artist, curator, DJ, musician, programmer, collaborator, photographer, contractor, architect, designer, guest, and friend who has poured into the vision being built from the ground up. Thank you 🙏🏼 we are honored to continue growing with you all for years to come.

Recap video by @what.theysay 🌟beautifully capturing our opening moments

📸 @natashamoustache slide 6-10, 13, 20
and too many lovely people to tag! by @tala.chicago

368

11

2 years ago

Welcome to Tala,

Tala is a gallery and contemporary art space in West Town located at 1644 W. Chicago whose architecture is imbued with places of gathering and rest as essential to expand the capacities of artists, writers, organizers, and curators to shape new realities.

Nearly a year in the making, Tala will be opening its doors on April 12th, 2024. Tala was brought to life by the talent, generosity, and love of Chicago creative community - and for that, we hold only endless gratitude:

Architect: @rolandknow
Interior design: @katieshinelee @mellljg
Fabrication and design: @bucksh, @serenajve, Sam Algas
Graphic design: Ashley King
Library support: @johnhguevara @chuquimarca.artlibrary @amandachristineharth @feltonkizer @drinkmondaycoffee @raveapproved
Design consultation and sound: @blesstonio
Communications: @aeh.tla
Photography: @prezpipe
Styling: @an.ika
Vision (and emotional) support: @camillegbacon @mister.ms
Fabrication Assistance: @talegaite
Painting Assistance: Cesar Diaz

And many more, whose words of encouragement were the necessary mirror to belief.

To new horizons!

With light,
Tala by @tala.chicago

1k

120

3 years ago

Jon Cuyson for Asia Now Paris

📍Booth R02
Cour des Remises
Monnaie de Paris
11 Quai de Conti

20–24 Oct 2026

Coinciding with Cuyson’s representation of the Philippines Pavilion at the 61st International Venice Biennale, as both a celebration and echo

Email Francine@talachicago.com for inquiries

@jon_cuyson @asianow taken in Monnaie de Paris by @tala.chicago

99

3

8 hours ago

We are thrilled to announce our participation in Asia Now presenting Jon Cuyson, coinciding with his representation of the Philippines Pavilion at the 61st International Venice Biennale

Asia NOW Paris
20–24 Oct 2026

Cour des Remises
Monnaie de Paris
11 Quai de Conti
 We are pleased to present 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘸𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘸: 𝘈 𝘚𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘴 by Filipino artist and filmmaker Jon Cuyson, accompanied by new body of intimate-scale paintings, extending the themes of Cuyson’s pavilion and celebrating its final weeks on view in Venice.

“Alingawngaw” is a Filipino term for echo, resonance, or reverberation. Filmed among the mussel farms of Bacoor, Cavite, along Manila Bay, 𝘚𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘴 develops through Cuyson’s framework of “Mussel Thinking”, a practice-based modality informed by filtering, clustering, attachment, and sedimentation. Harvesting, sorting, cleaning, and waiting become part of a meditation on maritime labor, ecological pressure, endurance, and the recurring movement of those who leave and return across the sea.

The accompanying paintings and small cast-resin sculpture extends the material and conceptual currents of the film and the Venice exhibition into a more intimate register. Cuyson focuses on their surfaces, evoking the constant shifting of the of sea itself - resin forms evoke shutters, vessel fragments, marine growth, and provisional habitats without resolving into a single fixed form.

Images: install images from the Philippines Pavilion

Email Francine@talachicago.com for inquiries

@asianow @jon_cuyson @labiennale taken in Monnaie de Paris by @tala.chicago

100

6

2 days ago

Thank you @theartjournal_magazine for highlighting our debut at @minor.attractions, amongst great company @galeriareus @mara_projects

Roland Knowlden Jr., and Lola Ayisha Ogbara
Room 113
October 13 - 17, 2026
The Newman Hotel
50 Newman St.

Inquiries to Francine@talachicago.com taken in The Newman by @tala.chicago

43

1

4 days ago

Roland Knowlden Jr. and Lola Ayisha Ogbara

On view at Minor Attractions, Room 113
October 13 - 17, 2026
The Newman Hotel
50 Newman St.

Roland Knowlden Jr.
𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝘷, 2026
leather mask, steel
16 x 35 x 25 cm

Lola Ayisha Ogbara
𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘯 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 #2 (𝘕00𝘥𝘻), 2020
Mounted polaroid image in
frosted matte black metal frame
30 x 41 cm

Roland Knowlden Jr.
Kiss, 2026
Film (approx. 3m, loop)

Lola Ayisha Ogbara
𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘺 𝘙𝘢𝘬𝘶 (𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦), 2026
Raku-fired ceramic stoneware
20 x 25 cm

Roland Knowlden Jr.
(𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥,&,𝘦𝘵) 𝘐𝘐:
𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 2026
Turnbuckle, steel wire, pendant, blackwood, oak, hardware, steel
42 x 72cm

Roland Knowlden Jr.
(𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥,&,𝘦𝘵) 𝘐:
𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 2026
Turnbuckle, steel wire, pendant, blackwood, oak, hardware, steel
25 x 33cm

Lola Ayisha Ogbara
𝘜𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘐𝘝 𝘙𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 #3,2021
Image transfer on porcelain
14 x 14 cm

Email Francine@talachicago.com for inquiries

@rolandknow @lolaogbara taken in The Newman by @tala.chicago

248

6

4 days ago

We are delighted to share that Lola Ayisha Ogbara and Roland Knowlden Jr.’s presentation has won Best International Booth at Minor Attractions
 📍Room 113
The Newman
50 Newman Street
Oct 13 - 17, 2026

Working across assemblage, ceramics, photography, and film, Ogbara and Knowlden meditate on the hotel room as a site of desire, intimacy, and echoes of love lost.

Ogbara is an artist interested in ‘cartographies of resistance’ through the exploration of personal, collective, and lost memories. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Ogbara utilizes the body form, as well as its absence, to contemplate the obscurities of remembering, looking/seeing, and laboring. Working at the intersections of land, body, and spirit, Ogbara moves between the past and present, theory and lived experience, archived histories and non-Western epistemologies, using diasporal ecologies as frameworks to imagine otherwise.

Knowlden’s sculptural works employ loops as forms of recursion, echoing James Baldwin’s aphorism in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦: “the law that we recognize when we say, Whatever goes up must come down.” Knowlden also draws on Baldwin’s 𝘎𝘪𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪’𝘴 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘮 as an emotional nexus for the rooms’ dimly lit interiors and its subtle, longing register through gestures. The textures of a kiss, the gaze behind the mask, the gravity of a lovers body lying across a bed.

Email Francine@talachicago.com for inquiries taken in The Newman by @tala.chicago

145

3

5 days ago

We are excited to announce our participation in Minor Attractions, presenting Lola Ayisha Ogbara and Roland Knowlden Jr.

Working across assemblage, ceramics, photography, and film, Ogbara and Knowlden propose the hotel room as a site of desire, remembrance, and echoes of love lost.

Oct 13 - 17, 2026
The Newman Hotel
50 Newman Street, Fitzrovia, London WIT 3EB

Visit us in Room 113, sharing the room with @harlesdenhighstreet presenting @savannahlmarie

RSVP linked in bio 🖇️

Image 1:
Roland Knowlden Jr.,
𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘺 (𝘨𝘪𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪), 2026
found and carved djembe, carved birch trunk, steel, cotton fabric
40 x 100 x 30 cm

Image 2:
Lola Ogbara
𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘺 𝘙𝘢𝘬𝘶 (𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦) 2024
Raku-fired ceramic stoneware
20 x 30 cm

DM or email Francine@talachicago.com for inquiries

@rolandknow @lolaogbara @minor.attractions taken in The Newman by @tala.chicago

214

10

7 days ago

Jesús Hilario-Reyes

𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦, 2026
Ink on Vellum
19.5 x 24.5 in

Not unlike the hurricane’s eye, Hilario-Reyes’s newest drawing series traces footwork as a modality of both evasion and enmeshment. Using dance notation as the written representation of movement, akin to musical score’s systems, the dance floor’s footfall becomes swirling marks across sheets of translucent vellum. Layered atop each other, accruing line after line, individuation disappears and legibility fades toward a collective motion.

𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 will be on view through November 21, during gallery hours Thurs - Sat, 1-6PM

Inquires DM or email to Francine@talachicago.com taken in Tala Chicago by @tala.chicago

425

13

7 days ago

Full exhibition documentation of Jesús Hilario-Reyes’s exhibition 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 is now online 🖇️

Accompanying the exhibition is a commissioned found poem, written, designed, and letter pressed by Stella Rae Binion (@stellastellaraerae). The scans of this poem can also be found on our website.

𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 will be on view through November 21, during gallery hours Thurs - Sat, 1-6PM

Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, Jesús Hilario-Reyes (San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an antidisciplinary artist with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master’s in Sculpture from Yale University. He is a recent recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship, Cultured Mag Young Artist List, L’Officiel Artist to Watch List, Drawing a Blank Artist Grant, the Leslie-Lohman Museum Fellowship, the Lighthouse Works Fellowship, and the Bemis Center Residency. Hilario-Reyes has exhibited and performed most notably at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Hauser & Wirth, Fonderie Darling, BOFFO Performance Festival, Frieze, e-flux, Gladstone Gallery, The Kitchen, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, BlackStar Film Festival, Mana Contemporary, Parasol Unit, and many more. Primarily rooted in sculpture, Hilario-Reyes works at the intersection of sonic performance, land installation, and expanded cinema. His practice explores the im/possibility of the Black body and its entanglement with photographic optics. Guided by a sustained interest in fugitivity, particularly as it relates to Black subjecthood, his practice reckons with the spectrum of visibility, contemplating the carcerality of light and the freedom of darkness. Drawing from DJ culture, nightlife, atmospherics, and sound-system technologies, his work considers how collective movement, darkness, and sensory distortion can become sites of embodiment, refusal, and transcendence.

Inquires DM or email to Francine@talachicago.com taken in Tala Chicago by @tala.chicago

3

0

11 days ago

Join us on Thursday 10/8, 6:30-8:30PM for a curated reading room featuring selected texts from Isabel Padilla Bonelli’s book collection, presented in response to Jesus Hilario-Reyes’s work in 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴

“𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥, 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘥, 𝘯𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤.”
(Toni Morrison)

The presentation “In Response To” delves into a research process that uses another artist’s work as its initial point of departure. Allowing guests to puruse a selection of texts, personal archives/photographs, and memories, the presentation will follow Isabel’s own inquiries into how we make home and negotiate the self across different spaces, while connecting these to Reyes’s practice through questions of “what makes people move? How can a source material be a somatic?” JULLS (@projectjulls) will provide sounds to accompany the event as a further sonic response to both Jesús and Isabel practice.

The selected titles respond to themes of queering Afro-diasporic religions, as well as the relationship between atmospheric and environmental conditions and the way our bodies move through/within the domestic and club space as Black Caribbeans.

Guests are invited to take notes and make their own scans as an entry point into their own research inspirations. Drawing on Isabel’s professional experience in libraries and archives, this event considers how informal spaces of research and inspiration from the everyday can become resources for knowledge production.

RSVP to attend, link in bio 🖇️ taken in Tala Chicago by @tala.chicago

216

6

14 days ago

Jesus Hilario-Reyes

𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 2026
Mahogany Display Case, Two Chauvet Dj Hurricane 1200s, Perfect Storm 2.0, Light Bulbs

How does one score an impossible site? In his newest series of drawings and sculpture, this proposition is staged. Hilario-Reyes utilizes the lilting language of dance notation to materialize a mangrove-like entanglement across his drawing works: a cloud of markings strewn across layers of translucent vellum, mapping the imagined movements of dancers into abstract forms. Fog swirls in a mahogany vitrine, filling and emptying in a perennial fall towards disappearance; its own ability to be contained a paradoxical ephemera. As if standing amidst the cacophony of the hurricane itself, Hilario-Reyes’s works recall Gwendolyn Brooks final injunction in her poem, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥: “It is lonesome, yes / For we are the last of the loud. Nevertheless, live / Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.” And in fallenness, freedom arises in the erasure of a singular intactness, unintelligibilty welcomes us in

𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘴 will be on view through November 21, during gallery hours Thurs - Sat, 1-6PM taken in Tala Chicago by @tala.chicago

751

24

17 days ago