The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago has launched a new exhibit called "Calling on the Past: Selections from the Collection," which runs until Feb. 4, 2024. 

The exhibit showcases recent acquisitions and highlights the depth and variety of the museum's collection, the Smart Museum of Art said in a release. 

“'Calling on the Past' offers a compelling selection of artworks from the Smart Museum’s collection,” Vanja V. Malloy, Dana Feitler director at the museum, said in the release. “These pairings – of old and new, time and place, color and form, familiar and unfamiliar – showcase the collection as a dynamic resource for reflection and conversation across fields of study.” 

The exhibit is influenced by the ideas of art historian George Kubler's book, "The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things" (1962), which suggests that the art of the past is continuously engaging with the present. The exhibition features works from various artists, including Auguste Rodin, Luca Cambiaso, Léon-Augustin Lhermitte, Ivy Haldeman, Whitfield Lovell and many more, the museum release said.

“'Calling on the Past' is an invitation to experience the Smart’s collection anew,” Jennifer Carty, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, said in the release. “The show borrows its title from a 2018 painting by the artist Amir H. Fallah that raises questions about portraiture and the historical systems used to identify and represent ourselves. In a similar vein, this exhibition seeks to shake up standard approaches to permanent collection displays while inviting new readings and narratives.”

The Smart Museum will hold a special reception at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11, to celebrate the exhibition. The event will be open to the public, and attendees can participate in a curator-led walkthrough, gallery talks, and performances by puppetry artist Samuel J. Lewis II and poet Audrey Petty, according to the release.