CHICAGO. Veteran artists have taken over several of the city’s galleries this fall for the 2026 Veteran Art Triennial, a multi-venue project built around one question: what does creative resistance to war look like when the people making it have served?
The main exhibition, “Creative Rebellion: Resisting the Long War,” opened October 2 at the Chicago Cultural Center and runs through March 7, 2027. The emerging Veteran Art Movement organized it as part of Handwork 2026, presented by Craft in America. The work covers fiber, metal, paper, wood, and mixed media. Two pieces named in the listing are Gregory Rick’s painting From Manila to Baghdad (2023) and Charlie Reynolds’s sculpture Dress Blues (2025).
A second chapter, “Resisting the Long Wars: Shifting Horizons,” opens October 24 at Hyde Park Art Center. Its curators are Aaron Hughes, Mohamed Mehdi, Meranda Roberts, and Amber Zora. According to Chicago Gallery News, the chapter looks at land, migration, and decolonization, and asks how borders shape experience and how people move through systems of control. The listing cites Frantz Fanon and Harsha Walia as influences. Walls Turned Sideways hosts a third show, “War Abolition,” from October 29 to February 25, 2027. The Veteran Art Summit on November 8 includes a reception at the Cultural Center.
The triennial departs from the recovery-and-reintegration framing that shapes most veteran arts coverage, including this year’s National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. Here the work is critique first.
Sources: handwork2026.org event page; Chicago Gallery News listing for the Hyde Park Art Center chapter.
