An Inside Look at Art and Connection at the Obama Presidential Center

(WASHINGTON) — When the Obama Presidential Center opens on June 19, 2026, visitors will encounter a contemporary art program shaped by a woman who believes art is about creating connections. Virginia Shore, the Obama Presidential Center’s Curator of Art Commissions, has helped organize works designed to spark dialogue, reflection, and understanding across differences. 

“Art is one of our most powerful universal languages,” says Shore. “It is a force capable of connecting people across differences and opening eyes to the issues that define our times.” That philosophy is woven throughout the Obama Presidential Center itself.

Shore is the founder of Shore Art Advisory and previously served for 24 years as Chief Curator and Acting Director at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Arts in Embassies. At the Obama Presidential Center, she has helped guide the selection and commissioning of works that will be featured throughout the site.

For artist Nick Cave, whose work “This Land, Shared Sky,” created in collaboration with Marie Watt, will be featured at the Center, Shore’s strength lies not only in her vision but in her instinct for pairing artists, spaces, and ideas. Cave told The Click that Shore is “a visionary pro” whose relationships with artists are genuine.

In a recent interview with The Click, Shore reflected on her curatorial philosophy, storytelling through visual art, collaborating with artists, and what she hopes visitors experience when they encounter the works for the first time.

The Click: How would you describe your curatorial philosophy?

Virginia Shore: I am committed to empowering living artists to create bold, meaningful work that speaks to questions of environment, race, gender, and identity, because I believe artists are a unique kind of ambassador. They inspire, challenge, and give voice to the full complexity of human experience.

At its core, my approach is about fostering dialogue, not just conversation about the work itself, but the larger conversations about life, society, and our shared humanity that great art makes possible. Whether through cultural diplomacy on a global stage or a single piece that transforms a public space into common ground, I curate with the conviction that art humanizes, connects, and has the quiet but profound power to shift the way we see the world and one another.

The Click: How do you approach storytelling through visual art in your work? 

Shore: For me, storytelling through visual art is less about dictating a narrative and more about creating the conditions for one to emerge. I look for works that carry multiple layers, pieces that can speak to the personal and the political, the local and the universal, all at once. I’m drawn to artists who approach their practice with a sense of purpose, and who use materials, form, scale, and imagery to express something about culture, history, or identity that couldn’t be said any other way.

Ultimately, I believe the most powerful visual stories are the ones that meet each viewer where they are, allowing for a deeply personal experience while also pointing toward something larger.

The Click: As a curator for the Department of State, Office of Art in Embassies, you have worked to coordinate art all over the world under all kinds of conditions. How has your curatorial approach evolved over the course of your career?

Shore: My focus was on American artists only. In the beginning, we curated loan exhibitions for the U.S. Ambassadorial residences in 180 countries. They called us “guerrilla curators” as we were curating 50-60 loaned exhibitions a year, working with 200-300 artists a year, with a team of 2-3 curators and a full team of 7.

Within a program that historically focused on white male artists, I prioritized women and artists from diverse backgrounds with emerging and established practices. AIE provided me with the opportunity to work with hundreds of artists, galleries, and institutions annually.

Regardless of location, a focus on place, space, and identity is key to building connection. As a curator for the Department of State, my approach became increasingly centered on building connections to place and community; drawing connections across cultural collections; collaborating with architects; and trusting my instincts to curate and commission monumental works for critical spaces.

The Click: When you first began working on the Obama Presidential Center, what guided your vision for the art program?

Shore: My vision was shaped by the understanding that the Obama Presidential Center is a reimagining of what a presidential library can be. It is a civic space rooted in the belief that ordinary people, working together, can effect extraordinary change, versus a repository of history. 

The art program was guided by this same ethos. It was important that the work not simply commemorate a presidency, but instead truly transforms and activates spaces, creating opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and participation. The goal was to foreground community as an integral part of the experience and to ensure that the art contributes to a broader environment that is inspirational, inclusive, and oriented toward hope, empowerment, and collective engagement.

The Click: How did you approach selecting art for a space that will be experienced by such a wide and diverse audience?

Shore: The approach centered on embracing plurality rather than trying to distill a single narrative. Because the Center will welcome an incredibly broad audience, it was essential to create an environment where multiple histories, cultural traditions, and ways of knowing can coexist. Public engagement was a key consideration, as was the idea that visitors should be able to see aspects of their own experiences reflected, while also encountering perspectives that expand their understanding of others.

Ultimately, the aim was to create a space where people feel both included and challenged, and where art can become a bridge between different communities and lived experiences.

The Click: What did you look for when choosing artists for this project?

Shore: A defining quality across all of the commissioned artists is a deep commitment to civic engagement. These are artists who understand their practice as connected to the world around them and who use the aesthetic experience as a means of social transformation. Their work engages history not as something distant, but as a lived and evolving experience. They are attentive to language, material, and form as carriers of meaning, and they consistently center voices and narratives that have been excluded from dominant histories.

Equally important was a shared belief in democracy as an ongoing, collective endeavor. One rooted in plurality, participation, and empowerment. Across diverse media and approaches, the selected artists reflect a vision of art as both ethically grounded and publicly resonant.

The Click: Did any themes emerge as you developed the collection?

Shore: Yes, several themes emerged organically through the process. One of the most prominent is the idea of history as something active and lived, rather than fixed or singular. Many of the works engage with layered histories and invite visitors to consider how those histories shape the present.

Another key theme is the power of community and collective action. This reflects the Obamas’ core belief in grassroots change and is echoed in works that emphasize collaboration, interdependence, and shared agency. There is also a strong focus on place, connecting through landscape, memory, and portraiture, bringing forward stories, perspectives, and forms of knowledge that have often been marginalized.

Together, these themes create a collection that encourages visitors to see themselves as participants in an ongoing democratic project.

The Click: When you are choosing or commissioning a piece, what tells you it will connect with people?

Shore: An important factor is whether the work creates space for reflection and dialogue. At the Obama Presidential Center, art is not meant to be passively consumed. The art should prompt questions, spark conversations, and encourage visitors to think about their own relationship to the themes being explored.

The Click: How did the site or architecture influence your choices? 

Shore: The site and architecture were deeply influential. The Center’s design evokes the coming together of four hands, and embodies ideas of unity, collaboration, and shared purpose. The art program responds directly to those themes.

Because the campus extends across a 19.3-acre landscape that includes both built and natural environments, it was important to think about how art would function across different contexts: indoors and outdoors, in moments of gathering, and in spaces of quiet reflection. The integration of a playground, athletic center, teaching kitchen, auditorium, recording studios, and even a branch of Chicago’s public library also reinforced the idea that art should be encountered as part of everyday life.

This led to an emphasis on site-specific responding to the whole campus, and also to the surrounding community on Chicago’s South Side. In this way, the art is not separate from the site. It is embedded within it, helping to shape how visitors move through and experience the Center as a whole. This led to two site-responsive works that successfully foreground each artist’s vision while also transforming the space into an immersive experience for viewers. 

Additionally, there were two key locations that were not obvious sites for art, but that I saw as critical for art commissions. One was the window wall on the north face of the Museum tower; the other was the soaring, angled, and complex atrium ceiling on the top level of the museum — referred to as the skyroom and understood to be the apex of the museum experience. 

Ultimately, these efforts culminated in the commissioning of Julie Mehretu’s first work in glass, Uprising of the Sun, and Idris Khan’s Sky of Hope, an immersive installation composed of stamped fragments of President Obama’s speech for the 50th Anniversary of the March on Selma (“Bloody Sunday”) cascading and reverberating down the apex of the museum tower.

The Click: What kind of experience do you hope visitors have when they encounter the art?

Shore: The hope is that each encounter with the art leaves visitors feeling inspired and empowered to recognize their own capacity to make a meaningful difference in their lives and in their communities.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.