The Obamalisk

by Margaret Hawkins

Obama Center, Chicago, Illinois

July 2, 2026

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, “The Obamas: Springing Forth,” 2026, acrylic, colored pencils, charcoal, and transfers on paper, 9 x 10'. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. Commissioned by The Obama Foundation. Photo: Marten Elder.

Five days after CNN aired the dazzling opening ceremony of the Obama Center I went to see the place. I’d gorged on every televised minute — the moving speeches, Christina Aguilera’s blazing rendition of “What a Wonderful World,” the fascinating dynamics of the ex-presidents and their wives. Watching all this was like drinking fresh water in a desert. We in Chicago have been anticipating this opening for years. We’ve followed the details, carped about the cost, argued about where it should be and what it should look like and what its impact on the surrounding neighborhood will be. The jury is out on that last matter.

Some people have described the Center’s architecture as a crashed spaceship. It’s Chicago; we have to take our landmarks down a peg before we get used to them. As Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” became better known as “The Bean,” so the Obama Center is now the Obamalisk.

Maya Lin, “Seeing Through the Universe,” 2025. All artworks courtesy of, commissioned by and on view at the Obama Center.

Despite all the buildup, I wasn’t fully prepared for how moved I was by the actual place, the physical experience of being there. It’s gorgeous, not just beautiful but welcoming, inclusive, expansive, both soothing (psychologically) and exciting (intellectually, aesthetically). Each building stands free enough to view individually, yet close enough to form a campus without challenging most walkers. Trees, gardens, buildings, and open fields intertwine with wide sloping paths paved in stone colored in subtle, calming grays. Gently inclining walkways lead to a rooftop vegetable garden that offers views of the city, although you may be more interested in the fresh crop of Swiss chard. Nothing is roped off. There are no don’t-touch signs. No alarms go off if you get too close. I hate to say it, lest someone take advantage, but I didn’t see any guards.

Even the parking garage feels welcoming and easy to use. It’s roomier than most, not claustrophobic. Simply put, the place is people friendly. Except for the museum, the restaurant, and the garage, it’s all free. Just show up and enjoy. Barbecue grills await.

What’s going a little under the radar, though, is that the place is very much a public art venue as well. It goes way beyond celebrating the family it’s named for. Here, culture and values are inextricable. The commissioned art on view, both indoors and out, is the living expression of what Obama has long advanced — freedom, hope, and the elevating power of culture to open minds.

Alison Saar, “Torch Song,” 2026, bronze. Courtesy of Alison Saar.

I hadn’t realized how important visual art is to this project until I saw it firsthand. It’s not just the usual portraits. There are some of those — whole families lined up to be photographed with Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s double portrait of the Obamas, “The Obamas: Springing Forth,” in The Forum. But here, art isn’t just an illustration of historical events and famous people. Aesthetics have a place at the table, and art speaks for itself in its own mysterious language.

Here are my four favorite artworks at the Obama Center:

Maya Lin, “Seeing Through the Universe”

Two 10,000-pound granite elements combine stone and water in a symbolic symbiosis that evokes the Obamas’ dynamic relationship but could refer to any cohesion of opposites. The horizontal stone functions as a fountain while the upright lopsided donut exudes a mist that forms a transforming lens at its empty center. Things look different when viewed through it. While I was there a tall dog drank peacefully from this elegant burbling fountain with no intervention from the guards. The dog’s enjoyment enhanced everyone’s.

Alison Saar, “Torch Song” Alison Saar

Saar’s sculpture of a single female figure overlooking the Women’s Garden is made of blue green patinated bronze that calls to mind both the Statue of Liberty and generations of Black female vocalists. She holds a torch in the palm of her left hand and wears two bandoliers of piano keys rather than bullet cartridges.

Nekisha Durrett, “The Hem of Heaven,” still from video.

Nekisha Durrett, “The Hem of Heaven”

Durrett’s multi-story sculpture of interwoven ceramic tiles references Harriet Tubman’s protective shawl and her heroism in freeing over seventy enslaved people under the cloak of night. Viewable from the Obamalisk in sections through windows on several stories, it adds to the meaning of the word ‘underground’ in underground railroad.

Aliza Nisenbaum, “Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures,” along with the Chicago Public Library branch in which it resides, with a special call-out to The President’s Reading Room.

My most emotionally piercing moment at the Obama Center was walking into the library, where Chicagoans were standing in line to check out books. And not just books about and by the Obamas, but the kind of books public libraries still carry all over this country: bestsellers, kids’ books, serious fiction. Yes, reader, they had literary fiction there, full of all the dark thoughts and imaginative detours and politically incorrect musings available to mankind. This deeply touched my writer’s heart. Nothing has the potential to counter narrow-mindedness like fiction. Presiding over this scene is Nisenbaum’s room-length mural depicting a single day in a library. Beneath it real life was zipping along. It was crowded!

Aliza Nisenbaum, “Reading Circles/Weaving Dreams/Seeding Futures.”

Adjacent is what I regard as the crown jewel of the Obama Center, the quieter President’s Reading Room. This book-lined study is stocked with titles chosen by Michelle and Barack. Strangers were sitting around a big table together, reading. The shelves are full of not just history and biography, but poetry and fiction, and not necessarily of the sanitized variety. I caught sight of a collection of stories by Alice Munro, the Nobel Prize-winning author recently canceled by some bookstores following the 2024 revelations of the decades-long cover-up of Munro’s second husband’s sexual abuse of the youngest daughter from her first marriage. But nothing censorial here.

This is the American spirit of freedom in full bloom. Bill Maher did a riff on the Obama Center right after it opened in which he made the arguable point that too much money was spent and we didn’t need a three-quarter-of-a-billion-dollar park to remind us of the values embodied by Obama’s administration. That money would be better spent helping the people who elected him, he argued. I understand the spirit of his complaint, but he hadn’t been there yet. The physical experience of being in the space filled with people, in the middle of the city, surrounded by art and books and nature, all free and open to the public is, well, priceless.

Margaret Hawkins is a writer, critic and educator. Her books include “Lydia’s Party” (2015), “How We Got Barb Back” (2011) a memoir about family mental illness, and others. She wrote a column about art for the Chicago Sun-Times, was Chicago correspondent for ARTnews, and has written for a number of other publications including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Art & Antiques and Fabrik. She teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Loyola University.

Visit Margaret Hawkins’ website.