The Hyde Park Art Center’s two-story main gallery filled with fluttering pink, yellow, red, green and blue confetti on Friday night as a jubilant crowd of gala goers celebrated good news — the center had raised beyond its goal of $85,000 in pledges that evening. Combined with pre-gala pledges, HPAC leaders say, the total raised by the center during its 85th anniversary amounts to more than $458,000.

Many of the HPAC’s s programs were touted during the gala, including its individual artist and group shows, as well as residencies for Chicago artists, curators and international artists. There was also much talk of its after-school and summer programs that serve hundreds of teens each year, and its in-school Pathways program that serves more than 1,000 elementary school students each week. But it was the Open Arts initiative that drew the deepest applause by the crowd.

Open Arts is a contribute-what-you-can model for the center’s art classes that began in 2022. In April of this year, the center announced that its Oakman Clinton School and Studio had become the nation’s first fully contribute-what-you-can, all-ages visual arts school.

Poet, arts educator and mutual aid advocate Saleem Hue Penny praised the Open Arts initiative for creating accessible and welcoming pathways to the arts on the South Side. He related an account of his mother’s “formal artistic story” in rural South Carolina. There, she was given encouragement by Black teachers and mentors who themselves were “navigating systemic racism, inequitable funding and a slew of filibustered culture wars.”

When his mother and other Black students transitioned into integrated schools, Penny said they were faced with statements such as “Y’all aren’t artists.” But his mother was perseverant, even getting her own children into arts and music programs with the help of scholarships.

“Open Arts is a non-punitive, dignified, trust-based system where pay-what-you-can is simply that, no strings attached,” Penny concluded. “And that approach ensures that the creative process can be boundless, not rooted in guilt or shame.”

The gala also celebrated the tenure of exhibitions director Allison Peters Quinn, who, after two decades with the center, is stepping down to take the role as executive director and chief curator of the Elmhurst Art Museum in the western suburbs. Her last major curatorial effort was the highly celebrated show, “The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige” that ran through October of this year. 

“When I started 20 years ago, the art center stood at the crossroads of tradition and reinvention,” Peters Quinn said. “Our mission was simple yet profound, ‘to provide Chicago artists a space for experimentation and dialog through contemporary art.’”

Over the years, she continued, the art center has cultivated a “dynamic ecosystem” where contemporary artists and the community intersect.

“From risk taking, exhibitions and artists residencies to talks, performances and radical education initiatives like open arts, Hyde Park Art Center has created a unique platform for artistic expression that spans generations, mediums, identities and economic status,” she said.

Peters Quinn also announced that Maria Acuña, the current manager of exhibitions and residency at the art center, who stood with her at the dais, will take over as the center’s director of exhibitions and residency.

“Every day, (Acuña)  demonstrates care for artists, dedicated support to her colleagues and a strong commitment to innovation and equitable practices,” Peters Quinn said. “I cannot wait to see her shape the program and move it forward in outstanding ways.” 

With a wavering voice, Acuña leaned into the microphone and said, “It’s kind of silly to follow Allison’s shoes. But I will give it real love.”

Acuña will oversee the art center’s 2025 exhibitions, including solo exhibitions of four Chicago-based women artists – Cecilia Beaven, Farah Salem, Yasmin Spiro and Vesna Jovanovic – exploring physical, social, and spiritual relationships to the built and natural environments.

“For me, this is a dream job, and a big part of why it is a dream job is that Allison’s vision and hard work have transformed our programs into some of the most impactful programs anywhere when it comes to supporting artists,” Acuña said. “I look forward to continue to deepen our capacity to support artists in ways that are really only possible here.”