Project Windows 2026: Art at Our Front Door

This summer, an original Cinque Smith installation transforms our front windows as The Emily joins Chicago's citywide Project Windows art contest.

Project Windows 2026 is a Chicago citywide storefront art contest, organized in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago, inviting local businesses to transform their storefront windows into artistic displays inspired by abstract art. This year's theme draws directly from the Art Institute's landmark summer exhibition, Willem de Kooning Drawing - the institution's first solo presentation of de Kooning's work in more than fifty years.

Windows debuted across the city on June 14, with public voting open through August 18 and an awards celebration on August 27. The Emily is proud to be among the participating businesses - and even prouder of what's now living in our windows.

As Artist-in-Residence at The Emily Hotel, Cinque Smith was commissioned to create an original work inspired by de Kooning's legacy of abstract expression and gestural freedom. That painting has been translated into a large-format perforated vinyl installation spanning four front entrance windows - bold, figurative, and unapologetically abstract.

The result is a work that doesn't wait to be found. It meets guests, neighbors, and passersby right at the front door, connecting The Emily to one of the most significant cultural moments in Chicago this year. As Smith sees it, the installation is a direct response to de Kooning's belief that drawing is fundamental to everything an artist does.

Cinque Smith is a self-taught, multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago, working within abstract realism to examine the human experience through visual storytelling. His practice positions the human figure as a site of spiritual, emotional, and cultural connection - influenced by illustration, film, and music, and rooted in the relationship between memory and embodiment.

Over the past decade, Smith has completed public art and large-scale mural projects across Chicago, New York, Madison, and Phoenix. His work has been featured in American Art Collector and continues to foster dialogue across diverse audiences through a sustained commitment to collective memory and shared experience. His newest body of work, debuting in 2026, marks an evolution in material exploration, color, and narrative restraint - works that privilege intimacy over spectacle and invite sustained looking.

Smith's residency at The Emily is part of Proof of Life, our 2026 art program exploring presence, memory, and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world.

Willem de Kooning Drawing is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago from June 14 through September 20, 2026. Spanning seven decades and more than 200 works, the exhibition positions drawing as the true foundation of de Kooning's boundary-breaking career - and represents the institution's most comprehensive look at his work in more than half a century.

De Kooning, a Dutch-American abstract expressionist born in Rotterdam, became one of the defining figures of the New York School and one of the best-known artists of the 20th century. His retrospective at MoMA in 2011–2012 cemented that legacy. This summer, Chicago gets its turn.

Public voting is open through August 18 - and we'd love your support. Click HERE to cast your vote for The Emily Hotel's window before voting closes.

The installation will remain on view through the end of the summer, so stop by, take it in, and experience abstract art in dialogue with a master - right at our front door. For updates on art, stays, and happenings at The Emily, visit theemilyhotel.com or follow along on Instagram.