Fall's Art Highlights
Dawit L. Petros: Prospetto a Mare
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Nestled in a green space between Soldier Field and Lake Michigan, the often-forgotten Balbo Monument was gifted to the city of Chicago by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to commemorate controversial air marshal Italo Balbo’s 1933 transatlantic flight from Italy to Chicago during the city’s World’s Fair. Prospetto a Mare is the latest chapter of Eritrea-born artist Dawit L. Petros’s long-term investigation of the impact of Italian colonialism and its subsequent imprint on the visual cultures, populations and built environments of Africa, Europe and North America.
Aug 30–Dec 20 • 600 S. Michigan (60605)
Riva Lehrer –The Monster Studio
ZOLLA/LIEBERMAN GALLERY
Lehrer’s work is celebrated for its exploration into the marginalized and stigmatized body. Through drawing, painting, collage, and sculpture, she challenges viewers to reconsider their assumptions about beauty and difference. For the show’s run, Lehrer will be performing a public portrait studio and has invited a selection of distinguished collaborators who will be asked to describe—and collaboratively draw—an image depicting their inner “monsterselves,” resulting in portraits created through deep conversation.
Sept 6–Oct 12 • 325 W. Huron (60654)
Indigenous Chicago
NEWBERRY LIBRARY
Home to the Potawatomi, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Myaamia, Wea, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Ho-Chunk peoples, the place we now call Chicago has long been a historic crossroads for many Indigenous people and remains home to an extensive urban Native community. Yet most Chicagoans are unaware of the city’s history as a home to diverse Indigenous peoples and the vibrant Indigenous communities present today. Part of a multifaceted initiative developed in partnership between the Newberry, advisors from the Chicago Native community, and representatives from tribal nations with historic connections to Chicago, this exhibition reflects the dynamic and complex aspects of Native life in Chicago from the seventeenth century to the present. The exhibition draws largely on the Newberry’s collection while also showcasing new work by contemporary Native artists, including Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi), Camille Billie (Oneida), and Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk).
Sep 12–Jan 4, 2025
60 W. Walton (60610) • newberry.org
Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917–1967
DEPAUL ART MUSEUM
Edgar Miller (1899–1993) arrived in Chicago in 1917, and over the next 50 years worked as an architect, artist, craftsperson, curator, designer, and illustrator during a particularly rich period that saw the ascendancy of modernism across the visual culture of the city. Miller’s tremendous body of work spanned multiple mediums, materials, and disciplines and he was unconcerned with trends, labels, or what became the established tenets of modern art. He was committed to figurative storytelling and representing the natural world, creating work intended to be experienced across the built environment.
Sept 12–Feb 23, 2025 • 935 W. Fullerton (60614)
Hague Yang: Flat Works
THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO
This defining exhibition marking the artist’s first North American retrospective to survey the artist’s two-dimensional explorations over the last three decades. Through a select number of key works, the ambitious exhibition identifies underlying connections and motivations across the artist’s oeuvre, offering a scholarly perspective on this aspect of Yang’s career for the first time.
Sept 18–Dec 20
201 E. Ontario • artsclubchicago.org
David Smith: The Nature of Sculpture
FREDERIK MEIJER GARDENS & SCULPTURE PARK
The art of David Smith is profuse and marvelously inventive. Working in multiple media, formats, and scales, he blurred boundaries between painting and sculpture and between traditional genres such as landscape and figuration. Smith’s bountiful oeuvre has secured him a firm place within art history and his adventurous approach to three-dimensional form has permanently expanded the vocabulary and range of sculptural practice.
Sept 23–Mar 2, 2025 • 1000 E. Beltline Ave. NE., Grand Rapids MI (49525) • meijergardens.org
The 50th: An Anniversary Exhibition
THE SMART MUSEUM OF ART
The 50th: An Anniversary Exhibition explores what makes and defines a university art museum. A pioneer in arts-based learning, the Smart and its mission have evolved since the Museum opened its doors in the fall of 1974.
This exhibition traces the layered, sometimes hidden, histories that have made up the Smart Museum of Art. These histories range from fraught beginnings of building a teaching collection and important relationships with local artists, critics, and community leaders, to opportunities presented by unexpected gifts and partnerships. It reconsiders the impact of the Museum’s past exhibitions that have told different narratives, programs that have pushed boundaries, and acquisitions that have altered the course of the collection. Drawn from the collection, the exhibition presents over a hundred works from across the breadth and depth of the Museum’s holdings, including paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and archival materials.
Sept 24–Mar 2, 2025
The University of Chicago
5550 S. Greenwood, Chicago, IL 60637 • smartmuseum.uchicago.edu
Positions: New Landscapes
HYDE PARK ART CENTER
This a group exhibition features works by six Chicago-based contemporary artists who explore the radical potential of landscape to address timely conversations about land stewardship, environmental justice, immigration, and racial violence in US history. Approaching landscape from a diverse range of perspectives, artists Lydia Cheshewalla, Kelly Kristin Jones, Norman Long, zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal, Elsa Muñoz, and Leticia Pardo break boundaries of the traditional landscape genre to intervene in civic dialogues rooted in sites and their histories.
Oct 26–Feb 23, 2025 • 5020 S. Cornell (60615)
The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970–2020
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
This international, intergenerational group exhibition examines the different methods artists have used to challenge or intervene in the practice of painting and the role of painters over the past 50 years. Countering the recycled discourse that “painting is dead,” the exhibition suggests that painting remains in a constant state of renewal and rebirth.
Nov 9–Apr 13, 2025 • 220 E. Chicago Ave. (60611) • mcachicago.org
Staple + Stitch Art Book and Print Fair
21C MUSEUM HOTEL CHICAGO
A celebration and engagement with art, text, print, and paper hosted at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago. Fair exhibitors include arts publishers, small and independent presses, book artists, zine makers, and printmakers across the 2nd-floor spaces of the 21c Chicago. Tandem programming includes book signings, workshops, and demonstrations open to all ages. Look for local exhibitors like Process/Process, as well as others from around the country. The three-day fair is free and open to the public.
November 15, 16 and 17 • 55 E. Ontario St. (60611)