As fall approaches Chicago and the temperatures tick upward one final time earlier than the inevitable chilly stoop, the town enters right into a rallying cry. Chicago Exhibition Weekend returns at this time, with 50 members internet hosting concurrent programming throughout the town via this Sunday, September 21. However even with pleasure stirred, it might probably really feel complicated to have a good time the humanities at the moment. President Trump’s threat of Nationwide Guard deployment and surges of ICE raids forged a shadow on the festivities as protesters fill the streets.
The artwork world doesn’t maintain all of the solutions, however creativity is all the time definitely worth the endeavor. As a lot is obvious within the artists and reveals featured on this information: Theaster Gates, whose apply of nurturing tales is extra related than ever; Destyni “Desi” Swoope, who reminds us that group is immutable; the outsider artwork at Sawhorse and Shanghai Seminary, proving that artmaking persists as a apply of self-preservation. Whether or not in probing construction, like Tongji Philip Qian, or imagining completely different states of being, just like the Symbolists, artwork all the time has the facility to concentrate within the face of adversity. So get on the market if you happen to can, Chicago.
Secondary Function
Sawhorse, 4222 West Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of October 26
That includes over 80 works chosen from the private assortment of Chicago innkeeper and photographer Ray Reiss, this dense exhibition packs loads of coronary heart. The gathering traits towards people and self-taught artwork. Reiss acquired most of the objects from thrift shops and vintage outlets — atypical sources for work that inhabits gallery areas. Whereas some items are by better-known outsider artists, equivalent to Mr. Creativeness and Lee Godie, a number of are from unidentified creators. The amusing animals, earnest depictions of individuals, and esoteric landscapes of Secondary Function create an environment of consolation and pleasure. In line with Reiss, the very best factor to do with the work is to “simply sit there and really feel it.”
The Gloaming
Western Exhibitions, 1709 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of November 1
The superbly rendered graphite drawings of Journie Cirdain’s The Gloaming appear steeped in magic. Some provide a bit extra narrative, equivalent to “Amends,” that includes a crouched bare girl along with her head match snugly contained in the open jaws of a wolf. Others dedicate their focus to extraordinarily explicit material, and in doing so, are startlingly evocative. “Chandelier (Dewdrops)” transforms a spiderweb right into a glittering cosmos of dew in opposition to a darkened background. The slim consideration on the small but magnificent pure phenomenon of condensation on spider silk is divine, traversing the skinny line between the mundane and otherworldly.
Urbanite
Weatherproof, 3336 West Lawrence Avenue, #303, Chicago, Illinois
By way of November 2
In a wierd however potent clashing of the susceptible, violent, and erotic, Weatherproof curators Milo Christie and Sam Dybeck have paired photographer Krista Beinstein with sculptor Tarik Kentouche. Beinstein’s work explores queer eroticism; her pornographic movie pictures are unabashed of their daring depictions of topics in fetish put on hanging overtly sexual poses. Juxtaposed with Kentouche’s “Civilians” — stuffed monkeys that one may win at a county truthful, armored with soldered glass outfits — the images open to new dimensions of innocence and sincerity. The clean, guileless expressions of the monkeys, frozen of their inflexible outfits, make them perpetual observers, which appears eerily much like our state as customers. It’s an sudden pairing for a duo present, and but, thrillingly, it really works.
Sympathy Ribbon
Grunts Rare Books, 1500 South Western Avenue, Suite 403, Chicago, Illinois
By way of November 9
Gentle and reminiscence are roused in Sympathy Ribbon, a present that pairs artists Madeline Gallucci and Margaret Crowley. The exhibition title comes from a haunting work by Crowley: a discovered sympathy ribbon. Sometimes hooked up to caskets or funerary floral preparations, these ribbons are supposed to adorn memorial items and signify the connection between the sender and the deceased. Crowley’s ribbon reads “Husband” in gleaming gold lettering. It’s unsettling to contemplate how an object so mass produced may carry the burden of one thing as significant as a lifelong relationship, however because the ribbon flaps gently within the gallery its airiness enhances the play of sunshine, coloration, and depth in Gallucci’s inscrutable layered work. The concord begs for a second of pause.
Current Works
Shanghai Seminary, 3262 South Morgan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of November 22
Humorous, intelligent, and refreshingly trustworthy, this survey of latest works by Chicago-based artist Winifred Mason is equal elements social commentary and inside jokes. For the previous 30 years, Mason has been using the identical textual content, collage, and drawing course of to create a sequence of pared-down pictures that course of the fixed inflow of knowledge she receives, whether or not via the newspaper, a information broadcast, or just via her window. This course of has allowed Mason to cowl a variety of matters reflecting the unpredictability of the infinite media one consumes, and the impression of that consumption on our personal thought patterns. Typically, that interprets as a want: “We wish our children to be secure & unspoiled,” one work declares; two others learn, “we’re satisfied of a brand new miracle treatment for a sore throat (drink pickle juice)” and “a damaged coronary heart (shut your eyes and draw an image of Christ).”
Krapfen
The Renaissance Society, 5811 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of November 23
Include an urge for food to Italian artist Diego Marcon’s United States debut. On the menu? Krapfen, a German jam doughnut. Marcon’s video set up plies its primary character with more and more pressing calls for to eat the sugary deal with, communicated via an unique Italian-language opera-inspired composition. Because the music progresses, clothes gadgets come alive round a extremely staged childhood bed room, the place it’s troublesome to tell apart what’s actual from what’s animation. Without delay whimsical and unsettling, Krapfen consumes its guests via a marigold paint job totally overlaying the Renaissance Society’s cathedral-like inside, resulting in a dizzying down-the-rabbit-hole sensibility amid the bizarre soundtrack, unusual characters, and huge yellow expanse.
Alloyed Commitments
Logan Center Exhibitions, 915 East sixtieth Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of December 7
Upon coming into Tongji Philip Qian’s Alloyed Commitments, viewers encounter a big wall drawing that counts the passing of minutes. This establishes the present’s central concern: time. The clock reads “…It’s twenty-eight to 2. It was twenty-eight to 2. It’s twenty-seven to 2. It was twenty-seven to 2…” and so forth. As Qian reveals in a notarized affidavit elsewhere within the present, the title of the wall work, “No-risk Hour,” refers back to the interval throughout Daylight Financial savings Time when an additional hour is gained. This no-risk hour is especially necessary for Qian; he makes use of the phenomenon to race the clock as an artist, producing works below explicit parameters throughout this era. There’s a sure magnificence in his consideration to course of, construction, and legibility via time — he’s capturing existence inside its relentless passage.
Unusual Realities: The Symbolist Creativeness
The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of January 5, 2026
Unusual Realities: The Symbolist Creativeness attracts upon the Artwork Institute’s various assortment of drawings and prints to convey much-needed consideration to Symbolism, a Nineteenth-century artwork motion that rejected rationalism and emphasised emotional expertise. The sweeping present of works on paper options fantastical imagery, horrifying creatures, and mythological references. A sinister instance is Jean Delville’s “Medusa,” wherein the ghostly mythological determine gives the twisting, thirsty snakes on her head two small dishes of liquid as tendrils of smoke curl out from pomegranates round her. The avant-garde method to imagery is reflective of Symbolists’ pessimism towards trendy society and their want to flee actuality — inclinations that ought to resonate with many viewers at this time.
Theaster Gates: Unto Thee
Smart Museum of Art, 5550 South Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of February 22, 2026
On the heels of the profitable inauguration of The Land Faculty, a South Aspect hub for artistic experimentation championed by Theaster Gates, comes yet one more monumental venture for the artist — his first solo museum exhibition in Chicago. It’s notably significant to see the artist’s multidisciplinary work in his hometown. A core a part of his apply is archival, as he seeks to activate the lives of objects with cultural significance or charged histories, usually from Chicago. A few of the supplies reactivated within the present embody previous glass lantern slides from the College of Chicago Division of Artwork Historical past and archival supplies from the Johnson Publishing Firm, a Black-owned firm that revealed the enduring Ebony and Jet magazines and was headquartered within the metropolis. As a professor of Visible Arts on the College of Chicago, Gates is uniquely positioned to query assortment and artistic apply in relation to the varsity, proving how artists can discover and protect that means in objects which might be adjoining to the establishment.
Abuela’s Home
National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, 3015 West Division Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
By way of July 18, 2026
In her museum debut, Destyni “Desi” Swoope celebrates Caribbean heritage, collective reminiscence, and enduring intergenerational bonds. Vivid scenes of group make up Abuela’s Home. In “Heirloom,” brightly manicured palms attain throughout a colourful patchwork desk to go dominoes stamped with the Puerto Rican flag. One other work, “Sunday Stitching,” options the turned again of a lady carrying a floral shirt; she sits at a desk with espresso and strawberries as she feeds string via a lightweight pink stitching machine. The rapid and intimate nature of the compositions makes them really feel like direct takes from Swoope’s reminiscences. They’re additional animated by the artist’s distinctive mixed-media method, which imbues the imagery with playful textures, dimensions, and materialities, emphasizing the liveliness and pleasure of kinship.
