{"id":1875090,"date":"2026-04-09T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1875090"},"modified":"2026-04-09T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T10:00:00","slug":"6-standout-museums-and-galleries-shows-to-see-after-expo-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1875090","title":{"rendered":"6 Standout Museums and Galleries Shows to See After Expo Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\tAll eyes will be on the Windy City this month as more than 130 galleries convene for the 15th edition of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier\u00a0(April 9\u201312), its third outing as part of the international Frieze brand, which purchased the fair (along with New York\u2019s Armory Show) in 2023.<\/p>\n
\n\tMore than 35,000 art lovers attended the 2025 edition, and this year\u2019s visitors will take advantage of the city\u2019s rich art scene, with longstanding commercial galleries as well as scrappy artist-run spaces and institutions large and small, from the encyclopedic Art Institute of Chicago to the avant-garde\u2013focused Museum of Contemporary Art and academically linked institutions such as the Smart Museum of Art and the Renaissance Society, both at the University of Chicago, and (until it closes, anyway) the DePaul Art Museum at the eponymous university.<\/p>\n
\n\tHere are six shows you shouldn\u2019t miss after touching down at O\u2019Hare.<\/p>\n
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1. \u201cDancing the Revolution\u201d at the Museum of Contemporary Art<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Adrian Boot \/ Urbanimage.tv\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tThis first-of-its-kind exhibition surveys the intertwined histories of Caribbean-born musical genres dancehall and reggaet\u00f3n in the context of contemporary art. By treating music and dance as global engines of political power and colonial resistance, \u201cDancing the Revolution\u201d serves as an ambitious and timely examination of global methods of collective resistance and joy.<\/p>\n
\n\tCurated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, former curator and director of curatorial initiatives, the exhibition features painting, installation, photography, and sound by more than forty artists such as Issac Julien, Edra Soto, Alberta Whittle and Carolina Caycedo alongside legendary figures like Lee \u201cScratch\u201d Perry, effectively collapsing distinctions between fine art, music, and sonic experimentation. As these genres have spread around the world, so too does the exhibition\u2019s remit, looking at artists and historical events from Kingston to San Juan via Panama, New York City, and London. A standout thread, for example, highlights perreo combativo (or \u201ccombative twerking\u201d), which transformed reggaet\u00f3n\u2019s kinetic vocabulary into a mode of dissent during Puerto Rico\u2019s 2019 protests, illuminating the varied moments in which music and dance have served as modes of protest and celebration in the fight for collective liberation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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2. Roger Brown at Gray<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: courtesy of GRAY Chicago\/New York. \u00a9 The School of the Art \nInstitute of Chicago and the Brown Family.\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tThe late Richard Gray founded his eponymous gallery in the city\u2019s River North area in 1963, and in November his son Paul announced representation of the estate of artist Roger Brown (1941\u20131997), equally a stalwart of the city\u2019s artistic history as one of the Chicago Imagists. \u201cWeathervane\u201d (on view through June 13) is the gallery\u2019s first showing of his work since then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tEleven paintings spanning the 1980s and \u201990s explore \u201cthe artist\u2019s vision of an emotionally charged contemporary life set at the tense border between the built environment and the natural world.\u201d Paintings like Lake Effect<\/em>, Weather Map <\/em>and Crosswinds <\/em>show an artist focused on the larger environmental context for the tiny humans and buildings that also appear in these canvases. The Flight of Daedalus and Icarus <\/em>underlines the artist\u2019s vision of a fragile humanity in a hostile environment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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3. Leah Ke Yi Zheng at Renaissance Society<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Forrest Frederick for Bob.\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tIt\u2019s your last chance to catch Chicago-based Chinese painter Leah Ke Yi Zheng\u2019s \u201cChange, I Ching (64 Paintings)\u201d at the Renaissance Society (through April 12). (Should you miss it, her work is also on view in in New York in \u201cNew Humans: Memories of the Future,\u201d the inaugural show at the reopened New Museum.)<\/p>\n
\n\tThe show\u2019s paintings are based on the hexagrams of the legendary ancient Chinese text the I Ching <\/em>(Book of Changes), often used in divination. The paintings don\u2019t literally represent the hexagrams but rather interpret them in the artist\u2019s own visual language, in paintings on silk, an unforgiving medium often used in traditional Chinese painting, with hand-built hardwood stretchers. Here, the I Ching <\/em>provides \u201ca method, a structure, and a philosophical companion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tKe Yi Zheng unites Chinese treatment of materials with conceptual art methodologies, bringing East and West into dialogue in a mode inspired by figures such as Hong Kong philosoopher Yuk Hui and American composer John Cage. For this show, the artist went so far as to subtly change the venue\u2019s galleries, covering certain windows and adjusting the proportions of some walls, all as a way of emphasizing \u201cthe light of the here and now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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4. Korean National Treasures at the Art Institute of Chicago<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: National Museum of Korea\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tOn public display for the first time are a selection of 140 objects from among the 23,000 pieces that the family of Lee Kun-Hee, late chairman of Samsung Group, donated in 2021 to the Korean government, which officially recognizes fully twenty-two of them as Treasures or National Treasures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tOrganized by Yeonsoo Chee, associate curator of Korean art, \u201cKorean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art\u201d (on view through July 5) is the Institute\u2019s biggest show of Korean art in four decades and spans from 57 BCE to the 1990s, with the works on view running the gamut from gilt bronze sculptures of Buddha to a painting by Kim Whanki, abstract artist and godfather of the Dansaekhwa movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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5. Liliana Porter at Secrist Beach<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Courtesy the artist and Secrist Beach\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tChicago dealer Carrie Secrist opened her gallery (then called Gallery A) in River North all the way back in 1992, and after some years in West Loop, she launched a new chapter in 2024 (with Bill Beach, her partner in business and in life) as Secrist Beach. She now occupies a 10,000-square-foot home in the West Town neighborhood, doubling her previous size and offering a space for art and a salon-like environment for conversation and community.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe conversation this spring will revolve around her show of Argentinian-born, New York\u2013based artist Liliana Porter, \u201cThe Strange Task\u201d (April 10\u2013June 13), showcasing a multidisciplinary practice that spans some six decades. When New York\u2019s Museo del Barrio reopened after a renovation in 2018, it spotlighted Porter in a survey that, per Artforum<\/em>, <\/em>\u201cput forward a strong case for the ongoing vitality of Porter\u2019s art.\u201d The Secrist Beach show spans various media, \u201call featuring Porter\u2019s coterie of endearing inanimate found objects, toys and figurines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Porter show appears alongside a group exhibition, \u201cUNREAL,\u201d with artists exploring \u201ccontemporary anxieties and the surreal dimensions of everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n
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6. Alma Thomas at the Smart Museum<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\n\tBorn in Georgia and a longtime resident of Washington, DC, Alma Thomas (1891\u20131978) had a long career as a schoolteacher before she took up artmaking. She was the first student to earn a fine art degree at Howard University and in the 1940s was vice president at the Barnett-Aden Gallery, a showcase for modern art and a pioneer of racial integration. In 1972, at age 80, she became the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at New York\u2019s Whitney Museum of American Art.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cComposing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas from the Smithsonian American Art Museum\u201d (though July 5) looks at her most prolific period, spanning the years 1959 to 1978, a moment of enormous upheaval in American society in which the artist looked to music, nature, and the cosmos for inspiration. (At the fair, New York\u2019s Michael Rosenfeld Gallery will also present a selection of works by Thomas.) <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThrough color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man\u2019s inhumanity to man,\u201d said the artist. Those inspirations led to riveting abstractions (take it from me! I saw the show at the Denver Art Museum) so rich with color and pattern, you\u2019ll be nailed to the floor. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-52734094.jpg?w=1024″] All eyes will be on the Windy City this month as more than 130 galleries convene for the 15th edition of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier\u00a0(April 9\u201312), its third outing as part of the international Frieze brand, which purchased the fair (along with New York\u2019s Armory Show) in 2023. More than 35,000 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1875090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1875090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1875090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1875090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1875090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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