Exhibitions in Chicago

May 2027

May at a glance: 0 exhibitions opening, 1 closing, and 5 more on view across the city.

From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard at MCA Chicago

Artwork featured in How Do We Heal? at the Smart Museum of Art

Portrait of artist Nina Chanel Abney

Nina Chanel Abney, All Day It Burned

An African sculpture from the Art Institute's Arts of Africa collection, shown in Body and Being in African Art

Closing in May

Testaments to the Beautyful Ones16 May
Museum of Contemporary Photography · Free
Eight photographers and six writers document resilient communities across Africa, bridging postcolonial critique with contemporary hope through gender, spirituality, displacement and self-representation.

Also on through May

From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippardto 11 Jul
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Spanning three floors, this exhibition explores the far-reaching impact of art historian, critic and curator Lucy Lippard through themes found in her work.
How Do We Heal?to 11 Jul
Smart Museum of Art · Free
A thematic draw from the Smart's permanent collection exploring art and healing across six strands: health, grief, displacement, trauma, mindfulness and protection.
Nina Chanel Abney: Between Usto 11 Jul
Smart Museum of Art · Free
A large-scale site-specific mural for the Smart's Threshold series, using the flat visual language of diagrams and educational charts to map power, labour, housing and inequality as one system.
Nina Chanel Abney: While Supplies Lastto 11 Jul
Smart Museum of Art · Free
Paintings, sculpture, works on paper and installation in which Abney borrows the grammar of advertising to show how extraction, consumer culture, militarisation and environmental decline became routine.
Body and Being in African Artto 1 Mar
Art Institute of Chicago
More than 50 objects from the Arts of Africa collection show beliefs and values surrounding the body shared across the continent, and the distinct cultural forms those ideas take.

Stay in the loop on Chicago

A short note now and then when something new opens worth your time.