DePaul Art Museum
935 W. Fullerton Ave.; 773-325-7506, museums.depaul.edu
The newly opened three-story museum more than doubles the space it previously occupied at DePaul’s Richardson Library. It includes space for class use, programs and events. The art museum reflects DePaul’s broad commitment to the arts and parallels the university’s Performing Arts Campaign to improve the physical space for theater and music education and performance on the Lincoln Park Campus.
Through Nov. 19: “The Nature Drawings of Peter Karklins”: The abstruse pencil drawings for this exhibit by the architectural model maker, who became a security guard after computer technology took over model-making, come from Karklins’ work done while traveling to and from work and at his desk on the night shift.
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Ave.; 773-324-5520, hydeparkart.org
The “contemporary art exhibition space, learning lab, community resource and social hub for artists and art-curious alike” offers exhibitions by mostly Chicago-based artists, education programs for children and adults at all levels and diverse creative programming.
Through Nov. 11: “Ground Floor”: The exhibit highlights 11 recent MFA recipients who have, for now, chosen to remain in Chicago. “Ground Floor” is installed with each piece given plenty of room and playing nicely with one another, with no single work grabbing an unseemly amount of attention.
Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture
3015 W. Division St.; 773-486-8345, iprac.org
A member of Museums in the Park, the institute celebrates Puerto Rico’s identity and heritage, offering community arts and cultural programming, including visual art exhibitions, hands-on community arts workshops, films in the park and an annual outdoor fine arts and crafts festival.
Through Dec. 31: “Fotos de Ramon Frade (Frade’s Photos)”: The exhibit is a collaboration between IPRAC and the Dr. Pio Lopez Martinez Museum of Art at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey and includes photographs by the early-20th-century Puerto Rican artist Ramon Frade Leon. The exhibit is also a study of Frade’s creative process as a painter before photography became his go-to medium. Sketches and drawings are on display next to the finished paintings to show the process from rough draft to finished artwork.
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E. Chicago Ave.; 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org
One of the nation’s largest modern art museums offers thought-provoking art created since 1945. The permanent collection includes work by Franz Kline, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. The museum highlights surrealism of the 1940s and ’50s, minimalism of the 1960s, conceptual art and photography from the ’60s to the present, recent installation art, and art by Chicago-based artists. Besides art in all media and genres, the MCA has a gift store, bookstore, restaurant and 300-seat theater and a garden with views of Lake Michigan.
Through Sunday: “Phantom Limb: Approaches to Painting Today”: With a title like “Phantom Limb,” you’d be forgiven for expecting a show of severed body parts and other ghoulish fare. There’s nothing frightening about this survey of post-1960 work, though its central conceit may initially seem confusing. Subtitled “Approaches to Painting Today,” the exhibition in fact charts the dramatic postwar shifts that took painting from a handmade, brush-centric medium to one that now just as often relies on mechanical processes like silk-screening and tools like spray paint.
SAIC Sullivan Galleries
33 S. State St., Seventh Floor; 312-629-6635, saic.edu/exhibitions
The teaching gallery brings to Chicago audiences the work of acclaimed and emerging artists, while providing the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the public opportunities for direct involvement and exchange with the discourses of art today, with shows and projects often led by faculty or student curators.
Through Jan. 5: “Detroit, USA: Material, Site, Narrative”: Detroit has become an emblem for the American city in decline, but there’s a lot more happening there than meets the eye. The Motor City’s cultural scene is thriving, in part because Detroit’s artists like to collaborate, and their projects are often centered on community development and urban rejuvenation. This show surveys a range of such works alongside responses to the city from student artists at the School of the Art Institute.
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