The world is burning, the country is collapsing, but Chicago is full of exhibitions this season that offer alternative visions from artists past and present for help as we move into an ever more unsustainable future.
Here are some such shows, plus a few that offer decorative respite, because we all need a break sometimes.
“Elizabeth Catlett: ‘A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies’”: One of the great activist artists of our time, Catlett used sculpture and printmaking to empathically present the strengths and struggles of Black and Mexican women. Jim Crow segregation, the deep poverty of the Great Depression, the censorship of the McCarthy era, the divisiveness of the Cold War as well as the election of President Barack Obama were her context; Mexican and German social realism, biomorphic modernism, historical African and Mesoamerican sculpture were her aesthetics. In this traveling survey, social justice meets formal rigor, and none too soon. Through Jan. 4, 2026, at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., artic.edu
“On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival”: This ambitious exhibit, curated by four artists, including fiber doyenne Anne Wilson, explores some of the most profound uses of textiles across cultures and millennia. A Taoist priest’s vestment, a Georgian-period memorial pendant, an Ogboni chief’s wrapper, a Coptic child’s tunic, a Japanese scroll depicting the death of the Buddha, a set of blankets by contemporary Diné weaver Barbara Teller — these and 100 other objects show how humans have embroidered, woven, knotted and quilted their way to understanding death, toward spiritual realms, and through experiences of grief and trauma. Through March 15, 2026, at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., artic.edu
“Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists’ Experiments on Paper”: One of the great abstract expressionist painters, Frankenthaler began printmaking in 1961 and never stopped. The agency and alchemy of materials was foremost for her, allowing unpredictability, chance and accident to dictate her lithographs, woodcuts and etchings — contrary to typical approaches to those mediums. The exhibit features kindred artworks by Robert Motherwell, Joan Mitchell, Sam Gilliam, Sol Lewitt and others. Sept. 17 to Dec. 14 at the Block Museum, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, blockmuseum.northwestern.edu
“Open Hours”: Every neighborhood deserves an art space as vibrant, cutting-edge and committed as the Roman Susan, located for the past 13 years in an oddball apartment building in Rogers Park. The art foundation has done it all, from flagpoles and community art lending to outdoor screenings and prismatic installations. And it will continue to do so, but no longer in its original location, which has been bought by Loyola University. If you’ve never been, go now, for one last round of experimental, unpredictable, super-local programming. Sept. 18-30 at Roman Susan Art Foundation, 1224 W. Loyola Ave., romansusan.org
“Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust”: Two longtime Chicago artists collaborate for the first time in what is also their first major museum show. Lake builds intricate collages from the patterns of vintage kimonos. Faust designs dizzying murals for CTA trains, the facade of the Intuit Art Museum and elsewhere. What they will do here, inspired by shakkei, a Japanese principle of design that incorporates views of distant natural elements into a garden’s composition, is anyone’s guess; but it’s sure to be colorful, ornamental and gorgeous. Sept. 6 to Jan. 5, 2026, at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst, elmhurstartmuseum.org
“CAB 6: SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change”: It’s time for the sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the times they are a changing, on levels cultural, social, political and environmental. Architects, designers and artists from across the globe are playing crucial roles in envisioning alternative paths forward. More than 100 of their most innovative projects are being convened by artistic director Florencia Rodriguez at exhibition sites across the city. Sept. 19 to Feb. 28, 2026, at multiple venues, chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org
“Theaster Gates: Unto Thee”: Somehow one of Chicago’s biggest art stars has never had a solo museum show in his hometown. This exhibition solves that problem, as well as the problem of what to do with all the stuff that nobody needs anymore, specifically glass lantern slides from the U. of C.’s art history department, display cases from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, paint-stained concrete floors from Midway Studios and wooden pews from Bond Chapel. As has long been his practice, Gates caretakes inventively, refashioning the items into artworks that reveal underrecognized stories otherwise lost to the junk heap of history. Sept. 23 to Feb. 22, 2026, at the Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., smartmuseum.uchicago.edu
“Terrain Biennial 2025”: The most accessible biennial of all is back. Founded in Oak Park in 2013 by the late artist Sabina Ott, Terrain is curated by neighbors across Chicagoland who host artworks of all kinds in their side yards, bay windows, front lawns, rooftops and porches. Get a map and discover what’s nearby or far away. It could be a garden where the trees make drawings, or a modernist lounge chair sprouting mushrooms or maybe a giant neon meteorite that crash-landed on a portico. Oct. 1 to Nov. 15, various locations, terrainexhibitions.org
“Scott Burton: Shape Shift”: Sculpture in love with furniture is how Burton once described his artworks, which could be viewed in galleries and museums, or sat upon in public parks and plazas. He also performed, curated, choreographed and wrote art criticism. Through all these practices Burton considered the social nature of spatial relationships between people and objects, and he definitely had a thing for chairs. This traveling survey, with nearly 40 sculptures, along with photos and ephemera, is the most comprehensive in the U.S. since Burton’s death in 1989 from AIDS, at the height of his career. Oct. 3 to Dec. 20 at Wrightwood 659, 659 W. Wrightwood Ave., wrightwood659.org
“Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind”: If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to create an artwork inside your mind or to campaign for world peace — or even if you haven’t — this show is for you. Ono, now 92 years old, has been doing both since the 1950s — as a classically trained pianist turned avant-garde musician, in collaboration with the Fluxus group, as an innovator of instruction-based and participatory artmaking, and as the partner of the late pop star John Lennon. Over 200 works spanning seven decades of multimedia radicality will be on view in this traveling retrospective. Oct. 18 to Feb. 22, 2026, at the MCA Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave., mcachicago.org
Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.
FALL ARTS 2025
Look for all of our guides, Top 10 lists and critics’ picks for what’s coming:
- MOVIES and TV AND STREAMING
- THEATER, COMEDY and DANCE
- CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ, plus LIVE MUSIC concerts for pop, rock and hip hop
- ART OPENINGS and MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
