Lori Waxman

Lori Waxman is a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune.

The first solo museum show for Kenzi Shiokavi, who died in 2021 at the age of 82, is on view through January at the MCA Chicago. (Robert Chase Heishman)

Art for fall 2026: 10 essential shows at MCA, Hyde Park Art Center and MoCP

September 3, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Chicago fields a plethora of possibilities this fall, so get thee to a museum or gallery full of stuff that reinvigorates the senses.

The exhibition "Alberto Aguilar: I just really want to tell you this one thing" is currently on view at the Chicago Cultural Center, including sculptures made from stored institutional furniture, a trio of Mark Rothko remakes done with Southwest Signs and a dozen of Aguilar’s old paintings reinterpreted by other artists. (Patrick L.Pyszka)

Review: Alberto Aguilar has a lot to say and he is saying it at the Cultural Center

August 5, 2026 at 5:15 a.m.

“I just really want to tell you this one thing” is the misleading title of his exhibition. Alberto Aguilar has a lot to say about games and rules and translation...

Installation view of "Martin Wong: Chinatown USA" at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago. (Shanti Knight)

Review: The bard of bricks: A Martin Wong exhibition finally comes to Chicago

June 11, 2026 at 10:20 a.m.

“Martin Wong: Chinatown USA,” Chicago's first exhibition devoted to Wong, is on view through July 18 at Wrightwood 659.

"Martin Wong: Chinatown USA" at Wrightwood 659 features a number of the late artist’s astonishingly detailed odes to the red bricks of downtown Manhattan, including “Sweet ‘Enuff” (1987-88). (Shanti Knight)

Art for hot days: Top 10 exhibitions to see this summer in Chicago

May 26, 2026 at 10:39 a.m.

From a Renaissance Society show to Willem de Kooning at the Art Institute to figurines by an Argentinian artist, don't miss these in the season ahead.

“Ten Symbols of Longevity,” a 19th century folding screen created by court painters of the Joseon dynasty. Part of the exhibition "Korean National Treasures: 2,000 Years of Art" at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Provided by AIC)

Review: ‘Korean National Treasures’ at the Art Institute is a once-in-a-lifetime visit

May 5, 2026 at 3:37 p.m.

Masterpieces from an elite family collection take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Chicago in this Art Institute exhibition.

Photographer Kelli Connell's "Pictures for Charis" at the Elmhurst Art Museum includes portraits and landscapes that revisit iconic sites photographed by Edward Weston in the 1930s and 1940s. On the walls are Connell's photographs, on the display tables are Weston's. (Lizzie Moo)

Review: Love and Modernism: Photographer Kelli Connell at the Elmhurst Art Museum

February 25, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

In dialogue with photos by Edward Weston, Kelli Connell's images examine the complicated relationships between humans and the landscape, photographers and their models, and pairs of lovers.

Contemporary British artist Ed Fairburn painted over an old map of Cardiff, hijacking its existing contour lines to reveal the portrait hiding therein. Many more maps — old and new, geographic and artistic —are on view in "Mapping Outside the Lines." (Provided by the Newberry Library)

Review: We can map that: Newberry Library exhibits 500-plus years of borders, folds and graticules

January 20, 2026 at 5:30 a.m.

From maps that become art to a rack of Rand McNally road maps, straight out of gas stations of yore, “Mapping Outside the Lines” covers a lot of ground.

A mid-career survey of Firelei Báez at the Museum of Contemporary Art includes “Man Without a Country (aka anthropophagist wading in the Artibonite River),” an installation of 225 collage-drawings on old book pages. (Oriol Tarridas photo)

Art exhibitions for winter 2026: Don’t miss these 10 at the MCA, Art Institute and in Elmhurst

January 22, 2026 at 4:19 p.m.

Photography at the Elmhurst Art Museum and MOCP, “Chair-ish” in Glen Ellyn, and coming in March, some very artful visual puzzles at the DePaul Art Museum.

Chicago Architecture Biennial 6, titled "SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change,” includes a neon sign with the motto “Beauty for All” by R&R Studios of Miami and a sporty triumphal arch fashioned from zippers, stuffed fabric, and rope, by BURR, of Madrid. (Robert Chase Heishman)

Review: Better buildings for all — what to see at the 6th edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial

November 24, 2025 at 9:37 a.m.

The sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial is now on view at sites across the city through the end of February.

Scott Burton's "Two-Part Chaise Longue," 1986-87, is made of polished Rosa Benveno granite. “Scott Burton: Shape Shift” has two on display, including one that visitors can try out. (Daniel Eggert)

Review: More seating please: Scott Burton’s furniture as sculpture at Wrightwood 659

November 3, 2025 at 1:02 p.m.

Though mostly we ignore it, furniture says a lot about a place, its priorities and the people who use it.

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