Top 10 art shows for fall
All the art you didn’t get to see because of the pandemic are now able to view
The schedule of exhibitions this fall is as thrilling and full as ever, no doubt because so many of the terrific shows that were delayed due to COVID-19 have been pushed back until … now! So get vaccinated, mask up, stay 6 feet apart, check each venue for their current visitor guidelines, and go see this art in person:
”Jeremiah HulsebosSpofford: League of Nations”: Ever wonder what a contemporary version of a Roman plaster cast gallery might look like? Hulsebos-Spofford, co-founder of the Floating Museum collective, gives it a go, producing glitchy, fragmented, monumental sculptures of today’s iconic figures: drones, drip-coffee machines, jeans bulging with smartphones, weird cats and mysterious packages. Ongoing through Jan. 23, 2022, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., 312-744-6630, www.chicago. gov
Caroline Kent: Human dependence on language can often lead us to forget that it is an invented system, replete with potentials, misunderstandings, exclusions and adaptations. Kent, who has for years been using abstract painting to visualize the possibilities and limitations of linguistic communication, here creates an immersive installation about a fictional pair of twins, Victoria and Veronica, and the secret language they share. Ongoing through April 3, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., 312-397-4010, mcachicago. org
”Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40”:
The famed “genius” grant enters middle age and throws itself a yearlong, multivenue, citywide party. Festivities range from group and solo exhibitions to site-specific interventions, with highlights including Jeffrey Gibson’s remixing of Native American portraits at the Newberry Library; Kara Walker’s 150-foot-long frieze of racially-charged antebellum silhouettes at the DuSable Roundhouse; Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s loving murals of apartment interiors hung on the exteriors of public housing sites; and Ida Applebroog’s 160 vagina self-portraits from 1969. Ongoing through May, various dates and venues throughout Chicago, towardcommoncause.org
”Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art”: Few of the artists in this traveling show are actually in their salad days, but they’re inarguably some of the most influential, exciting and collectible Black practitioners of yesterday and today. Expect a diversity of work dealing in themes of sexuality, gender, identity, abstraction and social relations from the 50 art stars represented here, among them Kevin Beasley, LaToya Ruby Frazier, David Hammons, Rashid Johnson, Deana Lawson, Jennifer Packer, Mickalene Thomas and Kerry James Marshall. Sept. 2-Dec. 11, Gallery 400, 400 South Peoria St., 312-996-6114, gallery400.uic.edu
”Future Fossils: SUM by Lan Tuazon”: Imagine if the 109 tons of waste produced by the average
person during their existence could end up not in a landfill but as building blocks for other lifetimes? It’s the principle of fossilization, and Tuazon uses it to construct an entire single-bedroom house in the gallery out of materials created by dissecting, layering, pressing and otherwise stratifying unwanted tchotchkes, household items, plastic containers and more. Welcome to the home of tomorrow. Sept. 7-Nov. 13, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave., 773-324-5520, www. hydeparkart.org
”Stockyard Institute: 25 Years of Art and Radical Pedagogy”: The most impactful creative work actually happens far outside of the museum, when artists and community activists and neighbors get together to build themselves gardens and play spaces, and to teach one another new ways of being in the world. The Stockyard Institute has been doing this sort of radical collaboration since being founded by Jim Duignan in Back of
the Yards a quarter-century ago; come to see the inspiring evidence. Sept. 9-Feb. 13, DePaul Art Museum, 935 W. Fullerton Ave., 773-325-7506, resources.depaul.edu
”Chicago Architecture Biennial: The Available City”: There are nearly 32,000 empty lots in Chicago, a mass of potential whose recognition forms the core of the biennial’s fourth edition. Over 80 contributors from more than 18 countries offer workshops, activations, exhibitions and performances to help envision those public spaces. Installations include a bike repair station and a permaculture garden in North Lawndale, and a community plaza in Englewood, two historically disinvested city neighborhoods. Sept. 17-Dec. 18, various venues throughout Chicago plus online programming, chicago architecturebiennial.org
”Barbara Kruger: THINKING OF YOU. I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU.”: The goddess of sound-byte-twisting, gut-punching, caught-youin-the-act
art finally gets the retrospective we need. For 40 years, Kruger has been using deceptively simple combinations of text and image to crack the codes of power, advertising, politics, consumerism, media and sexism. Expect not just a tour of past projects but also plenty of updates, a total takeover of the AIC’s public spaces, and new work on city billboards, CTA bus shelters and the facade of the Merchandise Mart. Sept. 19-Jan. 24, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Ave., 312-443-3600 and www.artic.edu
”Sky Hopinka: Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer”: How does the soul survive forced confinement? Hopinka, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, explores this question by weaving together rolling images of ocean and sky, archival prisoner’s ledger drawings of Native life, and stories of imprisonment and escape from Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest fort in the continental
U.S., which held Native Americans captive during the wars of the 1800s and served as a model for the boarding school system that forcibly assimilated generations of Indigenous children. Sept. 22-Dec. 5, Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, 847-491-4000, www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu
”Brendan Fernandes: 72 Seasons”: With a nod to the many ballets composed around the four seasons, and another nod to the microseasons of the traditional Japanese calendar, Fernandes stages a series of dance performances in Chicago’s treasured Lurie Garden. Therein lies a third nod, to the parks employees whose discreet labor keeps this perennial landscape looking as natural as the prairies that once bloomed here. Gardens, like ballet, demand rigorous training, planning and upkeep, especially if they are to appear effortless.