The top 10 upcoming openings.
Is it any wonder that the upcoming season of art exhibitions testifies to so much that is wretched in our world, from runaway climate change to unchecked technological takeovers to the crackdown on immigrants? It shouldn’t be. This is the new now. If sometimes artists reflect on disaster and injustice through beauty and contemplation, that explains why we are able to keep looking.
“In Real Life”: How do machines see humans? And how does their vision affect us in turn? As artificial intelligence becomes ever more sophisticated and pervasive, the seven artists in this group show examine the ramifications. Xu Bing spins a story from 10,000 hours of surveillance footage, Stephanie Dinkins conducts a probing conversation with Bina48, a social robot prototype, and more. Jan. 16-March 29, Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 312-663-5554, mocp.org.
“Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Grey Collection”: The Block continues its expansion of what we think we know about modern art with this selection of 114 paintings, prints and sculptures bought during the 1960s and ’70s by Abby Weed Grey, a widowed Midwestern army-wifeturned-globetrotting art lover. In her ability to look beyond Eurocentric art discourses, Grey, like the artists she collected, proved herself to be ahead of her time. Jan. 21-April 5, Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, 847-491-4000, blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.
“Carissa Rodriguez: The Maid”: Artworks, not entirely unlike people, are fertilized, incubated, born, and then they lead their independent lives. Rodriguez explores these reproductive existences via photographs of human embryos; Hi8 footage of girls playing in a Chinatown park in the 1990s; and the titular video, which offers a day in the life of six “Newborns,” sculptures produced by artist Sherrie Levine as copies of a pair made 70 years earlier by Constantin Brancusi. Jan. 25-May 25, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Ave., 312443-3600, www.artic.edu.
“Luftwerk, Requiem: A White Wanderer”: Two years ago Larsen-C, a 120mile-long crack that ran along the Antarctic ice shelf, fractured into a trillion-ton iceberg named A 68. While the U.S. government reverses agreements and protections that could mitigate more such disasters, the Luftwerk duo has been hard at work on this ongoing project, the latest installment of which involves composer Katherine Young, seismic data from the catastrophic break, and a musical experience meant to communicate the urgency of climate change. It ought to be terrifying. Jan. 31-Feb. 2, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., bit.ly/white wanderer.
“Luis A. Sahagun: Both Eagle and Serpent”: A previously undocumented immigrant and former laborer, Sahagun is a Latinx Midas whose touch turns to gold the stuff of dumpsters and hardware stores. Acts of cultural reclamation are pledged alongside the literal reclamations he performs at the center of his artistry, of silicone, lumber, concrete and castoff cardboard into intricate works of heart-shattering intensity. Feb. 1-April 26, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., 312-7443316, chicagoculturalcenter .org.
“The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China”: What do gunpowder, Qing dynasty tables, cigarettes, silkworm cocoons and nylon stockings have in common? Each has been used to make artwork by one or another of the Chinese contemporary practitioners in this massive, two-venue exhibition. Expect all kinds of wow moments while contemplating the full-size house Gu Wenda strung from human and synthetic hair, or the carpet Liu Jianhua assembled from 8,000 flame-shaped pieces of black porcelain. Feb. 7-May 3, Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. 773-702-0200, smartmuseum.uchicago.edu; and Wrightwood 659, 659 W. Wrightwood Ave., 773-4376601, wrightwood659.org.
“NKAME: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón”: Ayón, who died young at the age of 32, was something of a genius at collography, a process in which materials are glued to a printing plate before being run through a press with paper. She worked at a monumental scale, mostly in black, white and gray, and nearly always on the same, mysterious subject matter: Abakuá, a powerful Afro-Cuban fraternal society with few visual representations other than her own. Feb. 29-May 24, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., 312-7443316, chicagoculturalcenter .org.
“Doru Olowu: Seeing Chicago”: The MCA resumes its foray into the nexus of fashion and art with this show, guest curated by Nigerian-born fashion designer Duro Olowu. Presenting selections from various local collections — including Terry Adkins’ two-headed trombone, a sunny geometric abstraction by Judy Chicago, and a lazy little Matisse — the exhibition promises to be as idiosyncratic as are the eclectically multipatterned garments for which Olowu is famed. Feb. 29-May 3, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave., 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org.
“Apsáalooke Women and Warriors”: Native American communities have rarely been given the opportunity to tell their own stories in museums. In an unprecedented move that will hopefully become the new norm, the Field Museum invited Apsáalooke scholar Nina Sanders to curate this two-venue exhibition of historical battle shields, traditional horse regalia and modern tipis, plus contemporary artworks and fashion designs by living artists of the Crow Nation. March 12Aug. 21, Neubauer Collegium, 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave., 773-795-2329, neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu; and March 13-April 4, 2021, Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, 312922-9410, fieldmuseum.org.
“The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene”: Every day of rising sea levels, weather disasters, animal extinctions and depleted biodiversity offers evidence of the irreversibly destructive human impact of our era. While those with enough power to do anything about it refuse to do so, it behooves the rest of us, including the 35-plus international artists in this urgent group show, to reflect on this catastrophic state of affairs — or there might not be a world to come. March 19-Aug. 16, DePaul Art Museum, 935 W. Fullerton Ave., 773-3257506, resources.depaul.edu/ art-museum.