The Exhibitions Not to Miss During EXPO CHICAGO
Anchored by major institutions and sustained by a gallery ecosystem that has steadily expanded over the years, Chicago asserts itself as one of America’s most vital cultural capitals each spring with the arrival of EXPO CHICAGO, now in its 13th edition (and its second as a star in the Frieze galaxy). Led this year by Kate Sierzputowski, who succeeded founder Tony Karman after he stepped down last May, the fair is placing even greater emphasis on its institutional role and network. “EXPO CHICAGO wants to be the fair that curators and directors come to first. That’s the priority,” she told Observer, framing a future built through storytelling in collaboration with partner institutions. For the 2026 edition, that narrative inevitably centers on the much-anticipated opening of the Obama Presidential Center, a project more than a decade in the making, now set to open June 19. But even before and beyond that milestone, Chicago’s tight-knit art scene presents, as usual, a wealth of exhibitions and happenings timed to the week. We’ve selected six shows and one artist-led event you won’t want to miss during this year’s art week in the Windy City.
“Dancing the Revolution: From Dancehall to Reggaetón”
- MCA Chicago, April 14 – September 20, 2026
Arguably one of the most anticipated and thought-provoking exhibitions in American museums this year, a major presentation at MCA Chicago positions dancehall and reggaetón as powerful visual and political frameworks within contemporary art. The exhibition’s title riffs on the idea of RPMs (revolutions per minute)—a metaphor for musical tempo, cultural transformation and political protest—and references historic events such as Puerto Rico’s “Verano del 19,” during which reggaetón’s iconic dance forms became acts of political defiance on the steps of the San Juan Cathedral, where LGBTQ+ and feminist activists led perreo combativo, or “combative twerking.” Curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, the exhibition brings together more than 40 international artists—including Isaac Julien, Edra Soto, Alberta Whittle, Carolina Caycedo, supakid and Lee “Scratch” Perry—to trace how Caribbean and Black Atlantic music cultures have shaped global visual languages of resistance, joy, migration and identity. Through installation, sound, video, painting and sculpture, the show examines the reclamation of public space through dance, an act deeply rooted in dancehall history and culture, demonstrating how music and movement can function as revolutionary practices for collective liberation grounded in the struggle against colonial oppression.
“Ornament & Information”
- Chicago Cultural Center, through July 19, 2026
Dynamo cultural entrepreneur and patron Abby Pucker has made her annual exhibitions timed with EXPO Chicago a staple of the city’s art week. This time, she collaborated with curator Gareth Kaye on a show that explores the long-unarticulated dialogue between artists working in Chicago and Vienna from the 1970s to the present. Titled “Ornament and Information”—a reference to both Adolf Loos’s rejection of ornament and the persistence of surface as structure, signal and excess, from the Vienna Secession to Chicago’s Gilded Age and modernist architecture—the show traces parallels visible across history, from developments in modern architecture and supply-side economic theory to the social and aesthetic tendencies that have shaped each city and the artists in them. Works by Chicago-based artists Gaylen Gerber, Devin T. Mays, Isabelle Frances McGuire, B. Ingrid Olson, Micah Schippa Wildfong and Diane Simpson are paired with the Chicago debuts of Vienna-based artists Anna-Sophie Berger, Benjamin Hirte, Miriam Stoney, Valentina Triet and Walter Pichler. The show is the second exhibition produced by Pucker’s curatorial platform Gertie, as it completes its transition from a civic cultural agency model to a platform for contemporary art and performance.
Dabin Ahn’s “Nocturne”
- DOCUMENT, through June 6, 2026
Over the years, DOCUMENT has established its reputation as one of Chicago’s most interesting galleries for emerging, experimental and conceptual practices. Now, the gallery stages a somewhat unexpected exhibition of paintings by Korean artist Dabin Ahn—though his practice clearly expands beyond the canvas, building an entire symbolically dense, metaphorical world across media. Ahn creates paintings that inhabit a liminal space between image and object: meticulously painted yet conceptually layered, his compositions blur distinctions between material and illusion, engaging with the way images are mediated and experienced both physically and psychologically. Working from a vocabulary of ceramic vessels, stones, candles and personal effects—stand-ins for the self—he draws on 20th-century painting history and Joseon dynasty porcelain traditions, adding a surrealist touch and dreamlike quality that results in environments feeling at once intimate and disorienting. One painting, The Four Seasons, introduces video into Ahn’s practice for the first time, incorporating a functioning screen showing fragments of footage recorded by the artist over three years of travel and daily life: cityscapes, birds in flight, fireworks and the moon.
Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s “Change, I Ching”
- Renaissance Society, through April 12, 2026
Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s mutable hard-edge abstraction unfolds across the canvas as something less fixed than contingent—an image that shifts like a screen subject to light and atmosphere, its final reading never fully settled but constantly recalibrated. For her exhibition at the Renaissance Society, she presents a complete cycle of 64 paintings derived from the hexagrams of the I Ching, the foundational Chinese text that maps the perpetual transformation of existence. Each canvas is structured around a hexagram grid—not as a representation or diagram but as a generative sign, an element within an evolving visual language shaped by abstraction, intuition and the interplay of light and material. Rooted in a continuous dialogue between East and West, Zheng’s practice merges philosophical inquiry with painterly process, drawing equally on traditional Chinese material sensibilities and the conceptual rigor associated with figures like John Cage. Installed in a sequence that traces the perimeter of the space, the paintings establish a rhythm that shifts with the changing light throughout the day, constructing not just images but conditions of viewing—privileging what Zheng describes as “the light of the here and now.”
“Matisse’s Jazz: Rhythms in Color”
- The Art Institute of Chicago, through June 1, 2026
In addition to showing one of the most comprehensive and historically layered permanent collections in the United States, the Art Institute of Chicago is presenting a show on one of the most playfully vibrant series in Henri Matisse’s career: his Jazz-inspired cut-paper works, which he described as “drawing with scissors.” Translating improvisational energy into pure color and form with little premeditation, Matisse found a new and even more spontaneous way to pursue his long-standing obsession with the organic flow of lines. In these particular works, color is untethered from line, and composition is driven by the rhythm of making, beyond any containing structure. Encouraged by his friend and publisher Tériade (the pseudonym of Stratis Eleftheriades), Matisse deepened his exploration of the technique, producing a series of 20 cut-paper maquettes inspired by memories of Parisian music halls, the circus, trips to Tahiti, folktales and mythology.
Cheryl Pope’s “ALL THERE IS”
- moniquemeloche, through May 16, 2026
Monique Meloche has been one of the more quietly decisive forces in Chicago’s contemporary art ecosystem. For EXPO week, the respected Chicago dealer presents a solo show by one of the Chicago-born talents she has long championed: Cheryl Pope, whose intimate studio practice has centered on textile “paintings.” Working with needle-punched wool roving on cashmere, her richly tactile works translate the language of painting into fiber, using material, texture and color to explore memory, relationships and the poetics of everyday life. In her latest show, the artist debuts a completely new body of work in which nature becomes the protagonist. These landscapes are more emotional and spiritual than physical, exploring the sentimental and energetic resonance of the land as a site of recollection and shared human experience. The series was inspired by a recent residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MACAAL) in Marrakech, where encounters with the geological and energetic vastness of the Atlas Mountains and the desert sparked an immediate sense of belonging. A subsequent return to New Mexico’s Abiquiú—long tied to her family—extended that experience: though geographically distant, both landscapes awakened a shared stillness and a deeper connection to the universality of place.
A Maurizio Cattelan-Designed Gala
- Renaissance Society, April 8, 2026
This is not formally an art exhibition, but it is, in its own way, an entire artwork. This year, the Renaissance Society’s annual RenBen artist-led gala has been conceived and orchestrated by Maurizio Cattelan. True to his playful and improvisational wit, the event strays far from a traditional seated dinner. The 2026 edition—titled “The Silent Party!”—will transform two floors of the Chicago Athletic Association into a labyrinth, as Cattelan invites guests into an immersive experience through artist-activated rooms and performances sure to charm and intrigue. The evening unfolds in two acts. For the first two hours, guests are to remain silent, communicating only through handwritten notes. In the final hour, sound returns, and gala-goers will enjoy a roaming menu by James Beard Award-winning chef Jason Hammel alongside wines from Franciacorta.