Upcoming Exhibits in Chicago this Spring

Looking to expand your horizons and venture out into the city this Spring? Check out one or more of the many exhibits, lectures and programming coming to the city’s acclaimed cultural and artistic institutions.

The Hyde Park Art Center focuses on engaging the community with its variety of program types. Its exhibition Health Club focuses on the ways civic spaces can interact with humans wellness. Two Hot Mess Yoga sessions will be hosted on February 27 and March 13. Additional, Super Sunday on March 31 contains a variety of activities that includes exhibition receptions.

The Chicago Cultural center has robust programming that focuses on current and past movements in Chicago and many of its exhibitions and programs ask for input from the community. For Chicago Theater Week, it asks visitors to stick flags of Chicago theater resources into a giant map on the wall. Its current exhibition is about black artists and their role in Chicago’s consumer culture.

The MCA’s latest exhibition will be opening soon. Big Camera/Little Camera explores how changes in scale play with a sense of triviality. It opened February 23rd and admission is free with a UCID.

Finally, the Art Institute provides a variety of Gallery Talks, where visitors will be guided for an hour through collections in a gallery. While some are general, like the Gallery Talk on Highlights of the Art Institute, others explore specific themes, like Light/Dark/Ugly/Beautiful, which discusses works of art that push the boundary between the tragic and the luminous.

Talks are free with museum admission. Personally, I’d attend the talk on Modern Wing Highlights to gain some perspective on Modernism and why Modern pieces are valued. On the 21st, there will also be a lecture called Art, Illusion, and Control in the Roman Villa presented by the Classical Art Society. Lea K. Cline, associate professor of art history at Illinois State University, will discuss a Roman villa from a slave’s perspective.

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