It is, as usual, a big autumn on the Chicago museum scene. Some major special exhibitions will debut and treat realms from the ancient Mediterranean to “Saturday Night Live” to the afterlife. A big museum, the MCA, will celebrate its 50th anniversary of being, or trying to be, contemporary.
For this annual list of highly anticipated shows, a few caveats. First, I’m setting aside the Chicago Architecture Biennial, which is centered at the Chicago Cultural Center and will have lots of museum-ish exhibitions and events well worth checking out. I’m not talking about the new Penguin Experience at Lincoln Park Zoo, which is already open but I haven’t had a chance to try yet. And I’m also leaving to separate coverage two big events of autumn, Chicago Ideas Week and Chicago Humanities Festival’s Fallfest.
Instead, I’ve come up with this list, in chronological order, of 10-plus fall (or late summer) museum shows I am eagerly anticipating:
Ellis Avenue art bonanza: Here’s a nifty day in Hyde Park. First, visit the newly reconfigured galleries of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. Not only is the museum’s permanent collection re-displayed, under new director Alison Gass, in a thematic presentation titled “Conversations with the Collection: Building/Environments,” but there are four other exhibitions to explore, too, three of them new this week. Then, head the four or so blocks south to the independent (but university building-located) Renaissance Society, which is showing “Jennifer Packer: Tenderheaded.” It’s the first solo museum exhibition by this young, African-American painter working, poetically, with some of the same themes as Chicago master Kerry James Marshall: the black figure, the impacts of violence, the weight of art history. Smart Museum shows: opening beginning Sept. 12, but the fall opening reception is Sept. 27, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. (1/2 block east of Ellis Ave.); www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu or 773-702-0200. “Tenderheaded:” through Nov. 5, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., 4th floor; www.renaissancesociety.org or 773-702-8670.
50th anniversary at MCA Chicago: The cup runneth over this season at the Chicago Avenue temple to the current. The blockbuster exhibition by Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami ends Sept. 24; expect crowds trying to get a look before it decamps. The museum’s new ground floor restaurant, Marisol, guided by chef Jason Hammel (Lula Cafe), should be out of its “soft open” phase any day now. A solo exhibition of the work of Michael Rakowitz, the Chicago artist whose conceptual work delves into his Iraqi heritage, will bring together such seemingly unrelated subjects as Saddam Hussein, “Star Wars,” the Beatles and a St. Louis housing project. And then comes the 50th anniversary deep dive into the museum’s collection, a three-part exhibition titled “We Are Here.” “Michael Rakowitz: Backstroke of the West:” opens Sept. 16; “We Are Here,” opens Oct. 21; 220 E. Chicago Ave.; www.mcachicago.org or 312-280-2660.
Revenge of the dead? Every fall, the National Museum of Mexican Art offers a compelling visual take on a centuries-old cultural tradition with its Day of the Dead exhibition. This year’s version is bigger, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the free Pilsen museum. Among the potential highlights, there are works dedicated to the Manchester, England, terror attack victims and a giant sort of papier-mache ofrenda honoring immigrants everywhere. Meanwhile, the Oriental Institute Museum at U of C is offering its own take on the afterlife. It’s fall special exhibition “The Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt” will examine the book of spells that promised people a transformation in the great beyond. A highlight is two Books of the Dead being shown for the first time in almost 100 years. “Day of the Dead: Tilica y flaca es la calaca:” Opens Sept. 22, 1852 W. 19th St.; www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org or 312-738-1503. “The Book of the Dead:” Opens Oct. 3, 1155 E. 58th St.; oi.uchicago.edu or 773-702-9520.
“Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea”: Art isn’t typically the Shedd Aquarium’s thing. But conservation, especially of the oceans, is, and this exhibition hits right in that sweet spot. Throughout the lakefront fish house, 10 giant sculptures of marine life will condemn contemporary culture’s waste and carelessness, and the harm it is doing to real sea creatures. How does it do this? By crafting those sculptures, including a 13-foot-tall seahorse, out of plastic beach trash. From the photos, these artworks appear to be whimsical and pointed at the same time. Opens Sept. 23, 1200 S. Lake Shore Drive; www.sheddaquarium.org or 312-939-2438.
“Very Eric Carle: A Very Hungry, Quiet, Lonely, Clumsy, Busy Exhibit”: I’m well past the children’s museum age. That doesn’t mean I fail to note the good stuff coming up aimed at younger kids, including “Build It!” — a building block-based show at the Kohl Children’s Museum (opens Sept. 27) and “Backyard Adventures,” a show about the science all around us at the Notebaert Nature Museum (Sept. 23). But I’m partial, for sentimental reasons, to the upcoming Chicago Children’s Museum show based on the work of author Eric Carle. His books, including “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” were staples of our boys’ early read-aloud diet: gentle, rhythmic stories of nature happening, beautifully illustrated with the author’s collage artworks. This show, which aims to put youngsters into Carle settings alongside or in the guise of some of his animals, is billed as “a play-and-learn exhibit.” Opens Sept. 30, 700 E. Grand Ave. (Navy Pier); www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org or 312-527-1000.
“HEY! PLAY! Games in Modern Culture”: I’m very curious to see how Chicago Design Museum, the small, free museum in the Block Thirty-Seven mall, handles this subject. One of the curators is Brian Schrank, who holds the title at DePaul of Chair of Game Design, and the show aims to showcase the video-game medium and, according to the museum, “demonstrate that, at heart, we are all gamers.” Opens Oct. 20, 108 N. State St., 3rd floor; chidm.com or 312-894-6263.
“Ancient Mediterranean Cultures in Contact”: Guess what? Immigration isn’t just a modern story. This major exhibition organized by the Field Museum aims to highlight the way cultures crossed, and perhaps collided, in the ancient world as avenues began to open up for commingling between Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans. But it’s also a nice excuse to display some beautiful old artifacts. Objects will include a Roman Period mummy from Egypt, an Etruscan vase fashioned in Greek style, and a bronze bathtub from Pompeii. “The Etruscan jewelry is decorated with Egyptian scarabs, a status symbol showing that the wearer was worldly and had prestige and power,” Associate Curator Bill Parkinson said in a Field news release. “They’re like the fancy Italian shoes of the Iron Age.” Opens Oct. 20, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive; www.fieldmuseum.org or 312-922-9410.
“Saturday Night Live: The Experience”: Rarely noticed, the 35-year-old Museum of Broadcast Communications is aiming to raise its profile with this giant (12,000 square feet) homage to all things related to NBC’s late-night weekend warhorse. The exhibition was made in cooperation with executive producer Lorne Michaels and his sketch-comedy show, arguably hotter than ever in the current political moment. It’ll feature scads of costumes, sets and opportunities for nostalgia, some 500 artifacts in all. A good friend of mine who caught the exhibit when it debuted in New York a couple of years ago said it is terrific. Isn’t that special? Opens Oct. 21, 360 N. State St.; www.museum.tv, snltheexperience.com or 312-245-8200.
Soviet art gone wild: My first instinct would not be to see a megashow devoted to the early art of the former USSR, even on or about the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. But the description of the exhibition makes it clear the Art Institute is going all in, with a compelling concept for presentation, and suddenly it sounds highly intriguing. “Revoliutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test,” which will occupy the museum’s showcase special exhibition space, “fills Regenstein Hall with 10 model displays from the early Soviet era,” the museum says. “Each of these sections … holds rare works of art and features expert, life-size reconstructions of early Soviet display objects or spaces, commissioned especially for this exhibition.” The sections include School, Press, Cinema, Theater, Storefront and Home, with presentations that sound clever in each instance, and the art will include not only the distinctive poster graphics people know so well but paintings by Picabia and Mondrian. Opens Oct. 29, 111 S. Michigan Ave.; www.artic.edu or 312-443-3600.
“Race: Are We So Different?” The Chicago History Museum doesn’t typically do science. But this traveling exhibition, which aims to show visitors that what we think of as race is more of a social construct than a scientific one, seems timely, entirely relevant to the historical moment. In the wake of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Va., and with a president who was not eager to condemn said racists, “Race” will aim to show the absurdity of trying to set people apart from one another on the basis of skin color or facial features. Opens Nov. 11, 1601 N. Clark St.; www.chicagohistory.org or 312-642-4600.
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @StevenKJohnson
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