Latest Events in Chicago(March Updated)

Jitish Kallat’s site-specific installation, Public Notice 3, returns to the Art Institute of Chicago’s Grand Staircase this fall after a 14-year hiatus. Initially unveiled on September 11, 2010, the work connects two significant historical events separated by 108 years: the First World’s Parliament of Religions which began on September 11, 1893, and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. At the earlier event, the World Parliament of Religions, held in an auditorium that encompassed the area that today includes both the museum’s Fullerton Hall and Woman’s Board Grand Staircase, a young Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda electrified audiences with a powerful speech calling for an end to religious fundamentalism, intolerance, and bigotry.

The exhibition focuses on the life and research experiences of scientist Dr. Sara Ruane, reinterpreting the diversity of modern scientific professions and the pathways of scientific exploration through her personal story.

This exhibition uses narrative, artifacts, and multimedia to showcase Lesley de Souza's personal growth and research trajectory, telling the story of how she developed from a childhood curiosity about nature into a conservation biologist dedicated to the protection of freshwater ecosystems.

For this iteration of the Atrium Project series, artist, author, and activist Edie Fake transforms the two-story lobby wall in the museum’s second floor atrium with his mural The Free Clinic for Gender Affirming Care (2024–25). An imagined facade of a clinic for free transgender healthcare, the mural offers a majestic counterview to the present reality in the United States, where transgender and nonbinary people are under constant threat of political repression, restriction, and scapegoating. The mural, with its layered architectural motifs and undulating prismatic colors, invites visitors into Fake’s utopian vision of access and open expression. Following his earlier Memory Palace series—examples of which are included in the exhibition City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago, on view at the MCA from July 5, 2025, through May 31, 2026—wherein Fake reimagined the facades of historic queer and feminist establishments in Chicago, this work underscores the artist’s shift in focus from the past to the future, from what was to what could still be.

H. C. Westermann’s work combines a graceful mastery of materials, rough and tumble physicality, commonsense philosophizing, acrobatic wit and wordplay, and a sensitive worldview shaped in equal measure by the horrors of wartime and the devotions of love. He used a wide-range of materials but was most dedicated to woodworking, once stating that wood was his “whole life.”

Explore the fascinating world of reptiles in this one-of-a-kind family-friendly exhibition! Combining original Field Museum science with live animals and engaging interactives,Reptiles Alive!offers an immersive experience into the lives of snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and more. Discover their habitats, adaptations, and the groundbreaking research of Dr. Sara Ruane.

Can you think of a moment in your life when turmoil and darkness brought meaningful insight? That was one of several questions that artist and educator Pablo Helguera posed to a group of 20 Chicago artists, writers, activists, and educators in the fall of 2024. The group had converged at the MCA as part of Helguera’s work on a new exhibition of the museum’s permanent collection. Their conversations, which ranged from the role of art in moments of uncertainty to the ways that confusion or misalignment can lead to creative possibilities, form the basis of Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera. Curated by Helguera and representatives from the MCA’s curatorial and learning teams in response to the group’s discussions, the exhibition spans all three floors of the museum’s iconic stairwell galleries and explores themes that emerged during conversations with participants. Accompanied by the voices of the individuals whose unique perspectives on the present informed the selection of works, Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera presents well-known works from the collection in an entirely new context—a conversation between Chicagoans reckoning with the present.

Discover how a colossal asteroid ended the dinosaurs' reign and paved the way for life’s astonishing comeback, shaping the world we know today. Meet unfamiliar creatures, explore immersive media experiences, and marvel at fossils from the Field Museum's renowned collections.

Drawn primarily from the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection, On Loss and Absence brings together over 100 objects from diverse cultures dating from antiquity to today to reveal the ways people use textiles to sustain spiritual beliefs, understand death, cope with grief, remember those who have passed, and heal from trauma, both personally and collectively.

Over the past 50 years, Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson has created work inspired by a diverse range of sources including clothing, household objects, and architecture.Working from highly detailed preparatory drawings, Simpson develops complex geometries which she then transforms into three-dimensional objects that call into question perspective and scale. Produced entirely by hand with painstaking care, Simpson’s sculptures are intimately domestic, spatially challenging, and terrifically strange.