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Ocula Member Galleries are selected by a committee of respected gallerists to present only the best of contemporary art on Ocula.
Read MoreWhether you want to discover contemporary art created by established artists or by emerging talents, below you will find some of the best galleries across Chicago's vibrant art scene presenting a range of both.
In Chicago's Near West Side, The West Loop is home to a cluster of major Chicago galleries, including two of Kavi Gupta's three gallery spaces. For more than two decades, Kavi Gupta has presented Chicago with rigorous programming featuring leading contemporary artists such as Mickalene Thomas and Firelei Báez.
Travelling west of Kavi Gupta is Somali-French dealer Mariane Ibrahim's Chicago gallery, spotlighting artists from the African diaspora, including well-known names such as Amoako Boafo and Zohra Opoku.
Corbett vs. Dempsey likewise highlights many international artists in their programme. The gallery also stages presentations of contemporary and historical figures of Chicago's art scene, including Chicago Imagists Edward Flood and Christina Ramberg. As well as a gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey is a record label focused on jazz and sound art, amongst other genres.
Though galleries such as Kavi Gupta and Corbett vs. Dempsey have held an influential presence in Chicago for more than 20 years each, they are relative newcomers compared to the more-than-50-year presence Rhona Hoffman Gallery has in the city. While it was still known as Young Hoffman Gallery, the gallery was one of the first to exhibit female artists such as Jenny Holzer and Barbara Krueger, and Rhona Hoffman continues that legacy today with a diverse programme of contemporary talent.
Explore current and upcoming exhibitions across Chicago's best galleries, institutions, and non-profit art spaces.
Read MoreThe Third Coast city of Chicago has long been a centre for American culture, music, and the arts. A key stronghold of experimentation in North America's contemporary art world, Chicago's numerous galleries and exhibitions attract art enthusiasts and collectors from around the country and beyond. The city's thriving art scene stands out for its focus on exhibitions at innovative artist-run and non-profit galleries, backed up by established contemporary art-dealer galleries, large museums, and community-centred institutions.
Notable Chicago institutions include the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). The Art Institute of Chicago displays an impressive collection of impressionist paintings, including works by Monet, Dalí, Van Gogh, and Renoir. Other venues to visit include the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and Navy Pier's Festival Hall. Explore current and upcoming exhibitions across the city's best galleries, institutions, and non-profit contemporary art spaces.
As a national hub for contemporary art, a few significant contemporary art events draw artists and art enthusiasts to Illinois each year. EXPO Chicago, held in September at Navy Pier, features leading contemporary art exhibitions from around the world. Chicago Contemporary Art Month takes place each October and aims to spotlight the diversity of the local contemporary art scene. The Old Town Art Fair takes place in June and features work from artists nationwide.
Chicago has a diverse and vibrant contemporary art scene, providing enthusiasts with a wide range of thought-provoking artistic expressions. From cutting-edge digital art to conceptual and immersive video installation art, one will uncover many different types of contemporary art in Chicago. Exploring the city's streets and neighbourhoods will reveal captivating murals and street art. Talent from around the globe showcases their creativity on the walls of buildings, turning Chicago into an open-air gallery.
Find out what contemporary art exhibitions are showing in Chicago by exploring the profiles of our Member Galleries. Whether you'd like to view drawings, photography, paintings, posters, or a collection of artefacts, art enthusiasts can find out what works are currently on display by viewing our Gallery Member profiles. Here you can read about the exhibit and the works the exhibition features.
Chicago's museums and institutions offer an exceptional arts and culture experience. Explore our selection of the best spaces to visit.
Read MoreAt nearly 100,000 square metres, the Art Institute of Chicago is the second-largest museum in the United States, and filled with artworks from the ancient through to the contemporary era. It offers curated presentations of local, national, and international artists, complemented by a permanent collection that includes national treasures such as Grant Wood's American Gothic (1930).
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) is a short walk or bus ride north of the Art Institute. More experimental in approach, the MCA is devoted to cutting-edge presentations in collaboration with some of the biggest names in the contemporary art world. The Museum's 2019 retrospective of artist and designer Virgil Abloh was his last major exhibition before his death in 2021.
The Renaissance Society is a pillar of Chicago's South Side art institutions. Located in the heart of the University of Chicago's campus, it is a 280-square-metre single-room gallery that offers experimental new presentations from important contemporary artists such as Jill Magid, William Pope. L, Dawoud Bey, and Liz Magor.
Elsewhere on the South Side, in 2015 Chicago artist Theaster Gates bought a community bank that had closed and fallen into disrepair. He restored and reopened it as Stony Island Arts Bank: a community centre, library, archive, and gallery focused on the history of the South Side.
Ocula Magazine is an online platform dedicated to publishing the best in contemporary art internationally. Explore our in-depth conversations, insights, features, news stories, and photologs covering the Chicago arts scene here.
Read MoreSince its launch in 2010, Ocula Magazine has interviewed some of Chicago's most significant artists including Theaster Gates, Dawoud Bey, and McArthur Binion. Ocula Magazine has also published features on exhibitions and installations throughout the city by artists such as Maya Lin, Moki Cherry, and Yuge Zhou.
In any given week, you can see the works of some of the world's most exciting artists in Chicago. Here you will find a selection of artists whose works are currently on show in the city.
Read MoreSign up to My Ocula to follow artists and galleries, save artworks to your favourites, and be informed when new exhibitions and features are published.
Every year in April, EXPO Chicago, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art is held at the scenic Navy Pier overlooking Lake Michigan. Playing annual host to over 150 local, national, and international galleries, EXPO week fills Navy Pier's Festival Hall as well as the city with even more innovative presentations and programming.
Read MoreKey to Chicago's art scene year-round is its massive number of artist-run initiatives, dispersed throughout the city and into its neighbouring suburbs. These initiatives include Compound Yellow: a gallery, workshop, and home hosted across several canary-yellow buildings in Oak Park.
Another artist-run initiative, Co-Prosperity is a Bridgeport hub of the Public Media Institute—the institution responsible for multiple periodicals throughout the city, a radio station, a consignment store, and a pandemic initiative that provided free chef-quality meals to the Bridgeport public daily. Other artist-run institutions in the city and surrounding areas include ADDS DONNA, Prairie, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center.
Ask much of the art world and they will say that the East or West Coast is the place to be. But the Third Coast city of Chicago has been a hidden pearl with a thriving art scene, hosting innovative artist-run and non-profit galleries to established contemporary dealer galleries, large museums and institutions.
Read MoreAt nearly 100,000 square metres, the Art Institute of Chicago is the largest museum in the city and the second-largest museum in the United States. Making good use of the space, the Institute is packed with artworks from the ancient through to the contemporary era. It offers curated presentations of local, national, and international artworks, complemented by a permanent collection that includes national treasures such as Grant Wood's American Gothic (1930).
Another significant Chicago art institution, the Chicago Cultural Center neighbours the Art Institute of Chicago at its downtown location. An architectural gem topped by a magnificent 11.5-metre-wide Tiffany Dome, the Chicago Cultural Center hosts a range of quality exhibitions every year, as well as the Chicago Architecture Biennial every two years.
A short walk or bus ride north of the Art Institute and the Cultural Center will lead the art-minded individual right to the steps of the Museum of Contemporary Art. More experimental in approach than the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art is devoted to cutting-edge presentations in collaboration with some of the biggest names in the contemporary art world.
In 2020, the Museum of Contemporary Art presented Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago, for which the titular Nigeria-born British designer assembled a vast number of objects from the city's public and private art collections in order to reimagine the historical and contemporary relationship between artists and objects. Large-scale retrospectives of artists such as Virgil Abloh and Takashi Murakami are also a staple of the Museum's programming.
Many more contemporary art destinations are to be found on the South Side of Chicago, including the Stony Island Arts Bank. The building that now houses the Stony Island Arts Bank was originally a community bank that had closed and fallen into disrepair. Chicago artist Theaster Gates bought the building in 2015, restored it, and reopened it as a community centre, library, archive, and gallery focused on the history of the South Side.
Another important art destination on the South Side is the Renaissance Society. Located in the heart of the University of Chicago's campus, the Renaissance Society is a 280-square-metre single-room gallery that offers experimental new presentations from important contemporary artists such as Jill Magid, William Pope.L, Dawoud Bey, and Liz Magor.
West Town, located in Chicago's Near West Side, is also a hub of cultural institutions for the city. There, one can find the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC). A non-profit gallery space and organisation supporting emerging generations of artists, the CAC has for nearly fifty years advocated for the rights of artists, spurring developments including the creation of the Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs.
The CAC is also responsible for making Chicago the first large city to legislate a Percent for Art Ordinance, which stipulates that a percentage of the cost of constructing or renovating municipal buildings must go towards commissioning new art for that building. The CAC is thus in part to thank for Chicago's noteworthy public art collection, which includes Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate (2004) in Millennium Park downtown, and Kerry James Marshall's Knowledge and Wonder (1995) at the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library in West Garfield Park.
West Town is also home to a cluster of Chicago art galleries, such as Kavi Gupta Gallery, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Monique Meloche Gallery, and Corbett vs. Dempsey. It is here you can explore a range of paintings, sculptures and other mediums to buy.
The EXPO Chicago art fair, held at the scenic Navy Pier overlooking Lake Michigan, brings more galleries to town each year for a week of innovative presentations and programming.
Key to Chicago's art scene is its massive number of artist-run initiatives, dispersed throughout the city and into its neighbouring suburbs. These initiatives include Compound Yellow—a gallery, workshop, and home hosted across several canary-yellow buildings in Oak Park, an area best known for its plethora of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings—and Comfort Station, an ex-trolley rest stop that Logan Square Preservation revitalised as a community art space.
Another artist-run gallery, Co-Prosperity is a Bridgeport hub of the Public Media Institute, which is an institution responsible for multiple periodicals throughout the city, a radio station, a consignment store, and a pandemic initiative that provides free chef-quality meals to the Bridgeport public daily. Other artist-run spaces in the city and surrounding areas include Adds Donna, Prairie, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Roots & Culture, and Extase.
You can explore this guide further for Chicago exhibitions and Chicago Art Museums to visit.
Image: Photo by Christopher Alvarenga on Unsplash.
