2017 BLOCKBUSTER CHICAGO EXHIBITS

Are you a fan of rock and roll? Intrigued by the underground world of spies? Or maybe French and Japanese art are more your interest. Then check out these 2017 Chicago museum exhibits that are sure to wow the crowds.

 

Exhibitionism - The Rolling Stones 
Navy Pier

Open now through July 30, 2017
Get ready to rock the world of The Rolling Stones. This immersive musical exhibition follows the story of the world's greatest rock and roll band from its beginnings in a tiny London flat (meticulously recreated for the exhibit) to performing on the biggest stages around the globe. More than 500 original and rare items from The Rolling Stones archives are on display, including the band's handwritten lyric books and personal diaries, costumes by revolutionary designers such as Alexander McQueen, recordings and previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage. Highlights include a cinema showing a high-octane Rolling Stones film, a recording studio featuring the band's actual instruments, and a backstage area that lets fans experience what it feels like for the group just before they head out to perform a show.

 

Jurassic World: The Exhibition
The Field Museum

Open now through January 7, 2018
Get closer to dinosaurs than ever before in Jurassic World: The Exhibition! Based on one of the biggest blockbusters in cinema history, the Exhibition immerses audiences of all ages in scenes inspired by the beloved film. Now, the park that was only a promise comes to life...right before your eyes.Travel to Isla Nublar as a VIP guest and explore Jurassic World. Stare in wonder at a towering Brachiosaurus; come face-to-face with a Velociraptor; and get a rare up-close look at the most vicious dinosaur of them all, Tyrannosaurus rex.

 

The Formation of the Japanese Print Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School
Art Institute of Chicago

Open now through July 23, 2017
Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright was a well-known patron of Japanese arts, inspired by his visit as a young man to the Japan pavilion at Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. He collected Japanese woodblock prints and mounted a large show of his collection at the Art Institute in 1908. Clarence Buckingham, whose name graces the museum's Japanese print gallery, bought several works from Wright. This current fascinating exhibit displays pieces from Buckingham's collection, along with photos from the 1908 Wright exhibition.

 

The Pride & Perils of Chicago's Public Art 
Chicago Cultural Center

Open now through July 30, 2017
Presented as part of Chicago's Year of Public Art, this exhibit takes a look at how the city has championed public art for more than 200 years. Hear stories and see examples of historical public artwork, some loved and some despised. On the second floor check out The Wall of Respect: Vestiges, Shards and the Legacy of Black Power, which examines the importance of a seminal mural on Chicago's South Side featuring black icons like Sarah Vaughan and Ossie Davis that has since been destroyed.

 

Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg 
Museum of Contemporary Art

Open now through September 24, 2017
The MCA presents a major retrospective of this Japanese artist known for his vibrant anime-inspired characters, as well as high-profile collaborations with musician Kanye West and fashion house Louis Vuitton. Rooted in the tradition of Japanese painting and folklore, the exhibit features 50 works that spans three decades of the artist's career, from early pieces that are being shown in North America for the first time to Murakami's current monumental paintings.

 

Brick by Brick 
Museum of Science and Industry

Open now through September 4, 2017
Kids and adults alike will be inspired by more than a dozen giant LEGO^® versions of engineering marvels that include the Golden Gate Bridge, International Space Station and Roman Colosseum. These LEGO^® creations, created by Chicago native Adam Reed Tucker, reveal the complex architectural designs of the original structures. Try your hand at building a LEGO^® masterpiece in the open build area.

 

Spies, Traitors, and Saboteurs: Fear and Freedom in America 
Chicago History Museum

Open now through November 26, 2017
This traveling exhibition from the International Spy Museum explores nine major events and periods in U.S. history when Americans were threatened by enemies within their own borders. Events ranging from the 1813 burning of the White House to 9/11 illustrate the corresponding evolution of U.S. counterintelligence and homeland security. Chicago coverage includes a look at the radical Weather Underground group and their violent Days of Rage demonstration that took place in the city in 1969.

 

L'Affichomania: The Passion for French Posters 
Driehaus Museum

Open now through January 7, 2018
See approximately 50 posters by the five French grand masters of the medium, including Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Latrec, on display in this beautiful Gilded Age mansion museum. The posters date from 1875 to 1910, and were created during France's exuberant Belle Epoque era. Bright and bold, the posters advertised everything from cigarette papers to stage stars, and were hung along the boulevards of Paris. Posters on display include Lautrec's Moulin Rouge: La Goulue.

 

Robot Revolution
Museum of Science and Industry

Open now through February 4, 2018
Meet the coolest robots ever, assembled. This exhibit is unprecedented. Its cutting edge. And its fun! Get face-to-interface with nearly 40 robots coming to Chicago from all over the world, and doing things you'll barely believe. Watch robots play soccer—without any human control! Meet a robot that can sense and react to your facial expressions. Challenge industrial robot Baxter to a game of tic-tac-toe. Make friends with a therapeutic baby seal robot. See these breakthroughs in science for yourself and discover what robots are able to do for us now and in the future.

 

Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist 
Art Institute of Chicago

June 25-September 10, 2017
Organized in cooperation with the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, this exhibition is the first to examine the artist's all-consuming interest in craft and applied decorative arts. Moving beyond Paul Gauguin's renowned work as a painter, the exhibit features his work in ceramics, woodcarving, printmaking and furniture decoration, and their relationship to his canvases. Featuring a diverse selection of his creative output, it includes the largest-ever public presentation of Gauguin's existing ceramics and groupings of objects reunited for the first time since leaving his studio. This unusual exhibition and installation considers Gauguin's radically inventive art-making processes resulting from the material explorations of his many and varied residences, from France to the Polynesian Islands.

Image credit: Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard. Earthly Paradise, 1888. The Art Institute of Chicago. Through prior gift of Henry Morgen, Ann G. Morgen, Meyer Wasser, and Ruth G. Wasser; restricted gift of Edward M. Blair.

Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution 
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center

July 16-November 12, 2017
The life of late rock and roll impresario Bill Graham, known for promoting San Francisco acts including the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, is explored in this thought-provoking exhibit. Although Graham was recognized as an effusive storyteller and champion of human rights, perhaps not as well-known was his personal story of his escape from the Nazis as a child refugee, arriving at New York's Ellis Island at the age of 11. Artifacts on display, many of which were provided by Graham's own sons, include Jimi Hendrix's guitar and psychedelic ‘60s Fillmore concert posters.

 

 

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