CGN Art Preview: September 2025
Curated Highlights for What’s Ahead in Chicago’s Art Scene
September is here and it's a very busy, full, exciting month of art. With the arrival of our new fall issue of CGN, covering September-December, we have been sharing several seasonal previews – some that offer highlights through December as well as weekend previews of openings. We hope you enjoy all the coverage and see what you can in the coming days and weeks.
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– CGN
• Exhibitions
Channeling: body ← Image → viewer
Sep 2, 2025 - Dec 20, 2025
Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)
This exhibition features eleven international artists whose work communicates through and with the body, positioning the viewer to a consciousness of their body and self, or how bodies channel and defy societal oppression and malevolence. Gestures such as crawling, lying, climbing, kneeling, pointing, running, and walking backward evoke memory, history, and rhetoric. This exhibition situates the body politic and ways in which history imprints upon us as a reminder that we are human, both in and out of the body.
Diego Marcon: Krapfen
Sep 13, 2025 - Nov 23, 2025
Opening: Saturday, Sep 13, 2025 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Diego Marcon, an artist known for his radical rethinking of cinema, sound, and space, makes his U.S. debut at the Renaissance Society this September. Marcon’s practice is rooted in entertainment and structural cinema—eschewing traditional storytelling to explore the mechanics of filmmaking itself. His works challenge the hierarchy between subject and image, dissolving narrative into abstraction. For this exhibition, Marcon presents Krapfen, a newly commissioned musical dance film that stages an encounter between the kid, performed by dancer Violet Savage, and four characters represented by costume props: gloves, foulard, trousers, and pullover. Krapfen is also an encounter between the golden age of American animation and Italian opera. The choreography—a mix of contemporary dance, classical ballet, and popular entertainment forms—reflects the juxtaposition of traditional and digital filmmaking processes, a hallmark of Marcon’s practice.
Luke Agada: To Translate is to Move Across
Saturday, Sep 20, 2025 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Opening: Saturday, Sep 20, 2025 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Luke Agada’s practice examines themes of globalization, migration and cultural dislocation within the framework of a postcolonial world and its impact on neo-cultural evolution. Agada's surrealist paintings of disembodied figures and dream-like grounds reference identity and the transformation of the postmodern human, where both time and space produce complex bodies of difference. Overlapping the past and present, the other and the self-reflect the ambiguity of our identiy within post-structuralist theory. Agada's work has been inspired by the postcolonial writings of Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, and literary works by Nigerian authors Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. His work is a continuous reflection of his investigative approach to history and critical theory with regards to the examination of the culture of dominance through globalization.
You're All Dead to Me: Guest Curated Show by Marc LeBlanc
Sep 26, 2025 - Oct 30, 2025
Opening: Friday, Sep 26, 2025 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Circle Contemporary (Arts of Life)
To celebrate M. LeBlanc’s 8th anniversary, the gallery has collaborated with local non-profit Arts Of Life on an extraordinary exhibition/event. Over twenty artists have generously donated their work for an exhibition and raffle to be held on Devils Night at Midnight in support of the Arts of Life studio and program.
Erosion: Olivia Petrides
Sep 5, 2025 - Sep 26, 2025
Opening: Friday, Sep 5, 2025 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Erosion explores the intersection of politics, ecology, and the fragility of the human condition through abstract, gestural works that blur the line between atmospheric and political realities. Using simple materials—ink, paper, watercolor, gouache, and fragments of newspapers—the artist creates layered, visceral images that echo both the turbulence of the natural world and the chaos of contemporary social discourse.
Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade
Sep 12, 2025 - Mar 15, 2026
From the 1890s to the 1920s, Tiffany Studios created a captivating range of decorative lighting fixtures that embraced the technological shift from oil lamps to electricity and simultaneously met the styles and tastes of nineteenth and twentieth century consumers. Drawn from the expansive collections of the Museum and the private art collection of Richard H. Driehaus (now in the Art Exhibition Lending Foundation), the exhibition explores how the artisans at Tiffany Studios used a range of materials—including bronze, enamel, pottery, and glass—to bring Tiffany’s innovative lighting designs to life.
• Markets & Auctions
The Maloof Collection of Vivian Maier Gallery Talk and Photographs Reception
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2025 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Opening: Wednesday, Sep 10, 2025 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Heritage Auctions Director Sarahjane Blum gives a gallery talk about collector John Maloof’s journey and passion to protect and celebrate the legacy of Vivian Maier. Accompanying this Gallery Talk is a Preview of Photographs and The Maloof Collection. Enjoy this deeply personal look into the life and work of Maier consisting of ephemera and gallery prints accompanied by works from iconic names like Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nan Goldin, and more.
Fall Fashion
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2025 10:00 AM
Highlights from the auction's house's latest fashion offerings.
Randolph Street Market Festival
Sep 27, 2025 - Sep 28, 2025
10am to 5pm both days
Chicago’s world-famous European style antique and vintage market festival returns September 27+28, 2025! Named Top Ten USA Markets by Travel & Leisure, Architectural Digest, goop, USA Today and more!
• Fundraisers
WMG Fundraiser 2025
Friday, Sep 5, 2025 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
22 W. Washington St, Morningstar's venue & patio
ART AND THE CITY is Woman Made Gallery’s largest annual fundraiser, supporting the underrepresented voices of women and non-binary artists. Surprises and delights await on Morningstar’s sleek 7th-floor venue and outdoor patio: Silent auction, drinks and bites, mystery bags, music and unique performances and guests experiences.
• Tours
Weekend Art Walk: West Chicago Avenue Galleries
Saturday, Sep 20, 2025 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Explore Chicago’s West Town gallery scene with Art Encounter co-founder Joanna Pinsky. Visit Patron Gallery's a solo exhibition by Bethany Collins, then Volume Gallery for an exhibition of weavings by California based artist Porfirio Gutiérrez, see large scale representational graphite drawings by Journie Cirdain at Western Exhibitions as well as work by New York based artist Simone Mantellassi. End the tour at Document Gallery with a two person show of sculptors Kiah Celeste and Gordon Hall.
Special McCormick House Tour
Sunday, Sep 21, 2025 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Join expert guest docent Bobbi Pinkert from the Chicago Architecture Center for a special McCormick House tour in celebration of the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial. As a self-named “archiholic,” Bobbi Pinkert has been a CAC docent since 1999. She is the leader of many tours including the First Lady, Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise. Pinkert will share her expertise about the McCormick House, Mies van der Rohe, and modernist architecture.
The McCormick House is a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. It is one of only three free-standing residences designed and built by Mies in the United States--and one of only two open to the public.
Advance tickets recommended due to limited capacity.
