This Season’s Highlights: Fall 2026, Part I
Fall is always a busy season in Chicago’s art world, with new exhibitions across galleries and museums opening every week. Right after Labor Day many new exhibition will be open, often through October and beyond. Listed here are a few highlights we are looking forward to seeing.
Significant exhibitions begin right after Labor Day with If Emmett Till Lived at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, followed by the 10th anniversary of River North Design District's Gallery Walk.
The 4th edition of Chicago Exhibition Weekend, which is now a full week, begins September 14.
Throughout the fall there are many notable exhibitions taking place, from the Art Institute downtown, to the Smart Museum in Hyde Park and the Block Museum in suburban Evanston.
Please check CGN's online calendar for weekly updates and consider subscribing to CGN in print here.
– CGN
Stephen Marc, Untitled, from Changing Chicago Project, 1988. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.
If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground –
Museum of Contemporary Photography
What if Emmett Till lived? What if he had returned home still a child, alive and free? If Emmett Till Lived… is an exhibition and a civic invitation. The very statement invites a range of questions, a reckoning with the past, and a probing investigation of the current state of American life. This exhibition, and the invitation it offers to viewers, creates a collective arena to consider how freedom has been secured on American ground.
If Emmett Till Lived… honors Till and the history born of his sacrifice. The show—drawn entirely on work in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago—imagines what could have come in his life: photographs of different restaurants pay homage to the last meal Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, packed for him before he left Chicago; others show his favorite pastimes, meditate on the love he might have experienced, on days spent enjoying life in Chicago, on the playground, at the beach, attending prom, living free.
September 10–December 19, 2026
Columbia College Chicago
600 S. Michigan, Chicago, IL 60605
River North Design District 10th Annual Fall Gallery Walk –
This year’s walk, free and open to the public, takes place throughout River North in 17 locations featuring 31 artists and 16 designer vignettes. Showrooms will have extended hours on September 11, from 5–8 p.m., with food and libations. Vignettes are on display through October 9. A closing event takes place October 10.
Light after Dark, the official after party on September 11, 8:00–10:30 p.m. at the BSH Experience Center in THE MART commemorates the 25th anniversary of 9/11 while celebrating a decade of RNDD. Art is Living Fashion, a 6’ × 30’ immersive installation presented by Brizo, is a monumental textile uniting art, fashion, and design through 20 artist-created panels that will be sold by the square foot to benefit Tunnel to Towers.
September 11-October 10, 2026
Various locations
Image courtesy of Gertie
Chicago Exhibition Week –
Chicago Exhibition Week (CXW) returns September 14–20, 2026, bringing together more than 50 galleries, cultural institutions, and programming partners across the city. Presented by Gertie, the week celebrates Chicago’s vibrant arts community through exhibitions, events, and opportunities to explore the city. Highlights include the inaugural CXW Launch Party at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on September 15, hosted and headlined by Vic Mensa; new collector-led cocktail gatherings; and the Annual CXW aDinner on September 18, presented in partnership with EXPO CHICAGO.
CXW’s Wayfinding Routes by prominent Chicagoans offer curated themed guides to galleries, restaurants, bars, cultural venues, and local businesses, giving visitors an insider’s perspective on Chicago’s art, culture, neighborhoods, and creative community.
September 14–20, 2026
Various locations
Lee Miller: Fearless –
The Art Institute of Chicago
“It was a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you.”
That is how Lee Miller—fashion model, magazine photographer, studio operator, Surrealist innovator, international adventurer, and battlefield correspondent—summed up her approach to life and creativity. Lee Miller: Fearless is the first comprehensive survey of her photographs in more than 25 years and gathers together the major episodes of her singular career.
Thru Dec 7
111 S. Michigan Ave.
Amanda Browder, Power Plant Beloit
In/Between Arts Festival –
Racine, WI
Racine Art Museum presents In/Between, a mostly free visual and performing arts festival running September 18–27, 2026. Exploring craft aacross disciplines, the biennial activates Racine County through exhibitions, performances, and participatory projects. Highlights include installations by Amanda Browder and Eric Rieger (HOTTEA), plus the U.S. premiere of Look-Up Aerial Arts’ Éolia. Six interconnected series encompass exhibitions, performances, talks, wellness programs, workshops, and social events, inviting visitors to experience Racine through art, movement, and community engagement.
September 18–27, 2026
Various locations
Racine, WI
Nick DrNaso, painted glass
Linework: Chicago Comics and Community –
Cleve Carney Museum of Art
This exhibition explores Linework, a publication guided by acclaimed cartoonist, designer, and educator Ivan Brunetti that became a gathering point for Chicago’s contemporary comics scene. Bringing together emerging and established artists, Linework fostered creative exchange and strengthened the city’s reputation as a hub for alternative comics. The exhibition revisits the publication, its collaborative community, and the paths its contributors have taken since, including Chicago-based cartoonist Nick DrNaso, whose Sabrina became the first graphic novel longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Sept 19–Nov 21, 2026
Glen Ellyn, IL
teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity –
Smart Museum of Art
The Smart Museum of Art presents teamLab: Everything Exists in Infinite Continuity, the Tokyo-based international art collective’s first major institutional exhibition in the Midwest.
Founded in 2001 by Toshiyuki Inoko, teamLab brings together hundreds of artists, scientists, programmers, mathematicians, architects, and other specialists to create immersive digital installations exploring perception, consciousness, and the relationship between the self and the world.
Spanning 25 years of the collective’s practice, the exhibition features iconic works alongside new pieces created specifically for the Smart Museum. Together, the works trace teamLab’s evolving experimentation with digital technology and its creation of immersive environments that blur boundaries between viewer and artwork, emphasizing individual perception within a shared, collective experience.
Sept 22–Feb 21, 2027
5550 S. Greenwood, Chicago
Yuan Goang-Ming, still from Everyday War, 2024, single-channel video with sound. © Yuan Goang-Ming. Courtesy of the artist.
Everyday War: Yuan Goang-Ming –
Wrightwood 659
Taiwanese new media pioneer Yuan Goang-Ming explores the fragmented, surreal nature of contemporary life through poetic video and installation. Based on his acclaimed 2024 Venice Biennale exhibition, Everyday War at Wrightwood 659 immerses visitors in layered soundscapes and installations examining the unsettling intrusion of war into everyday life.
Sept 25–Dec 19, 2026
659 W. Wrightwood
Picturing the Modern Metropolis: Prints and Photographs from The Block’s Collection –
The Block Museum of Art
Featuring over 100 prints and photographs, this exhibition explores how 20th-century artists captured and reimagined urban life. Works by Edward Steichen, Vivian Maier, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Chicago-based artists examine the city’s energy, diversity, mobility, belonging, and possibilities for creative expression.
Sept 9–Dec 6, 2026
Evanston, IL
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