All posts tagged: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

6 Standout Museums and Galleries Shows to See After Expo Chicago

6 Standout Museums and Galleries Shows to See After Expo Chicago

Published by Jenni Sidey

All eyes will be on the Windy City this month as more than 130 galleries convene for the 15th edition of Expo Chicago at Navy Pier (April 9–12), its third outing as part of the international Frieze brand, which purchased the fair (along with New York’s Armory Show) in 2023. More than 35,000 art lovers attended the 2025 edition, and this year’s visitors will take advantage of the city’s rich art scene, with longstanding commercial galleries as well as scrappy artist-run spaces and institutions large and small, from the encyclopedic Art Institute of Chicago to the avant-garde–focused Museum of Contemporary Art and academically linked institutions such as the Smart Museum of Art and the Renaissance Society, both at the University of Chicago, and (until it closes, anyway) the DePaul Art Museum at the eponymous university. Here are six shows you shouldn’t miss after touching down at O’Hare. 1. “Dancing the Revolution” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Image Credit: Adrian Boot / Urbanimage.tv This first-of-its-kind exhibition surveys the intertwined histories of Caribbean-born musical genres dancehall and …

MCA Chicago Head Madeleine Grynsztejn Offers Consummate Windy City Guide

MCA Chicago Head Madeleine Grynsztejn Offers Consummate Windy City Guide

Published by José Betancourt

At year’s end, Madeleine Grynsztejn will leave her post after 18 years as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which bills itself as one of the world’s largest museums devoted to the art of today. The museum, which launched in 1967 with a Fluxus happening by John Cage, Dick Higgins, and Allison Knowles, soon expanded its mission to collecting, and its holdings have now grown to include over 2,000 pieces. One early claim to fame: It was the first US building to be wrapped by legendary artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in 1969. Grynsztejn looks back on a tenure in which she oversaw a doubling of the museum’s operating budget. Major gifts included one from Greek collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos, who gave the MCA about 100 works (most are kept jointly with the Guggenheim Museum in New York), including pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, Wangechi Mutu, Paul Pfeiffer, and many others. Another coup was a $2 million gift from Chicago collectors Marilyn and Larry Fields, along with 79 artworks.  Related Articles As the art …

MCA Chicago Director Madeleine Grynsztejn to Depart After 18 Years

MCA Chicago Director Madeleine Grynsztejn to Depart After 18 Years

Published by José Betancourt

Madeleine Grynsztejn, one of the key figures of Chicago’s art scene, will leave her post as director of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art at the end of the year, bringing to an end an 18-year-long tenure that has seen a range of celebrated retrospectives and a dramatic expansion of the institution’s collection and operating budget. In a phone interview, Grynsztejn pointed out that next year will mark the MCA’s 60th anniversary, and said that she felt it was time to step aside and allow someone else to take up her mantle. Related Articles “I asked myself, who should be on the dais in January 2027? Should it be the person who brought the museum to this moment for the last 20 years, or should it be the person who will take the museum forward for the next 20 years?” Grynsztejn said. “The answer was easy for me.” She declined to specify what she might do next, but she said that her next project would see her “replicate my support for artists more directly on …