Chicago's art scene is set to explode this fall with an impressive lineup of exhibitions featuring some of the most influential artists of our time. Leading the charge is a major retrospective of Yoko Ono, the 92-year-old peace activist and cultural icon who collaborated with legendary musicians including John Cage, Ornette Coleman, and her late husband John Lennon. While Ono is widely recognized as a pop culture figure, her groundbreaking contributions to the visual and conceptual art worlds are less well-known.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago will host "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind," a large-scale touring exhibition running from October 18 through February 22, 2026, at 220 E. Chicago Ave. The MCA serves as the show's only U.S. venue, making this a rare opportunity for American audiences. Originally organized by London's Tate Modern, where it drew record crowds, this comprehensive retrospective showcases more than 200 objects that span Ono's diverse artistic career. The exhibition highlights her pivotal role in Fluxus, an influential experimental art movement of the 1960s and 70s, as well as her innovative and sometimes banned films from those decades, including "FLY" (1970-71).

While Ono's exhibition is expected to dominate Chicago's art world attention this fall, numerous other notable shows are worth visiting. Aaron Curry, a Chicago-trained artist now based in Los Angeles, will present his debut solo show in the city at Corbett vs. Dempsey from September 11 through November 1. Titled "Raw Dog," the exhibition features Curry's signature brightly colored, biomorphic sculptures that playfully merge modernist abstraction with elements from science fiction, cartoons, and video games. The show will display a new collection of wood sculptures, both wall-mounted and freestanding pieces, alongside cereal box collages.

Curry, who was born in San Antonio, earned his bachelor of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 and is now represented in the MCA Chicago collection. The prolific printmaker was also featured in a contemporary etching exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art during 2023-24. His Chicago debut takes place at 2156 W. Fulton St.

The DePaul Art Museum will present "Tengo Lincoln Park en mi corazón: Young Lords in Chicago" from September 11 through February 8, 2026, at 935 W. Fullerton Ave. This historically significant exhibition examines the impact and legacy of the Young Lords Organization, which evolved from a Chicago street gang into a powerful civil rights group advocating for Puerto Rican communities facing gentrification during the 1960s. The show, curated by DePaul professor Jacqueline Lazú, commemorates one of the group's most notable acts of resistance: the May 1969 occupation of the Stone Administration Building at McCormick Seminary, now DePaul's School of Music North Building.

The exhibition tells this compelling story through archival materials, historical artifacts, photographs, murals, prints, and a central multimedia installation created by multidisciplinary artist Arif Smith in collaboration with Rebel Betty, a Puerto Rican artist, poet, and cultural worker. This comprehensive presentation offers visitors insight into a crucial chapter of Chicago's civil rights history.

The Driehaus Museum will showcase "Tiffany Lamps: Beyond the Shade" from September 12 through March 15, 2026, at 50 E. Erie St. This exhibition celebrates Louis Comfort Tiffany, a leading figure in late 19th and early 20th-century art, architecture, and design. The show focuses on the iconic lamps produced by Tiffany's studio from the 1880s through the 1920s, featuring desk, table, and floor lamps in a wide variety of styles. Organized by Alexandra Ruggiero, a glass specialist and consulting curator at New York's Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, the exhibition also includes complementary pieces such as glass and pottery vases, enamel and bronze boxes, and a leaded-glass fire screen. More than 50 objects from the extensive Tiffany holdings of the Driehaus Museum and Richard H. Driehaus Art Exhibition Lending Foundation will be featured.

For those interested in the intersection of literature and gaming, the University of Chicago's Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Joseph Regenstein Library will host "Charting Imaginary Worlds: Why Fantasy and Games Are Inseparable" from September 15 through December 12 at 1100 E. 57th St. This engaging exhibition explores the deep connections between tabletop and video games like Dungeons & Dragons and The Witcher, and the literary fantasy genre with its magical worlds filled with spells, riddles, monsters, and castles. The show chronicles how these two realms have influenced and shaped each other for more than a century, featuring three playable games—Adventure (1980), Golden Axe II (1991), and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)—alongside books, maps, toys, props, costumes, screenshots, and video clips.

Northwestern University's Block Museum of Art will present "Pouring, Spilling, Bleeding: Helen Frankenthaler and Artists' Experiments on Paper" from September 17 through December 14 at 40 Arts Circle Drive in Evanston. This exhibition honors Helen Frankenthaler, who died in 2011 at age 83, as one of the legendary figures in post-World War II Abstract Expressionism and a pioneer of color field painting. Rather than using traditional brushwork, Frankenthaler employed the techniques referenced in the show's title to create her visually poetic compositions. The exhibition marks the first public display of 34 prints and working proofs from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, demonstrating how the artist transferred the look and feel of her paintings into the medium of printmaking. The Block Museum was among 10 university art museums in the United States to receive a portfolio of such works on paper in 2023, along with funding for interpretation and public engagement.

The sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, titled "SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change," will run from September 19 through February 28, 2026, at various locations throughout the city. Established in 2016 to honor Chicago's celebrated architectural legacy and showcase innovative designers, this international exposition has become one of the world's most important architectural events. This edition will highlight projects by 100 architects, artists, and designers, including La Cabina de la Curiosidad from Quito, Ecuador, Hardel Le Bihan Architectes from Paris, and Sean Lally from Chicago. The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events will host the opening program on September 19 at the Chicago Cultural Center.

One of Chicago's most celebrated contemporary artists, Theaster Gates, will be featured in "Unto Thee" at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art from September 23 through February 22 at 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Gates has gained international acclaim for his investigations of time, memory, and decay, reclaiming and recontextualizing objects and buildings closely tied to the Black experience. This milestone mid-career survey will include large-scale installations, music, film, and what the museum describes as a "redeployment" of seven groups of discarded objects and materials from the University of Chicago, where Gates serves on the visual arts faculty. These materials include pews from Bond Chapel, granite from the Logan Center, and vitrines from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Gates will also be featured in a concurrent exhibition from October 16 through December 20 at GRAY Chicago gallery at 2044 W. Carroll Ave.

The Elmhurst Art Museum will present "Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust" from September 6 through January 4, 2026, at 150 S. Cottage Hill Ave. in Elmhurst. The exhibition draws on the design principle of shakkei, or "borrowed scenery," which originated centuries ago in East Asian gardens and involves incorporating existing natural features and architectural elements. This marks the first major museum exhibition for both Chicago-based artists, who apply this concept in distinctive ways through their immersive, kaleidoscopic works. "We come from entirely different cultural heritages," Lake explained in a press statement, "yet I believe our practices arise from the same profound soul—a flood of colors, rich symbolism, rhythmic patterns and metaphor." The show, which is part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, will feature recent large-scale works by both artists as well as a collaborative installation combining their design languages.

Wrightwood 659 will host "Scott Burton: Shape Shift" from October 3 through December 20 at 659 W. Wrightwood Ave. This exhibition seeks to recalibrate the place of Scott Burton in recent art history through a major reexamination of his accomplishments and legacy in conceptual, public, and queer art. During the 1980s, Burton was among the most sought-after artists, with museums and public art programs eager to acquire his furniture-inspired sculptures. While minimalist at first glance, his forms reveal greater complexity under careful examination. However, when the 50-year-old artist died of AIDS in 1990, his artistic profile surprisingly diminished. This touring exhibition, the largest ever mounted of Burton's work, was organized by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis and encompasses nearly 40 sculptures, photographs, ephemera, and the only known extant video of his performance work.

Finally, the Art Institute of Chicago will present "Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination" from October 4 through January 5 at 111 S. Michigan Ave. This exhibition explores Symbolism, a loose late 19th-century movement that emerged in France and Belgium before spreading across Europe, emphasizing emotion and ideas over naturalism and realism. Featuring more than 85 prints and drawings from the Art Institute's extensive holdings, the show showcases renowned practitioners like James Ensor, Paul Gauguin, and Odilon Redon, alongside lesser-known figures such as Emilie Mediz-Pelikan, Léon Spilliaert, and Gustav Adolf Mossa. One of the exhibition's main attractions will be a black-and-white lithograph version of Edvard Munch's iconic vision of existential angst, "The Scream."

These exhibitions represent just a portion of Chicago's vibrant fall cultural offerings, which also include dance performances featuring female choreographers, new theater productions, classical music festivals, and jazz celebrations including the Englewood Jazz Festival and Hyde Park Jazz Festival running through the end of September.