Where to Find Modern Art in Chicago

From April 9^th – 12^th, EXPO CHICAGO will bring thousands of contemporary art lovers to Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. For those wanting to find more modern art in Chicago, read below. You can also take our self-guided tours of street art in the Loop, West Town, Fulton Market, Pilsen, Humboldt Park, and Hyde Park. Download the eATLAS app at the App Store or Google Play.

By Dave Lifton (@daveeatschicago) 

In Streeterville, the 220,000-square-foot Museum of Contemporary Art is one of the world’s largest devoted exclusively to modern art. Founded in 1967, it was the home of Frida Kahlo’s inaugural U.S. exhibition (1978) and Jeff Koons’ first solo American show (1988). Its home is a Josef Paul Kleihues-designed building that opened in 1996, and houses Koons’ Rabbit, Jackie Frieze by Andy Warhol, and In Memory of My Feelings – Frank O’Hara by Jasper Johns as part of its permanent collection. 

Upon its 2009 completion, the Modern Wing added 264,000 square feet to the Art Institute of Chicago, Accessible from Monroe St. and the Nichols Bridgeway in Millennium Park, the wing features two floors of paintings, photographs, film, video, and sculptures from the 20^th and 21^st centuries. In 2015, the museum received a donation of 42 pieces of pop art—including works by Warhol, Koons, Johns, Cy Twombley, and Roy Liechtenstein—worth an estimated $400 million. The Art Institute is in the process of expanding its capacity for modern art with a new building, although there are concerns that it may force the removal of the reconstruction of Louis Sullivan’s trading floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange.

The free Museum of Contemporary Photography is located at Columbia College on Michigan Ave., a few blocks south of the Art Institute. Its permanent collection includes approximately 18,000 works by 2,000 photographers, including Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. MoCP turned 50 in 2026, and it’s celebrating with an exhibition that uses examples to show the evolution of the museum, with a different gallery devoted to a specific decade of its existence. 

Also part of Columbia College, the Wabash Arts Corridor has turned the South Loop into a “living urban canvas.” Since 2013, street artists from five continents have created murals, installations, and projections for the exterior walls, with most of the pieces located along Wabash Ave. between Van Buren St.  and Roosevelt Rd. For the past decade, the curators of the WAC have emphasized the work of women and BIPOC artists. 

Founded in 1971, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Ukrainian Village has focused on documenting the Ukrainian-American experience through abstract, minimalist, and computer-generated art from the 1950s to the present day. Its collection includes the work of Polish, Canadian, and Lithuanian artists, as well as Chicago artists at the dawn of their careers.

Recently voted the second-best art district in the U.S. by USA Today, the Bronzeville Art District consists of five spaces—Blanc Gallery, Bronzeville Artist Lofts, Faie Afrikan Art, Gallery Guichard, and South Side Community Center—devoted to Black artists from Chicago and around the world. On the third Friday from June to September, the galleries stay open late, with free trolleys that shuttle visitors between the venues. 

Located in the historic former Spiegel Catalog Warehouse, the Bridgeport Art Center has more than 120 tenants in private and shared studio spaces, including some intended for fashion design and ceramic work. There are three galleries that show eight exhibitions each year, and they have Open Studios on the third Friday of every month. BAC is also home to Project Outward, a program for artists with disabilities.

The Hyde Park Art Center offers free studio space for local, visiting, and international artists through residency programs that range in length from eight weeks to yearly. There is no permanent collection, but there are 20 exhibitions, including those by emerging local artists and teenagers, and more than 200 free events every year. Hyde Park Art Center has been in operation since 1939.

Also in Hyde Park, the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Chicago has a permanent collection of more than 17,000 objects.  Among its modern pieces are paintings and drawings by the Chicago Imagists, a collection of local Surrealists from the late ’60s that included Suellen Rocca, Roger Brown, James Falconer, and H.C. Westermann, whose archives are stored in the museum. Admission is free. 

Lastly, Chicago is home to dozens of galleries devoted to local and emerging artists. You can find a list of them at Artforum. 

To quote a classic Monty Python sketch, the author may not know much about art but he knows what he likes.