2024 South Side Openings & Events
Courtesy Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.
As the official start of EXPO ART WEEK, join EXPO CHICAGO on the South Side on Tuesday, April 9, for an evening of exhibitions, tours, talks, and performances. Visitors are encouraged to explore the many galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces in this dynamic community for arts and culture.
Use the EXPO ART WEEK map to explore exhibitions and events taking place around Chicago during EXPO CHICAGO.
Extended Hours
Tuesday, April 9 | 4:00–6:00pm
The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center | 740 E 56th Pl
View the special exhibition The Art of our Storytellers: Selections from the Johnson Publishing Company Collection during these extended museum hours.
Extended Hours and Tours
Tuesday, April 9 | 4:00–8:00pm
The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society | 5701 S Woodlawn Ave
Meet the artist Christopher Williams and visit the exhibition Radio / Rauhfaser / Television during these extended hours hosted by curator Dieter Roelstraete, who will offer guests guided tours of the exhibition.
Extended Hours
Tuesday, April 9 | 5:00–8:00pm
4th Ward Project Space | 5338 S Kimbark Ave
Visit Ed Oh: Remote during these extended hours hours for South Side Night.
Extended Hours
Tuesday, April 9 | 5:00–9:00pm
Logan Center Exhibitions | 915 E 60th St
Visit ARACHNIDAE: Department of Visual Arts’ BA Thesis Exhibition during South Side Night.
Performance: In Concert #1: Hold, Weight by Devin T. Mays
Tuesday, April 9 | 5:00–7:00pm
University of Chicago | Hutchinson Courtyard, 1100 E 58th St
Devin T. Mays performs In Concert #1: Hold, Weight as part of Jessica Stockholder: For Events, an exhibition that honors Stockholder on the occasion of her retirement from the University of Chicago. The exhibition is anchored by a single sculpture For Events (2015), a platform installed at the heart of the University campus that will feature a series of activations by Stockholder's colleagues and former students. Organized by Jenny Harris, Clara Nizard, and Michael Stablein Jr. with Logan Center Exhibitions and Art in Public Spaces.
Bending Light: An Artist Talk moderated by Paul Branton
Tuesday, April 9 | 5:00–7:00pm
South Side Community Art Center | 3831 S Michigan Ave
Paul Branton, artist and curator of SSCAC's current exhibition Bending Light, will facilitate a talk with the exhibiting artists detailing the exhibition’s themes and subject matter as it relates to explorations of color and identity. The artists explore the impact of color on Black identity, potential, and the intricate interplay between societal perceptions and individual existence. Artists will include Eddie "Edo" Santana, Pearlie Taylor, Courtney Collins, Rober Lewis Clark, and Bryant Lamont.
Artist and Curator-led Exhibition Tours
Tuesday, April 9 | 6:00–8:00pm
Hyde Park Art Center | 5020 S Cornell Ave
Join Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles curators Nicholas Lowe and Lisa Stone; The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige curator Allison Peters Quinn and exhibition artist Robert Earl Paige; and Through the Hot House artist Aimee Beaubien for tours of the exhibitions on view.
Extended Hours
Tuesday, April 9 | 6:00–8:00pm
The Renaissance Society | 5811 S Ellis Ave
Visit Ghislaine Leung: Holdings during these special late opening hours to celebrate South Side Night. This exhibition—the artist’s first solo presentation at a US museum—brings forward some of the core personal and conceptual underpinnings of her work more often in the background. Through a series of new scores, some presented in their full edition, Holdings negotiates the ways identity is constituted, articulated, accepted or disowned, in terms of both the artwork and the artist herself.
Extended Hours
Tuesday, April 9 | 6:00–9:00pm
BLANC GALLERY | 4445 S Martin Luther King Dr
Join BLANC GALLERY on South Side Night to see Lawrence Agyei's beautiful images of the South Shore Drill team. The gallery's doors will be open late so you can enjoy an evening of art, conversation, and good vibes.
Toast to the South Side
Tuesday, April 9 | 7:00–7:30pm
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago | 5550 S Greenwood Ave
Join EXPO CHICAGO at the Smart Museum for an official toast to start EXPO ART WEEK and celebrate Chicago’s South Side.
Performance: The MIYUMI Project Bridging The Gap
Tuesday, April 9 | 7:30–8:30pm
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago | 5550 S Greenwood Ave
On the occasion of Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan, this performance by Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project illuminates the drum traditions of Japanese taiko and jazz, and features first-class improvisers—who mostly herald from Chicago where Aoki has been based since 1979—such as woodwind specialists Ed Wilkerson and Mwata Bowden, experimentalist Jamie Kempkers, Tsukasa Taiko, and others. Since the band’s formation two decades ago, Aoki has forged an exceptional and inimitable Afro-Asian musical hybrid. Registration required.
Performance: ¿Para qué? - Perdón Que No Fue Pedido by Marcela Torres
Tuesday, April 9 | 8:00–10:00pm
Arts + Public Life, Green Line Performing Arts Center | 329 E Garfield Blvd
¿Para qué? - Perdón Que No Fue Pedido, ruminates on acts of reconciliation of past relationships and matriarchal bonds. Marcela Torres explores the connections between dreams, ceremony, and delusion, restructuring memories as fertile ground for healing and self-discovery. This performance examines gestures of gratitude, appreciation, and the act of bestowing ‘our flowers’ to our ancestors, our mothers, and ourselves.