Google Art Project lets you virtually travel to great museums around the world. more ›

Some noteworthy events on tap this week in the Chicago art world. more ›

The MCA's Culture Catalysts looks at the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, Three Walls hosts a discussion on public space, and other art events. more ›

The Art Institute and DePaul Art Museum close shows, while the Arts Club and I Am Logan Square Gallery open them. more ›

There are new openings this week at the Art Institute, Catherine Edelman Gallery, as well as lots of events worth checking out. more ›

The Museum of Contemporary Art opens two new shows this week, and other arts news. more ›

The Renaissance Society, Museum of Contemporary Photography and Rhona Hoffman Gallery hold openings, among other art news. more ›

Fun... and educational. more ›

Andy Warhol's film Empire will be projected on the side of the Aon Building this Friday night. more ›

Occupy Pointillism! more ›

The Grant Park Music Festival has named Paul Winberg as its new executive director. Since 2004, Winberg has been the executive director of the Eugene Symphony, just a stone’s throw from the Portland-based Oregon Symphony, where GPMF conductor and artistic director Carlos Kalmar serves as music director during the regular season. Winberg previously worked for the GPMF from 1999 to 2001, serving as the orchestra manager and artistic administrator. more ›

New panels on display at the Art Institute had to survive the 1893 World's Fair, arson, and decades of Bear fan butts while stashed under the Soldier Field bleachers to get where they are today. more ›

The Art Institute is turning to Tumblr to help promote its upcoming exhibit of Soviet World War II posters commissioned by TASS. more ›

Artist LeRoy Neiman, best known for his colorful paintings of leisure activities, sporting events and athletes, and his wife will donate $5 million to the Art Institute to help build a new student center. more ›

A colorfully bold new exhibit at the Art Institute isn't sitting well with brides wanting a lot of white in their summer weddings. more ›

Stunning news this morning out of the Art Institute as its president, James Cuno, announced his resignation effective June 30 to take over the LA-based J. Paul Getty Trust. more ›

It’s a wonderful time in Chicago for non-abstract painting. Not that abstract painting is going anywhere, but a cluster of realist and figurative exhibitions, most obviously the one ongoing at Bridgeport’s 33 Collective Gallery, is making non-abstraction trendy again. What’s more, this youthful cluster is using mostly fresh approaches to realism and figuration, bringing what was once considered a stale and old-fashioned genre back into the marketable bosom of gallery relevance. more ›

Grab a pen and paper, crimestoppers. The Art Institute is doing some shuffling of its free admission days, away from the free weekday admissions through Feb. 4 they announced earlier this week. more ›

All the crazies might have finished their holiday shopping on Black Friday, but we’re just getting warmed up. Funny that our 2009 Gift Guide mentioned economic “recovery” and scraping the bottom of our piggy banks; it’s much of the same story this year. But let’s still get in the holiday spirit and blow what’s left of our paychecks on our friends and family. Here are some ideas that can help you do that. more ›

University of Illinois at Chicago professors and local designers, Stephanie and Bruce Tharp, have created a pair of wreaths that will decorate the necks of the famous Art Institute of Chicago lions on November 26. In place of the traditional green wreaths the lions usually wear for the holiday season, the Tharp's have built two massive structures modeled after North American cranberry wreaths, which contain solar-powered lights that will make each wreath glow at night. Each wreath is constructed of 2,011 separate spheres, with each sphere containing a wish for 2011 from a Chicago-area child, the Tharp's own nod to Buddhist and Taoist wishing trees. more ›

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute, was awarded the Palme d'Or for his new film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The Thai filmmaker is known by his friends as Joe, and it's hard to think of a more deserving auteur to take home such a prestigious honor. We've seen two of his previous films and they both amused and challenged us in delightful ways. After seeing Syndromes and a Century at the Chicago International Film Festival in 2006, we wrote, "It’s a languid, sensual wonder as refreshing as a long drink of ice-cold spring water." more ›

New Yorker staff writer Alex Ross has made a name for himself by writing about classical music with thoroughness and authority, qualities that nearly won him a Pulitzer for his first (and, until this September 28, only) book, "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century." Ross's command over the technical aspects of music, near omnicience regarding today's scene, and deep understanding of the cultural and historical context make the book essential reading for anyone trying to understand the recent history, and current state, of Western art music. more ›

What’s more of a joke: the extreme fringe of contemporary art, or April Fools Day? more ›

Leaders of several local arts organizations announced preliminary details of "The Soviet Experience," a fourteen-month-long multidisciplinary festival beginning in October, 2010, and continuing through December, 2011. Eleven different institutions will present works by visual artists, choreographers, composers, and dramatists who lived under the stifling Politburo. more ›

We're keyed up about Saturday's grand opening of the AIC's new Modern Wing. As the largest expansion in the museum’s history (with a price tag of - holy shit - about $290 million), this new three-floor facility offers 65,000 feet of new galleries that will house both modern and contemporary works, photography, as well as architecture and design collections. It's sheer magnitude will make the Art Institute the second largest museum in the United States. And perhaps we should mention that the New York Times has given the Modern Wing an absolutely glowing review. (For a peep at their lovely photo slideshow, click here.) more ›

Summer is almost here (even if it doesn't feel like it) and that means lots of museum visitors. And, of course, there's been a big stink about the Art Institute's upcoming 50 percent admission hike. Under pressure from many directions - but most prominently Ald. Ed Burke - the Chicago Park District may give locals a break on the new admission fees to the count of $2. Instead of $18, local adults would pay $16 and local students and seniors would pay $10. more ›

With the opening of its Modern Wing just around the corner on May 16th, The Art Institute of Chicago has decided to tease us a bit with its March 24th opening exhibition, Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper. With an unveiling of 80 drawings that rarely see the light of day in public galleries (literally -- due to light sensitivity), expect to see works by famous modern artists like Pablo Picasso, German School Artist Ernst Kirchner, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as contemporary additions to the collection by Minimalist Sylvia Plimack Mangold and architect Le Corbusier. The best part? Notational and diagrammatic sheets will be featured along with finished works. Which means that you can see the artists’ drawing process evolve right before your very eyes. And if you’re unable to see this exhibition, not a problem. Major works by many of these artists will be on display in the Modern Wing’s permanent galleries. more ›

In spite of the current recession, Chicago's museums are still managing to bring in a healthy number people. Total attendance in 2008 at the city's top 10 "major cultural attractions" was only off by one percent for a total of 7.7 million. The Shedd Aquarium saw a drop of seven percent, but was still had the highest overall attendance at 1.9 million; The Museum of Science & Industry had a larger drop at 15 percent, but was second overall with 1.4 million. In spite of these drops, the eight other attractions saw increases. The Art Institute of Chicago drew 1.4 million for third place overall and the Chicago History Museum saw a healthy 22 percent increase in visitors for a total of 266,000. The overall attendance on "free days" also saw a hefty increase of over 15 percent. more ›

Last week, while at a certain Olympic bid fundraiser at Pritzker, we noticed a strange building in the south skyline. We soon realized that we were looking at the Art Institute’s new Modern Wing, and were surprised at how … done it looked. Which is a good thing, since the Art Institute announced last Thursday that its 264,000 square-foot addition to the museum will be opened to the public on May 16th, 2009. more ›

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