What’s On View at the Art Institute of Chicago During Design Chicago

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DesignChicago brings the architecture and design industry together for two days of programming, conversation, and market-style energy. But while you’re downtown, it’s worth walking just a few blocks east to the Art Institute of Chicago. Here, four impressive exhibitions will provide a sharp counterpoint to the trade show floor. These shows complicate and expand upon themes of contemporary design: authorship and partnership, material and memory, modernity and mythology.

On view during DesignChicago, these exhibitions include an international debut of a monumental 21-panel painting sixteen years in the making, a tightly constructed study of Meiji-era printmaking and visual modernization, a retrospective of H. C. Westermann’s obsessive sculptural practice, and the Chicago debut of Pixy Liao’s incisive photographic exploration of intimacy and power.

Each show is precise in its curatorial vision and formally rigorous in its execution. Collectively, they remind us that museums—like marketplaces—are sites of influence, reflection, and production.

Four Incredible Shows at the Art Institute of Chicago This October 2025

If you’re coming to DesignChicago this October, make time for these four exhibitions on view at the Art Institute. Each is direct, formally rigorous, and worth the detour.

Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost

Galleries 141–142 | Through January 19, 2026

This exhibition marks the debut of the complete Paradise Lost, a 21-panel, 100-foot-wide painting that Raqib Shaw developed over the course of sixteen years. Drawing on his memories of Kashmir, as well as a wide-ranging visual lexicon that includes Persian miniatures, Renaissance altarpieces, and Japanese decorative arts, Shaw constructs an elaborate visual allegory about dislocation, desire, and cultural transformation.

Each panel is rendered with obsessive precision using enamel paint, syringes, and porcupine quills; these panels also incorporate a mix of fantastical imagery and self-portraiture. The work is less a direct adaptation of Milton’s epic and more a personal meditation on loss, exile, and endurance.

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Pixy Liao: Relationship Material

Galleries 1–4 | Through December 8, 2025

Pixy Liao’s first solo exhibition in Chicago presents approximately 45 works from her long-running project Experimental Relationship, developed in collaboration with her partner, artist and musician Takahiro Morooka.

The series consists primarily of staged photographic self-portraits, often laced with irony, that probe the dynamics of intimacy, authorship, and gender roles within a romantic and creative partnership. The exhibition also includes video, sculpture, and ephemera from their shared music project, PIMO. Visitors will enjoy a precise and sustained inquiry into how personal relationships function as artistic material.

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H. C. Westermann: Anchor Clanker

Gallery 227 | Through May 17, 2026

This is the most comprehensive presentation of H. C. Westermann’s sculptures in Chicago in over two decades, anchored by a major gift from the Estate of Alan and Dorothy Press. A U.S. Navy veteran who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Westermann channeled his wartime experiences, technical precision, and outsider sensibility into an idiosyncratic body of work that resists categorization.

The exhibition celebrates his deft use of materials, especially wood, and his sharp fusion of physical craftsmanship with existential commentary, absurdist humor, and cultural critique.

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The Dawn of Modernity: Japanese Prints, 1850–1900

Gallery 107 | Through October 13, 2025

This focused exhibition traces the visual response of Japanese printmakers to the nation’s rapid transformation following its opening to international trade in 1859. The prints, many of which are in triptych format, reflect Japan’s evolving national identity, technological advancement, and engagement with Western visual conventions.

Subjects range from newly modernized cityscapes and Western-style architecture to changing representations of women and daily life. Together, they present a nuanced portrait of a culture negotiating its own modernity while retaining a distinctly Japanese aesthetic language.

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Join Us at DesignChicago

October exhibitions on view at the Art Institute raise questions about structure, identity, and ambition. Interior designers face these same themes every day inside their businesses.

If you’re coming to DesignChicago, gather inspiration but leave with a plan. Join us on October 8 for Build Your Dream Team, a full-day, hands-on workshop created for designers ready to scale smarter. We’ll cover everything from team structure and hiring strategy to profit-aligned compensation and sustainable growth.

You’ve seen what creative mastery looks like. Now it’s time to build a business that reflects that same level of clarity, rigor, and intention.

Reserve your spot and start designing the team—and the business—you actually want.

Written by the DesignDash Editorial Team
Our contributors include experienced designers, firm owners, design writers, and other industry professionals. If you’re interested in submitting your work or collaborating, please reach out to our Editor-in-Chief at editor@designdash.com.