The galleries open up

The fourth Chicago Exhibition Week starts Monday and runs through Sept. 20, with more than 50 galleries opening their doors through the weekend.

Ten thousand came last year

Last year's edition pulled about 10,000 attendees over three days, including crowds for a conceptual art survey at 400 N. Peoria St. in West Town.

Who runs it

Gertie, the contemporary art platform founded by Abby Pucker, produces the week. The peak is Wednesday and Thursday, when opening receptions run across blue-chip, mid-sized and offbeat spaces.

Not just the West Loop

Te-Qu, a new space in Little Village, is building room for artists who came into the art world sideways. The Latinx Festival of the Arts runs at Zhou B. Art Center through Nov. 15.

Curiosity is the only ticket

Pucker frames the week as a low-stakes sample for anyone who finds galleries intimidating. Entry is free at the galleries, though some events are ticketed.

“Being curious is so underrated”

You can go late

Missing this week is not fatal. Many participating galleries hold their shows through the fall, and a few stay up into the new year.

Art that tells jokes

"82 Nights Only" at Gertie Hub, 400 N. Peoria St., runs 12 weeks through Dec. 13 with rotating performances, screenings and experiences from over 20 artists.

A different show nightly

Gertie's Chanelle Lacy calls it an attempt to break the fixed exhibition format and the stigma of the stuffy art show. Nyeema Morgan, Ken Kagami and Pope.L are in the lineup.

Opening with a ventriloquist

Wednesday's reception features New York artist and ventriloquist Sophie Becker, joined by Athens-based artist and writer Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis.

A family secret on canvas

Clotilde Jimenez's "Eramos silencios" at Mariane Ibrahim, 437 N. Paulina St., runs through Oct. 31. The man he knew as Tio Juan turned out to be his biological grandfather.

Oranges from Mayaguez

Look for "Los Varones" and "Invitacion al Altar," which nods to Mexico City mural art. Puerto Rican oranges recur through the show, especially in his self-portraits.

Dancers in Maasai cloth

Brendan Fernandes shows "The Noise Will Sound" at Monique Meloche, 451 N. Paulina St., through Oct. 24: film photographs of figures draped in checkered Shuka cloth, performed as a duet.

“As a young kid, I was always dancing and drawing and painting”

Paintings and a dance piece

Fernandes also debuts paintings on Belgian linen with hand-painted marks, stains and stitches. On select dates he reprises a seven-performer dancework at the Driehaus Museum.

Nature does not need us

"Human-Nature" at The Franklin, Edra Soto and Dan Sullivan's outdoor gallery at 3522 W. Franklin Blvd., asks what it means that the natural world would survive without us. Open by appointment through September 2027.

Crown Fountain's artist returns

Jaume Plensa brings "Beyond Silence" to GRAY Chicago, 2044 W. Carroll Ave., through Dec. 19. It is his tenth show there since his first in 1996.

Two 28-foot sculptures

The show centers on carved wooden works "Beyond Silence (Julia)" and "(Maria)." Around them sit seven-foot cast iron and granite "Clouds" and 20-inch bronzes from the "Twilight" series.

Bodybuilders in Lagos

Karimah Ashadu's "Tendered" at The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., runs through Nov. 1 and includes the U.S. debut of "MUSCLE," a 22-minute film about bodybuilders in Lagos slums.

Pope.L's first posthumous show

"No Thing Skin Sets" at Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2156 W. Fulton St., runs through Oct. 31 with "I Machine," the installation he worked on in Chicago until his death in 2023, plus a double CD of unheard 1975 to 1983 recordings from his post-punk band.

Scholar rocks made of newsprint

Gordon Cheung's "Consensual Halluci/nation" at Kavi Gupta, 835 W. Washington Blvd., runs through Nov. 21. He builds Chinese spirit stones from Financial Times pages, coated in metallics, sand and digital imagery.

Maps of where we belong

"Cartographies of Belonging" at Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 W. 35th St., runs Sept. 18 to Nov. 15 with more than 50 artists on geography, migration and cultural memory. Gabriel Villa's pop art show "Poetic Devices" opens the same day at Storefront Gallery.