In January 2002, a Columbia College photography graduate hung his first solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. It was a small exhibition in the McCormick Tribune Gallery. The photographs were made with chicken bones, black-eyed peas, toes, elbows and feet, printed with the 19th-century Van Dyke process. The show was UBS 12 x 12: New Artists/New Work: Rashid Johnson, and it closed on February 7.
On November 7, 2026, Johnson comes back to 220 E. Chicago Ave. with 70 works in the Griffin Galleries of Contemporary Art. The retrospective, Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, runs through April 25, 2027.
Visitors from out of town will get one afternoon with it. A Streeterville neighbor gets almost six months, a Tuesday-night door that costs nothing, and a museum calendar arranged so the second and third visits are worth taking.
The Show Has Already Been to New York and Fort Worth
The show was organized by Naomi Beckwith of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Andrea Karnes of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The Guggenheim presentation ran in New York from April 18, 2025, to January 18, 2026. The Fort Worth Modern showed it from March 8 to September 27, 2026. The Chicago version was curated by MCA Assistant Curator Jack Schneider, with Curatorial Assistant Korina Hernandez.
The MCA describes the 70 works as spanning key moments in Johnson's career:
- The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, black-and-white photographs inspired by the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois
- Cosmic Slops, wall reliefs made of black soap and wax
- Anxious Men and Broken Men, two series the museum says changed in recent years to reflect the chaos and isolation of contemporary life in the United States
A Chicago homecoming has a different weight than a Guggenheim retrospective. The MCA started collecting Johnson early. Its collection includes The Unwearable Dashiki, a 2001 Van Dyke Brown print accessioned in 2002, the year of his first show there. It also holds Self-Portrait with My Hair Parted Like Frederick Douglass from 2003 and Glass Jaw from 2011, a large mirrored-tile piece made with black soap, wax, books, shea butter, oyster shells and a Charles Mingus album cover. In its fall museum preview, the Chicago Sun-Times called Johnson a hometown artist whose work "has a permanent home at the Obama Presidential Center." The paper ran its preview with a photo of his mosaic Broken Man.
From the McCormick Tribune Gallery in 2002 to the Griffin Galleries in 2026 took nearly 25 years. Today, the Griffin Galleries are a short distance from most Streeterville lobbies.
The Arithmetic of a Tuesday Evening
The MCA's posted admission is $19 for a Chicago adult. Students, teachers and visitors 65 and older pay $10. Non-Chicago adults pay $22. On Tuesdays from 5 to 9 pm, admission is free for Illinois residents. Those four hours are the museum's only late opening. The MCA is open Tuesdays from 10 am to 9 pm, Wednesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm, and is closed Mondays.
| Visit | Two Chicago adults, daytime | Two Illinois residents, Tuesday after 5 pm |
|---|---|---|
| One visit | $38 | $0 |
| Three visits over the run | $114 | $0 |
| Daytime hours available that day | 10 am–5 pm, Wed–Sun | Open until 9 pm |
Between the first Tuesday after opening, November 10, and the last Tuesday before closing, April 20, the calendar holds 24 Tuesday evenings. A show this size rewards more than one visit, and a free evening makes that easy to plan. Anyone 18 and under gets in free every day through the Lefkofsky Free 18 & Under Fund. The museum also admits Illinois elementary and high school teachers with ID for free, along with visitors with disabilities and their caregivers, veterans, and active members of the military, police and fire departments.
The MCA encourages buying tickets online in advance to help it manage occupancy. That matters most on opening weekend.
Six Days in November
The days just before and after the public opening fill up quickly, and every one of these events is in the neighborhood.
- Tuesday, November 3, 5–8 pm. Cally Spooner's Warm Up begins its performance run as part of the Slow Dance series.
- Friday, November 6, 5:30–7 pm. Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn and the MCA Board of Trustees host the Opening Preview, a reception and first look before the public opening. The museum's form lets guests reserve up to two complimentary tickets.
- Friday, November 6, 8–9:30 pm. The members' preview requires an RSVP and features a Kahil El'Zabar performance at 8 pm.
- Saturday, November 7, 2–3:30 pm. On opening day, Johnson sits down with curator Jack Schneider for a public talk.
- Sunday, November 8. MCA Presents | asses.masses is on the performance calendar.
Five days later, on Friday, November 13, the Lit & Luz Live Magazine Show takes the stage.
The Second Visit Is Already on the Schedule
The Johnson galleries are one part of the building. The rest of the MCA this season adds reasons to come back on another Tuesday.
Slow Dance opened September 12 in the Sylvia Neil and Daniel Fischel Galleries and runs through March 14, 2027. It brings together six artists and adds performance activations inside the galleries. Melanie McLain's Peripersonal performances run through October 18. Cally Spooner's Warm Up takes over on November 3 and runs on select dates through December 20. Six of Spooner's 18 posted dates fall on Tuesdays: November 3, 10 and 17, and December 1, 8 and 15. On each of those Tuesdays the performance runs from 5 to 8 pm, which falls inside the free admission window for Illinois residents. The weekend dates run from 1 to 4 pm.
The rest of the current lineup has different closing dates:
- Chicago Works | Mike Cloud: Worldless Obstruction, through February 7, 2027
- Kenzi Shiokava, through January 31, 2027
- From the Center: Looking at Lucy Lippard, through July 11, 2027
- Atrium Project: Celeste Rapone, through June 20, 2027
Kenzi Shiokava closes in January and Mike Cloud in early February, both well before Johnson's April finale. A November visit catches all of these shows at once. By spring, the Johnson galleries will share the building with a smaller group.
Before the Johnson opening, the stage calendar has one more date. Jlin and Third Coast Percussion perform Vernacular on Thursday, October 15.
Around the Corner on Pearson
The MCA lists Marisol, its first-floor restaurant and bar, at 205 E. Pearson St. Marisol serves dinner, lunch and weekend brunch. It also runs a neighborhood coffee counter with pickup ordering. The MCA lists hours for The Counter as 10 am to 7 pm on Tuesdays and 10 am to 4 pm Wednesday through Sunday. The Museum Store keeps the same late Tuesday hours as the galleries, 10 am to 9 pm. Wednesday through Sunday it closes at 5:30 pm, half an hour after the galleries.
On a Tuesday, the galleries become free at 5 pm, the store stays open until 9, and Marisol serves dinner from the same block. The Johnson retrospective will be at 220 E. Chicago Ave. for 24 of those Tuesdays, through April 20, before it closes on Sunday, April 25, 2027.
A landmark show running from November to April adds to what a Streeterville address offers day to day, and that is part of what we present to buyers when we market a home here. If you own near the MCA and want to know how your building compares this season, The Hancock Group can prepare a pricing analysis based on recent sales in the buildings around Chicago Avenue and Pearson. Request Your Home Valuation.
