Art Institute of Chicago · Galleries 124–127
Beyond Form: Abstraction at Midcentury
Jun 27 to Oct 19
Free Last weeks
This exhibition explores how abstraction emerged as a powerful visual language between 1940 and 1970. It features 65 artists from over 23 countries, showcasing a period of global upheaval and transformation. Abstraction allowed artists worldwide to move beyond realism and convey complex emotions, ideas, and experiences. However, it was not a singular movement with a single reason, technique, or style; the impulses, methods, and resulting artworks were highly diverse. Many artists responded to shifting social and political climates by using materials in unexpected and sometimes destructive ways. Processes like burning, tearing, folding, and layering embraced chance and resisted categorization
Yayoi Kusama · Helen Frankenthaler · Jackson Pollock · Luchita Hurtado · Lee Krasner · Robert Motherwell
See on the museum’s website