From Obama Presidential Center opening to Anne Frank to Pokemon: Chicago, suburban museums unveil ambitious summer exhibitions

The biggest cultural event in the Chicago area this year promises to be the opening of the Obama Presidential Center June 19.

Designed by the New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners and Chicago’s Interactive Design Architects and located on a 19-acre campus in Jackson Park, the center’s focal point includes a monolith-style museum. In addition to exhibits chronicling the lives of the president and first lady, the challenges they faced and the legacy they continue to shape, the museum includes a review of the historic 2008 election and the everyday citizens who helped make victory possible along with a replica of the Oval Office.

A community space dubbed the Forum consists of the Elie Wiesel Auditorium, named for the writer, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, and the Hadiya Pendleton Atrium, named after the 15-year-old girl shot to death at a park near the Obama home a week after she performed for Obama’s second inauguration.

The campus is also home to a 60,000-square-foot athletic and event space; a Chicago Public Library branch; a playground; a park space named for the late civil rights activist and U.S. Congressman John Lewis; and a garden named for Eleanor Roosevelt.

“The Obama Presidential Center is about the everyday people who make our democracy work, not just those we see in the headlines,” said CEO Valerie Jarrett in a prepared statement. “As President Obama said: ‘It is easy to look around right now and feel like the challenges we face are simply too big. But hope is not about ignoring the hard stuff. It is that thing inside us that insists something better awaits if we are willing to work for it.’ That is the spirit of the Obama Presidential Center.”

The Obama Presidential Center

Where: 6001 S. Stony Island Ave., Chicago, obama.org

Hours: Grand opening celebrations take place June 18-21. The museum and The Forum hours are 1-8 p.m. Monday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The Home court is open from noon to 8 p.m. daily. The grounds are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

Admission: Free for most of the facilities. Timed, dated tickets required for museum admission. Illinois residents: $26 adults, $15 kids; nonresidents: $30 adults, $23 kids.

Here are other exhibitions taking place this spring and summer at suburban and Chicago museums.

Suburban museums

• “Living Stories: Contemporary Woodland Native American Art” runs through June 20 at the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum, 3001 Central St., Evanston. Featuring works by living, Indigenous artists, the exhibit examines the relationship between traditional Woodland Native American art and contemporary interpretations. $8 adults, $6 seniors and kids, and free for tribal citizens. (847) 475-0911 or gichigamiin-museum.org.

• “History of Her: Women Who Shaped Chicagoland” runs May 29-Aug. 9 at the Elmhurst History Museum, 20 E. Park Ave., Elmhurst. The exhibition examines how girls were educated from the founding of Chicago and the career paths they pursued. The exhibition also explores women in politics and news, social work, the arts and sports. Free. (630) 833-1457 or elmhursthistory.org.

• “The Saturday Man: At the Edge of the Game” runs May 30-Aug. 9 at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art at the College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn. Presented in partnership with The Footy Museum, the exhibition includes 53 photographs by acclaimed soccer photographer Peter Robinson depicting the world’s most popular sport. Robinson has documented the sport since the 1960s, beginning with British football through the now defunct North American Soccer League and up to “today's game of billionaires and superstars.” Free. (630) 942-4000 or theccma.org.

• Coming this summer to the CCMA is “Walking with Giants,” a free outdoor exhibition celebrating American artistic achievement upon the country’s 250th birthday. Naperville artist Rich Lo and Chicago artist Judith Mayer will create 10 oversize painted silhouettes of Americans who have contributed to music, theater, dance and the visual arts. Artists represented will include visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiat; country music legend Dolly Parton; and composer/librettist/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, among others.

• “On Wonder, Mind, & Magic: Jeanette Andrews” and “Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford: Near Eternity” run May 30-Aug. 23 at the Elmhurst Art Museum, 150 Cottage Hill Ave., Elmhurst. Conceptual artist and Wheaton native Andrews examines perception and cognition through interactive vignettes and multisensory experiences. This marks the first solo museum exhibition for the artist, who cites EAM as an early influence.

• Along with his outdoor sculptures in Wilder Park, Hulsebos-Spofford also has an exhibition at the McCormick House examining labor, the internet age and architectural legacies featuring “low-carbon alternatives to traditional monumental sculpture.” $18 adults, $15 seniors, $10 students, $5 kids. (630) 834-0202 or elmhurstartmuseum.org.

Chicago museums

• “Anne Frank The Exhibition” runs through early 2027 at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. The immersive exhibition re-creates the Annex where Anne, her family and four other Jewish people hid for two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Chicago is the second U.S. city to host the exhibition, which features never-before-seen artifacts from Anne’s life from her early childhood in Frankfurt through the rise of Nazi Germany and the spread of antisemitism across Europe, to the family’s move to Amsterdam, where they lived for nearly 10 years, the last two in hiding. $19 adults, $15 kids, $9.50 members. General admission not included. griffinmsi.org.

• “Mike Cloud: Worldless Obstruction” runs through Feb. 7, 2027, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago. This exhibition of newly commissioned works showcases the Chicago artist’s experimentation with abstraction, symbolic language and the sculptural dimensions of painting. Reports from online news outlets inspired the works. Residents: $19 adults, $10 students, teachers, seniors. Nonresidents: $22 adults, $14 students, teachers, seniors. (312) 397-4010 or mcachicago.org.

• “Ink and Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin” runs through Sept. 13 at The Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie St., Chicago. An examination of the golden age of caricature, the exhibition showcases artists such as James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and Isaac Cruikshank, who “used humor and exaggeration to lampoon the great and powerful, giving rise to one of the most distinctive visual languages of dissent in Western art.” $23 adults, $18 seniors, $13 students. (312) 482- 8933 or driehausmuseum.org.

• “The Pokémon Fossil Museum” runs May 22-April 11, 2027, at the Field Museum, 1400 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. This marks the North American debut of the exhibition, which pairs Pokémon and paleontology, allowing visitors to compare fossil Pokémon like Tyrantrum and Archeops with real-world fossils like Sue, the T. rex. Requires an additional ticket. General admission residents: adults $21, kids $23. Nonresidents: $30. (312) 922-9410 of fieldmuseum.org.

• “Declarations: 250 Years of Writing Toward Independence” runs June 18-Sept. 7 at the American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago. The museum commemorates the nation’s 250th birthday with a special pop-up exhibition that includes an 1823 William Stone print of the Declaration of Independence and a 1776 British first edition of “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine. The exhibition also invites visitors to reflect on works by American writers throughout American history that reference the Declaration, including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harvey Milk and Martin Luther King Jr. Admission: $17.40 adults, $11.25 seniors and students. (312) 374-8790 or americanwritersmuseum.org.

• “Strength in Fragility” runs through June 13 at the National Veterans Art Museum, second floor, 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. The exhibition examines how artists use material, ritual and community to transform trauma and memory. Free. (312) 683-9778 or nvam.org.

• “Beyond Boundaries: Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art” runs through July 5 at The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., Chicago. Rooted in the university’s role in the study and exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, the exhibition showcases works the museum has acquired over the last 30 years, plus other archival materials and new works. Free. (773) 702-0200 or smartmuseum.uchicago.edu.

• “Images of Faith: 3,000 Years of Spiritual Expressions in Mexico” runs through Aug. 16 at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St., Chicago. Revisiting its 1987 inaugural exhibition, the NMMA showcases ancient artifacts and contemporary icons encompassing three millennia of Mexico’s spiritual beliefs and sacred rituals — from Mesoamerica through the arrival of 16th-century Roman Catholicism to present-day Indigenous communities. Free. (312) 738-1503 or nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org.

• “Aquí en Chicago” runs through Nov. 8 at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St., Chicago. Presented in English and Spanish, the exhibition examines Latino communities in the city and suburbs through art, photographs, interviews, clothing, personal items, everyday objects and historical artifacts. $19 adults, $17 seniors and students. (312) 642-4600 or chicagohistory.org.

• “Paris in Black: Internationalism and the Black Renaissance” runs through 2027 at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Place, Chicago. The exhibition tells the story of Black creativity and resiliency through the Black artists, writers, performers and intellectuals who escaped racism and found freedom and inspiration in Paris. Among them were: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and James Baldwin. Chicago resident: $13.88 adults, $9.77 seniors, $4.62 kids. Nonresident: $15.94 adults, $11.83 seniors, $5.65 kids. (773) 947-0600 or dusablemuseum.org.