Exhibitions to watch now

Spring’s art calendar has split into three lanes at once: a digital Picasso show in Manhattan, Kansas, a giant fair at Navy Pier in Chicago, and a portrait pairing in Newcastle that runs from 16th-century faces to living sitters. That mix tells you what museums are betting on right now: spectacle, scale, and slower-looking history in the same season. (artlightmuseum.org, expochicago.com, northeastmuseums.org.uk) The Museum of Art + Light’s new draw is “Picasso: Art in Motion,” which opens May 2, 2026 and runs through November 2, 2026. The museum says the show is the United States debut of the project and that it will be shown only there. (artlightmuseum.org, artlightmuseum.org) This is not a room of framed canvases with wall labels. The museum is using its 21,500-square-foot immersive gallery for 360-degree projections, music, and digital animation built around Picasso’s career. (artlightmuseum.org, picasso.artlightmuseum.org) Museum of Art + Light was built for that format from the start, describing itself as a contemporary museum centered on immersive, digital, and fine art. A Picasso show there is less like adding one blockbuster to a traditional museum than dropping a concert-scale production into a building designed for moving light. (artlightmuseum.org, artlightmuseum.org) Chicago is the opposite end of the spectrum: not one artist in one building, but a temporary city of dealers, collectors, curators, and artists under one roof. Expo Chicago opened April 9 and runs through April 12, 2026 at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. (expochicago.com, navypier.org) The fair is smaller than last year, and that is deliberate. Expo Chicago says the 2026 edition has more than 130 galleries in a “more focused” format, while ARTnews reported that the exhibitor list is nearly 25 percent smaller than the 2025 edition. (expochicago.com, artnews.com) That shrinkage comes with a change in leadership. The 2026 fair is being led by director Kate Sierzputowski and curator Essence Harden, and local coverage has framed this as the year Chicago will more clearly feel the influence of Frieze, the global fair company that bought Expo Chicago in 2023. (expochicago.com, wbez.org) Expo Chicago is also tying itself to the city beyond the fair floor. Chicago Gallery News says the 13th edition includes an expanded partnership with the Obama Presidential Center, and one curated section is being organized by Obama Presidential Center Museum director Louise Bernard. (chicagogallerynews.com, wbez.org) Then there is the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, which is offering almost the reverse experience of an art fair. Its spring and summer pairing combines the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 with “Exploring Identity,” and the gallery says visitors can trace portraiture from the 16th century to the present day. (northeastmuseums.org.uk, livingnorth.com) The Portrait Award side brings in contemporary competition painting from the National Portrait Gallery, while “Exploring Identity” supplies the longer timeline of historic, modern, and contemporary portraits. Put together, the Laing show works like a before-and-after slider for how people have used faces to signal status, selfhood, and belonging across five centuries. (livingnorth.com, northeastmuseums.org.uk) What makes these three stops fit together is that none of them treats looking as passive. Kansas turns painting into projection, Chicago turns buying and browsing into a live event, and Newcastle turns portrait history into a side-by-side comparison across centuries. (artlightmuseum.org, navypier.org, northeastmuseums.org.uk)