Summer Roundup

After seeing our front steps packed with people every warm-weather day, we realized we were wasting some of our best real estate—the sculpture garden—on the birds (and the bunnies!). Starting today, we're opening our back gate every Tuesday during museum hours (10 am–9 pm). Bring your lunch, a friend, a book, a blanket, or all of the above and enjoy a lazy day among our sculptures and wildlife. And stick around for our Chicago jazz series Tuesdays on the Terrace, which starts at 5:30 pm.

Murakami’s artwork and merchandise have taken over our exterior windows, the fourth-floor galleries, and the MCA store—not to mention our backyard (later this month)! With lines outside our doors every morning, it seems everybody wants a piece of Murakami. Marc Ecko, founder of Complex, explained one major draw of the exhibition in the press preview for Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg: "This willingness to dare and try . . . and for young people coming to this exhibit, yes they may come and see the truck and get the 'merch' . . . but to walk into the room where there's the work that [Murakami's] embarrassed by . . . those young people are at the age now where they don't know to be certain or embarrassed by their work . . . walking through the exhibition, going from seeing an artist finding his voice through the final room . . . it is an exhibition of mastery."

Walking through the open-air market, smelling the baked goods, fruits, flowers, and crepes is one of the best things about Tuesdays at the MCA. With the variety of vendors SOAR attracts, each week offers new edible and olfactory adventures from which to choose: stop by for breakfast or lunch to enjoy on our front stairs or in the sculpture garden, pick up ingredients for a home-cooked dinner, or spruce up your desk or dinner table with a bouquet of flowers.