For the past five years Richard Misrach, renowned color photographer of the desert, has worked on a series of pictures of beaches, the ocean, sunbathers, and swimmers. Dramatically scaled and shot from above, the photographs envelop the viewer with a strangely disorienting perspective and hint at the sublime.

This exhibition was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago. This exhibition is made possible by David Yurman and the Black Dog Fund.

Richard Misrach. Untitled #394-03 (detail), 2003. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, and Pace/ MacGill Gallery, New York.

William Pope.L is a prominent multidisciplinary artist known for his conceptual, often performance-based art practice, which actively confronts issues of race, sex, power, consumerism, and social class. At the center of Focus: William Pope.L is a selection of 50 works from Pope.L's ongoing series, Failure Drawings. This project reveals how the discipline of drawing provides the opportunity for introspection and private exploration.

This exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Ongoing support for focus exhibitions is provided by the Alfred L. McDougal and Nancy Lauter McDougal Fund for Contemporary Art.

William Pope.L. #20F 7.23.04, 5.25.04, 8.4.04, 4.22.05, 9.13.06, 9.14.06 Sailboat White Mountain Postcard, 2004. Courtesy of the artist, The Project, and Kenny Schachter Rove.

Featuring more than 130 paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings from 1955 to the present, this exhibition tracks Johns's exploration of the color gray throughout his career?an investigation that provides a framework for understanding the development of the artist's entire oeuvre.

Jasper Johns: Gray is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, in cooperation with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Jasper Johns: Gray is organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, in cooperation with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is made possible by Kenneth and Anne Griffin. Major funding is generously provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris. The project is also supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. An indemnity is provided by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Jasper Johns. Target, 1958. Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Saul. Art: © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo: Jamie M. Stukenberg / Professional Graphics Inc., Rockford, Illinois.

The first comprehensive presentation of Hopper's work to be seen in American museums outside of New York in a quarter century, Edward Hopper features watercolors, prints, and oil paintings and concentrates on his most productive years?from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s?when he created enduring images such as the Art Institute's iconic Nighthawks (1942). Tickets for this exhibition go on sale in December. Check here for updates.

This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Exelon Corporation is the Lead Corporate Sponsor of this exhibition. This project was partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Tourism. Terra Foundation for American Art is the Lead Foundation Sponsor as part of American Art American City, a Chicago celebration of historical American art.

Edward Hopper. Nighthawks (detail), 1942. Friends of American Art.

This exhibition provides an intimate look at how one of America's most celebrated painters discovered for himself?over a period of three decades?the secrets of the watercolor medium. Over 100 watercolors, oils, and drawings will explore the artist's fascination with color and light. Tickets for this exhibition go on sale in December. Check here for updates.

This exhibition is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago. Terra Foundation for American Art is the Lead Foundation Sponsor as part of American Art American City, a Chicago celebration of historical American art. Harris is the Lead Corporate Sponsor. Additional support has been generously provided by the Jane Ellen Murray Foundation and the Community Associates of the Art Institute of Chicago. Support for the catalogue has been generously provided by The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.

Winslow Homer. The Water Fan (detail), 1898/99. Gift of Dorothy A., John A., Jr., and Christopher Holabird in memory of William and Mary Holabird.

Since the beginning of Ed Ruscha's career in the late 1950s, photography has been both an inspiration and a source of discovery for this seminal Pop and Conceptual artist. This exhibition, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, features over 100 photographs and Ruscha’s signature photographic books. On the occasion of the presentation of Ed Ruscha and Photography, the Art Institute will also display a selection of paintings, drawings, and prints from the museum's outstanding holdings and from local private collections. This exhibition elucidates the key motifs that course throughout Ruscha’s practice.

This exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Macy's is the Lead Corporate Sponsor.

Edward Ruscha. Phillips 66, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1962. From the series Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft, 2004.4.

James Bishop (b. 1927) is an American artist who has lived primarily in France since 1958. His approach to painting and drawing is marked by a poetic, reductionist tendency; his palette is restricted, sometimes, but not always precisely, monochromatic. This exhibition, co-organized by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich and the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, will bring together roughly sixty drawings and paintings on paper from Bishop's personal collection, along with selections from private collections in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. Additionally, the Art Institute will present a small selection of works on canvas, including two recently acquired works, Early, 1967 and Untitled, 1980.

This exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Ongoing support for focus exhibitions is provided by the Alfred L. McDougal and Nancy Lauter McDougal Fund for Contemporary Art.

James Bishop. Early, 1967. Collection Nancy Lauter McDougal and Alfred L. McDougal.

Mario Ybarra Jr. (b. 1973) is a visual and performance artist, educator and activist who combines street culture with fine art in order to produce what he calls "contemporary art that is filtered through a Mexican-American experience in Los Angeles." This exhibition is a comparative study of Los Angeles and Chicago using as its base the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. and his business ventures in both cities. Through extensive archival and anecdotal research, Ybarra will draw parallels between these two cities' cultural idiosyncrasies and similarities. The exhibition will consist of a satellite component, featuring an artist's multiple at Chicago's Wrigley Field, in addition to an installation at the museum including drawings and photographs by the artist, historical objects, and ephemera.

This exhibition is made possible by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Ongoing support for focus exhibitions is provided by the Alfred L. McDougal and Nancy Lauter McDougal Fund for Contemporary Art.

Mario Ybarra Jr. Go Tell It...#1, 2001. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles.

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