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Tours

About

The MCA offers a variety of intimate tours designed to help you navigate the many concepts, methods, materials, and ideas that contemporary artists incorporate in their work. Join the conversation by taking a tour that's suited to your interests and schedule.

Daily Tours

Want to know more about what's on view? Docents give 45-minute tours of the museum's exhibitions on most days of the week. Tour groups meet at the second-floor admissions desk.

TUE
1 pm and 2 pm

WED-THU
1 pm

FRI
1 pm and 6 pm

SAT–SUN
1 pm and 2 pm

*On the first Sunday of the month, the 2 pm tour will be in Spanish.

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Tour guide and visitors with artwork
Our intimate tours offer engaging conversations with docents or artist guides. Pictured: Public tour of The Language of Less (Then and Now), Oct 18, 2011
Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

Private Tours

Private guided tours are led by artist guides—practicing artists who receive special training around each MCA exhibition. Our guides are experts at sharing background information about the artists and artworks, providing social and historical context, and creating connections with everyday life.

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Kerry James Marshall Circle Donor (5:30-7pm) and Member (7-9pm) Preview
Photo: Jeremy Lawson Photography, © MCA Chicago

Contemporary Art 101 Tours

Offered once a month, this tour series is a 20-minute exploration of contemporary art through a work in the MCA Collection.

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Installation view, Simon Starling: Metamorphology, Jun 7–Nov 2, 2014
Photo: Gillian Fry, © MCA Chicago

Stroller Tours

Explore contemporary art with stroller in tow. On the first Wednesday of every month, the MCA offers guided tours to moms, dads, caregivers, and their little ones.

Stroller tours highlight current museum exhibitions on view. Please note that we do not offer stroller tours of Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech." You are invited to download the audio experience for Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech” on your mobile device. Don't forget headphones!

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Guide and stroller tour participants viewing a large painting
A stroller tour during Mark Bradford, MCA Chicago, May 28–Sep 18, 2011
Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago

Illinois School Tours

Our dynamic school tours help Illinois students, grades K–12, understand contemporary art and its context by encouraging questions and participation. A variety of tours, including artist-guided as well as self-guided, are available.

To book a tour or learn more, visit our schools page. For out-of-state school tours, please see our private guided tours information above.

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An artist guide converses with students in BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: Sarah and Joseph Belknap (Oct 11, 2014–Febr 24, 2015) during a Teacher Institute student tour on October 31, 2015
Photo: Joshua Longbrake, © MCA Chicago

¡Vamos al Museo!

Únete con un guía bilingüe del MCA el primer domingo de cada mes para una visita guiada en español.

(Join a bilingual MCA docent on the first Sunday of each month for a tour in Spanish.)

MCA Store

Special discount opportunities in the MCA Store are available for private guided tours.

  1. Long Pedestrians pass by the MCA Store entrance, which is set back in a plaza paved with large tiles. The store’s columned entrance includes a door for the disabled and a revolving door and is flanked by two windows. A sign in blue script above the left window reads "Museum of Contemporary Art" and a larger sign over the entrance, also in blue, reads "MCA STORE." The store window display on the left includes an umbrella featuring hands holding lipstick tubes. The store’s right window has penguin figures adorned in necklaces perched atop an electronic sign promoting MCA Stage programs.