Believe the other reviewers when they say the Driehaus Museum is a Gilded Age gem hidden in the shadows of Chicago's skyscrapers. It is. I'd give it five stars, but...
My wife and I paid for a one hour guided tour. Our guide was quite knowledgeable on the history of the house. However, his lengthy comments on the current Yinka Shonibare exhibition included how we should be interpreting his work and degenerated into a lecture on social justice. From our guide I also sensed a dislike of the Nickersons, the original owners.
First, I'll make my own interpretations, thank you very much. Second, all the time our guide spent interpreting and lecturing on Shonibare's work could have been better spent showing us the servant's quarters, for example. I've seen these on a previous tour. This would have been far more effective than Shonibare's heavy-handed attempts at understanding the past.
The Driehaus Museum is a decorative arts museum, while Shonibare's art is political, racial, sexual-orientation and class based. It is also deliberately provocative. In many contexts, this is exactly what art is for. But here it works at odds to the Driehaus's purpose, and left a bad taste in our mouths. And the tour guides made it worse. The Shonibare exhibit lasts until September 29, 2019. I cannot recommend guided tours of the Driehaus Museum until after that date. read more