The beach is Chicago’s best-kept summer secret, but the air-conditioned galleries might be the next-best. When you’ve had enough heat and sun, here are 10 promising exhibitions to visit instead.

“stanley brouwn”: One of the most elusive artists of the last century, the Suriname-born conceptualist, who died in 2017, was keen on measurements and mapmaking, not in the standard fashion but uniquely generated by individuals, their memories and their bodies. He famously refused to allow his work to be reproduced, promoted or interpreted, so visitors to his first U.S. retrospective will be treated to a rare experience indeed: a show of art and nothing else. Through July 31 at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave.; more information at 312-443-3600 and artic.edu

“Gravity Pleasure Switchback”: Black people’s desire for rest, queer liberation and freedom from capitalism take solid form in the first major solo exhibition of Derrick Woods-Morrow. Those shapes include a full-size reproduction of the artist’s bedroom in copper pipe; blown glass made with dirt from a site of Black tragedy; jars of urine, blood and sweat; rope twisted from lint collected in Black neighborhood laundromats; a neon-rimmed tangle of bedsprings; and a slow-motion film of Black cowboys riding Broncos in a Harlem rodeo. Through Aug. 5 at Gallery 400, 400 S. Peoria St.; more information at 312-996-6114 and gallery400.uic.edu

“Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities”: In the 1980s, hundreds of artists got together to campaign against U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, Honduras and other Central American countries. The bold posters, seminal artworks and vivid performances they created — including Leon Golub’s terrifying painting of napalm victims and Hans Haacke’s equally horrifying reconstruction of a U.S. military prisoner isolation box — are presented here alongside choice examples of political art by artists from the region, then and now, in a show of admirable concord and undeniable timeliness. Through Aug. 6 at the DePaul Art Museum, 935 W. Fullerton Ave.; more information at 773-325-7506 and resources.depaul.edu

“Edra Soto: Destination/El Destino: A Decade of GRAFT”: For the past 10 years, the Puerto Rican-born artist has been transplanting the ornamental iron gates and concrete-block breeze walls of her homeland onto unsuspecting structures and landscapes in Chicago and elsewhere across the U.S. The effect is never just decoratively tropical, and this show, Soto’s largest to date, offers a chance to take stock. Through Aug. 6 at the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave.; more information at 773-324-5520 and hydeparkart.org

“Shift: Music, Meaning, Context”: In this exploration of the radical changes sound undergoes as it moves from one situation to another, Emeka Ogboh has the German national anthem sung simultaneously in 10 African languages, Jeremy Deller documents a British brass band covering acid house tracks, Taryn Simon portrays an international array of professional mourners and Lawrence Abu Hamdan graphs the speech of a dozen Somali people whose asylum claims were denied based on forensic vocal analysis. Six more international artists round out the ensemble. Through Aug. 6 at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave.; more information at 312-663-5554 and mocp.org

“Brenda Draney: Drink from the river”: Blank space and confident, minimal brush strokes leave room for viewers to complete the subjects, spaces and stories Draney depicts in her dreamlike paintings of daily life in Edmonton, Canada. This will be the first U.S. solo show by the Cree artist of the Sawridge First Nation. June 14-Aug. 15 at the Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E. Ontario St.; more information at 312-787-3997 and artsclubchicago.org

“Tim Youd: Retyping the Chicago Public Library”: Since 2013, Youd has been hard at work retyping 100 iconic novels in locations specific to each story, using the authors’ original make and model of typewriter, and on a single sheet of paper per book, to the point of illegibility. In celebration of CPL’s 150th anniversary, he’ll retype Richard Wright’s “Native Son” at the Hall Branch and Saul Bellow’s “The Adventures of Augie March” at the Humboldt Park Branch. Through Aug. 19; for a detailed schedule and locations see chipublib.org

“Marie Watt: Sky Dances Light”: Jingle cones hang from dresses worn in traditional healing dances, but Seneca artist Watt has taken tens of thousands of them and fashioned clouds. The rolled pieces of tin dangle from strips of blue cotton in biomorphic shapes suspended from the ceiling, an environment that can only be entered by first passing through a jingle curtain, a threshold of touch and sound that ricochets lightly, like rain. Through Sept. 30 at Kavi Gupta, 835 W. Washington Blvd.; more information at 312-432-0708 and kavigupta.com

“Los huecos del agua: Recent Indigenous Art from Mexico”: Spanning folkloric tapestry, linguistic activism, conceptual performance and pop portraiture, this group show gathers together some two dozen Indigenous artists to contend with a legacy of forced Hispanicization, environmental degradation, racist violence and limited freedoms. Highlights include Abraham Gomez’s deadpan testing out of superstition; Narsiso Martinez’s empathetic portraits of farmworkers on discarded produce boxes; Mauro Pech’s embroidered rocks, as beautiful as they are impossible; and a larger-than-life portrait of a young tattooed woman riding a tricked-out tractor by the artist collective Tlacolulokos. Through Aug. 27 at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St.; more information at 312-738-1503 and nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

“Gary Simmons: Public Enemy”: Since the 1990s, Simmons has turned out some of the coolest works of race-based conceptual art, from gold-plated sports shoes and child-size Ku Klux Klan uniforms, to stacked sound speaker systems, to his erasure paintings — mural-sized visions of American cinema, architecture and literature rendered aflame and ghostly. The MCA gives a much-deserved career overview. Through Oct 1 at MCA Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave.; more information at 312-280-2660 and visit.mcachicago.org

Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.