Warhol shows are too often loud, lack focus and are filled with work of varying quality. That’s what I was expecting when I recently visited Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art to see Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962–1964. What I found was something quite different: a show that is small, intimate and macabre.

The first things I saw at Yutaka Sone’s Forecast Snow, a show at the Renaissance Society on the University of Chicago campus, were trees: hundreds of real pine trees standing amidst snow cut from Sytrofoam. I smelled the sap and noticed that the room was a little chilly, forcing me to keep my scarf on. Then, I noticed fake snowflakes covering everything. Seeing real trees in fake snow felt strange, but I remembered all of the unnatural nature around us—potted plants, cement beaches, and campsites with indoor plumbing.

To see all of the work in The Happiness I Seek, viewers must go on a scavenger hunt to five galleries throughout greater Chicago. It is a fun but time-consuming idea. I set out on the first weekend of March with the ambitious goal of making it to four of the five openings.

Michael Rooks' latest show Situation Comedy: Humor in Recent Art opens at the Chicago Cultural Center on February 4. The exhibition brings together an all-star team of funny artists (think Tom Friedman and Erwin Wurm) with a few locals like Tony Tasset and SAIC faculty members David Robbins and Stephanie Brooks.