Art Fairs
Who Do Chicago’s Art Fairs Serve?
Expo Chicago and its orbit of shows reveal both the joys and pain points of the city’s current creative environment.
Expo Chicago
News
Amid Market Uncertainty, Expo Chicago Brings a Spirit of Hope
Paintings that pay tribute to the art of cosplaying, sculptures celebrating Mexican artisanship, and ethereal Korean ink drawings were among the standout works at this joy-filled fair.
Art
The Productive Messiness of Expo Chicago 2024
The art felt as if it was trying to find the language to merge emotion with content, to harness the energies of the search within the courage of experimentation.
News
Contested Native Artworks Resurface at Art Fair, Drawing Scrutiny
The drawings, taken from ledger books made by Native people imprisoned in the 19th century, were sold at auction in 2022 against tribal members' wishes.
Art
Is There Room for Care at an Art Fair?
One might go to an art fair anticipating spectacle, but what I found at Expo Chicago was much more heartening, and deeply Midwestern.
Art
Artists Who Resist the Gaze of Collectors
Images by Kameelah Janan Rasheed and an exhibition curated by Sol Camacho avoided trendy visuals or themes at EXPO Chicago.
Art
From Immigrant Stories to Environmental Dread, EXPO Chicago Gets Dark
The Midwest's mega-fair seems less concerned with the bottom line, making space for politics.
Art
An Ominous Score for Antarctica's Collapsing Glaciers
In downtown Chicago, the artist duo Luftwerk has created a public sound piece that evokes the calving of Antartica's Larsen C ice shelf.
Art
From Emoticon to Ellen Degeneres, an Index of the Most Popular Wikipedia Articles
CHICAGO — According to Jason Salavon’s “The Master Index (Semaphore),” we are all a little more interested in Kanye West than masturbation.
Art
Expo Chicago 2014 Fails to Inspire
CHICAGO — The common consensus about Expo Chicago 2014 is that it was a success. One hundred and forty galleries from across the globe (more than in the previous two years of the art fair’s reincarnated existence) set up their stalls in the Navy Pier exhibition hall.
Interview
The Art of 3D Printing
CHICAGO — For artist Tom Burtonwood, the transition into 3D scanning and printing was as natural as popping food into a microwave rather than settling for cold leftovers.
Art
Wandering the Halls of Chicago's New Art Fair
CHICAGO — At the beginning of 2012, Art Chicago was canceled by the owners of the Merchandise Mart, the huge exhibition area on the river where the fair was held for a few years. For the first time in over thirty years, it looked like there would be no art fair in the city. Then, thanks to the deter