One might go to an art fair anticipating spectacle, but what I found at Expo Chicago was much more heartening, and deeply Midwestern.
Expo Chicago
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 determination and belief of Tony Karman, who has been involved in many of those prior fairs, Expo Chicago arrived on the scene, with a few changes to the format designed to ensure that the fair continues next year: the fair is back in the festival hall on Navy Pier, which is a higher-profile venue; the number of exhibiting galleries and spaces was curated and limited to 120 to ensure quality over quantity; and it is being held in September so as not to compete with the coastal art fairs held at other times of the year.
