On the newest version of Expo Chicago (till 12 April), greater than half of the stands are a part of a curated part or thematic choice, extending the foremost Midwestern truthful’s status as a magnet for curators and institutional leaders. The truthful has lengthy held a administrators summit and curatorial discussion board, however its new director Kate Sierzputowski felt it was vital for that institutional engagement to be felt within the aisles and stands, too.
“We’ve had all these curatorial and directorial actions embedded within the truthful for years however probably not occurring on the centre of the truthful,” Sierzputowski tells The Artwork Newspaper. “I wished to be sure that all of the curators we’re working with yr in and yr out are extra obvious contained in the truthful.”
Beneath Sierzputowski, who beforehand served because the truthful’s creative director for 5 years, Expo Chicago has introduced on Essence Harden—who co-curated the latest version of the Hammer Museum’s Made in LA biennial—to be the truthful’s curator. She curated the truthful’s Profile sector, which this yr consists of 21 solo, twin or thematic shows. The truthful’s Focus part, for galleries 12 years and youthful, options 52 galleries and was curated by Katie A. Pfohl, an affiliate curator of latest artwork on the Detroit Institute of Arts. And a small part titled Embodiment and curated by Louise Bernard, the founding director of the Obama Presidential Heart (OPC) Museum, options stands from galleries exhibiting artists who’ve been commissioned to create works for the OPC, which is able to open to the general public in June on Chicago’s south aspect.
Expo Chicago 2026 Photograph by Casey Kelbaugh/CKA. Courtesy of Expo Chicago
Gallery Wendi Norris, which relies in San Francisco, has devoted a big part of its stand within the Embodiment part to a few works by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, who was revealed on Thursday (9 April) as one of many artists chosen for the ultimate spherical of commissions for the OPC. The capsule survey of the Cuban-born artist’s work features a triptych sculpture from 1991, a surrealist composition of 12 large-format Polaroid pictures from 2007 and a combined media-on-paper work from 2024. By the top of the truthful’s preview on Thursday, the work on paper had bought for $22,000.
Dedicated collectors
Becky Koblick, a director at Gallery Wendi Norris, says the gallery was assured Campos-Pons’s work could be properly obtained at Expo Chicago due to the teams of collectors and curators it attracts. “The collectors in Chicago are actually carrying on a practice of caretaking, they perceive what it means to gather,” Koblick says. “It’s arduous to search out that, however the whole lot this truthful does with curation, bringing collectively establishments and collectors, makes a giant distinction—the neighborhood actually exhibits up.” The gallery’s VIP day gross sales additionally included two works by the Pakistan-born, Texas-based artist Ambreen Butt, for $8,000 and $38,000, the latter of which went to an unspecified US establishment.
Additionally within the Embodiment part, the longtime Chicago gallery Grey is exhibiting a number of works by OPC artists on its stand, together with items by Rashid Johnson, Theaster Gates and the late sculptor Richard Hunt. In the meantime, a big portion of the stand is dedicated to works by the Chicago-born artist Torkwase Dyson. “Louise Bernard reached out to us particularly to ask that we characteristic Torkwase’s work,” says Valerie Carberry, Grey’s president and chief government officer. “She isn’t one of many artists commissioned for the centre, however Louise stated that her work has been actually influential for the way they’re interested by structure, house and abstraction.”
Throughout Thursday’s preview, the gallery bought one in all Dyson’s works, Scalar 2 (Hypershape) (2024), for $55,000, in addition to one piece every by Johnson, McArthur Binion and Candida Alvarez for costs starting from $25,000 to $100,000.
The longtime Chicago gallery Secrist Seashore has probably the most magnetic stands within the basic galleries sector because of a wall-filling set up of neon-hued geometric compositions on aluminium panels that’s lit by black lights. Its patterns are primarily based on the summary stained-glass home windows of Le Corbusier’s chapel in Ronchamp, France. The glowing set up, by the Chicagoan duo Luftwerk (Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero), is titled Open Body (2025), priced at $150,000 and was acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Artwork in Kansas Metropolis throughout Thursday’s preview.
The set up Open Body (2025) by Luftwerk (Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero) was acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Artwork from Secrist Seashore’s stand at Expo Chicago Courtesy Secrist Seashore, Chicago
“For us, Expo is a superb alternative to verify in with native collectors who possibly don’t make it to the gallery regularly,” says Britton Bertran, a director at Secrist Seashore. “One other nice profit is that the truthful places a lot effort into bringing museum teams, curators and administrators right here.”
One other exhibitor benefiting from the big contingent of institutional leaders on the truthful is the Nashville-based gallery Purple Arrow, whose stand within the Focus part pairs playful ceramic and combined media sculptures by Jocelyn Reid with surreal work depicting biblical episodes by Annie Brito Hodgin. Through the VIP preview, the gallery bought seven work by Hodgin, for costs starting from $4,500 to $5,800. One was acquired by the Museo Internacional de Arte in Guadalajara, Mexico, whereas one other was acquired by the Bennett Assortment—devoted to purchasing works by women-identifying artists that painting girls—and can go on present on the Muskegon Museum of Artwork in Michigan.
“As quickly as I despatched {the catalogue} for our stand to Kate [Sierzputowski], she stated, ‘It’s important to ship this to the Bennett Assortment,’” says Katie Shaw, a gallerist at Purple Arrow. “We don’t have a gathering establishment in Nashville, so the connections to curators and establishments that Expo Chicago affords is de facto vital for us and our artists.”
Annie Brito Hodgin’s The Creation of Eve (2026) Courtesy the artist and Purple Arrow, Nashville
Additionally within the Focus sector, the Buffalo, New York-based gallery Rivalry Initiatives is exhibiting a solo stand of sunset-hued panorama work and found-material sculptures by the Arizona-based artist rocki swiderski, whose work focuses on contested landscapes—locations the place infrastructure and nature compete for scarce assets, or the place the surroundings is interrupted or surveilled. The gallery bought eight of swiderski’s works throughout Thursday’s preview, for costs starting from $3,000 to $15,000.
Midwest mainstay
“Being primarily based within the Southwest and interested by water and its shortage is essential to rocki’s work,” says Olivia Mcmanus, Rivalry Initiatives’ director, who beforehand labored on the Chicago galleries Rhona Hoffman and Patron, in addition to the Renaissance Society on the College of Chicago. “Chicagoans are usually not afraid to spend cash on works which are difficult or thematically charged, and Expo Chicago is an unimaginable truthful for the way it brings collectively the local people of consumers and curators from throughout the Midwest.”
For Sierzputowski, sustaining and amplifying the truthful’s Midwestern id has been a prime precedence, whilst its visibility rises internationally following its acquisition by Frieze in 2023 and its ongoing partnership with the Galleries Affiliation of Korea and Kiaf Seoul, which has led to 12 Korean galleries exhibiting at Expo Chicago this yr.
“We wish to be sure that galleries and establishments from throughout the Midwest really feel like they’ve a house right here,” Sierzputowski says. “I made positive to speculate our outreach price range to go to cities and establishments throughout the Midwest and, by means of these connections—particularly this yr with the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Saint Louis Museum of Artwork and the Pace Museum in Louisville—assembly the important thing individuals in all of these communities.”
The technique appeared to be paying off on day one, with artists and sellers from throughout the Midwest making vital gross sales. The perennial Chicago gallery Monique Meloche bought two Yvette Mayorga work for $50,000 every, a gaggle of Luke Agada work for $36,000, a number of assemblage works by Sheree Hovsepian for $30,000 apiece and several other work by David Shrove for $22,000 every. From their joint stand, the Chicago gallery Good Climate and Detroit’s What Pipeline bought a Dylan Spaysky sculpture for $40,000. The Chicago gallery Patron bought round a half-dozen works together with a portray by Lindsay Adams for $32,000, a portray by Caroline Kent for lower than $45,000, a number of works by Miao Wang priced between $9,000 and $15,000, and two work by Alice Tippit for costs ranging between $8,500 and $15,000.
Further museum acquisitions embody the Peabody Essex Museum from Salem, Massachusetts, shopping for a number of wall-mounted sculptures by Lakela Brown from the artist’s solo stand with 56 Henry, plus a piece by the Singapore-born textile artist Jovencio de la Paz from Chris Sharp Gallery. The Denver Artwork Museum additionally acquired a chunk by De la Paz from Chris Sharp Gallery, plus a sculpture by the Brazilian artist Caroline Ricca Lee from the São Paulo-based Galeria Verve. Along with works by LaKela Brown from 56 Henry and Luftwerk from Secrist Seashore, the Nelson-Atkins Museum acquired a portray by the US artist Lindsay Merrill from the Dutch gallery Enari. The Brazilian gallery Mitre bought 5 work by the São Paulo-based artist Diego Mouro, priced between $8,000 and $16,000, one in all which was acquired by the Phillips Assortment in Washington, DC. And the Bronx Museum acquired The Work (2025) by Sadie Barnette from the San Francisco gallery Jessica Silverman by means of the truthful’s Sherman Acquisition Award, an Expo Chicago initiative to assist the acquisition of a piece by an artist in its Profile part. (Lots of the institutional acquisitions on the truthful have been made by means of the Northern Belief Buy Prize, supported by the truthful’s longtime presenting sponsor Northern Belief.)
Along with foregrounding its curatorial connections, the truthful additionally options round 40 fewer galleries than final yr, making for a a lot roomier structure that, paired with amped-up lighting, goes a protracted strategy to making the truthful really feel much less overwhelming because the hours cross in Navy Pier’s gargantuan competition corridor.
“It was as if that they had extra lights on all through the exhibition corridor,” says Stephen Truax, an artwork adviser primarily based in New York. Tightly curated solo shows by recent faces carried out properly.” He provides: “This yr was a glow-up for Expo Chicago.”
Expo Chicago, till 12 April, Navy Pier, Chicago
