CHICAGO, IL.- EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, concluded its sixth edition on Sunday, September 17, with record attendance of more than 40,000 visitors, exceptional presentations from exhibiting galleries and strong sales, in what was its most global edition to date. On opening day alone, the exposition welcomed 8,500 guests while raising money to benefit the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago during Vernissage. Collectors, curators, artists and art enthusiasts enjoyed an exclusive first look at 135 leading galleries from 25 countries and 58 cities throughout Navy Pier’s iconic Festival Hall.
“I am extremely proud that our sixth edition aligned with the opening of the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Palais de Tokyo, contributing to an extraordinary week of international art, architecture and design events and exhibitions,” said EXPO CHICAGO President | Director Tony Karman. “We are sincerely grateful for the success of our participating exhibitors and for the overwhelmingly positive response to our critically acclaimed programming,” he added. “There is no city in the world that collaborates like Chicago, and that attitude coupled with the incredible support and involvement of our cultural institutions, collectors, galleries and artists will ensure that we will be welcoming the world together for many years to come.”
Dynamic programming, and a momentous collaboration with the Palais de Tokyo for their first-ever off-site exhibition in the United States with the Institut français—which took place at the Roundhouse at the DuSable Museum of African American History and kicked off EXPO ART WEEK on Tuesday, September 12—as well as the significant alignment with the opening of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, set the sixth edition apart, making Chicago the epicenter of the contemporary and modern art world as it opened the international fall art season.
EXPO CHICAGO welcomed back many returning galleries for 2017 as well as several new additions, whose curated and ambitious presentations drew critical praise. Exhibitors voiced strong support from the greater Midwest collector base in addition to a high volume of nationally and internationally notable collectors, museum curators and institutions.
“This is the first year that Lévy Gorvy participated in EXPO CHICAGO and we were thrilled by the reception that we received from collectors, curators and a very enthusiastic public. Chicago has a personal significance for me, and a phenomenal history as a pioneering city for art, architecture and collecting. We were very pleased to see old friends and to enjoy the revitalized energy of this fair. In particular, we were happy that works by Pat Steir, Carol Rama, Senga Nengudi and Dan Colen found new homes in the Midwest.” — Brett Gorvy | Lévy Gorvy
“Participating in EXPO CHICAGO for the first time, we wanted to show a dynamic selection of works. We were delighted with the level of engagement with the art from private collectors, as well as from representatives of major institutions.” — Millicent Wilner | Gagosian
"The fair had and strong international representation of galleries this year and we continue to do good business with both known and new regional collectors. If a consensus can be achieved, and more top galleries join, EXPO CHICAGO is on it's way to being the dominant date and meeting point for American collectors West of the East Coast." — Christopher D’Amelio | David Zwirner
"Chicago-based clients are taking the fair a lot more seriously than in past years. The number of collectors from the Midwest has increased and business was particularly strong this year. EXPO CHICAGO is quickly becoming a major player in the global fair circuit." — David Nolan | David Nolan Gallery
Curatorial Forum
In an effort to draw the leaders of top institutions to the exposition, EXPO CHICAGO once again hosted the Curatorial Forum, welcoming 30 of the region’s top curators for the third year. Participating institutions included Aspen Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Des Moines Institute of Art, Delaware Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Eli and Edith Broad Art Museum, The Glass House, H&R Block Art Space, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michigan State University, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, New Orleans Museum of Art, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Perez Art Museum Miami, Queens Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Jose Museum of Art, Speed Art Museum, SCAD Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Forum also included a private Symposium in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI), led by Independent Curator Jesus Carrillo in addition to a series of break-out sessions focused on critical questions relevant to contemporary practice and context, led by internationally recognized leaders in the field.
2017 Programming
EXPO CHICAGO’s robust programming allowed visitors the opportunity to extend discussion and discourse beyond the booths of the fair. /Dialogues, presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, once again offered panel discussions, conversations and provocative artistic discourse between today’s most respected art professionals including a featured Art & Architecture Symposium in conjunction with the Chicago Architecture Biennial featuring original members of the Italian Radical Design movement, Artist David Hartt with PIN—UP’s Felix Burrichter, artists Thomas Demand and Luisa Lambri, and Flavin Judd with Sarah Herda and Artforum’s Julian Rose. Additional panels included author Sarah Thornton and artist Paola Pivi; a keynote discussion with Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi; Chicago-Based Artist Michael Rakowitz with Omar Kholeif in conjunction with the opening of his first-ever museum survey in the world; and a featured art criticism & rock & roll panel with critic and author Jan Verwoert, author Jörg Heiser, musician and author Ian F. Svenonius and founder of Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova, moderated by Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry Curator Zachary Cahill. As part of the Curatorial Forum (presented in partnership with ICI), Curators Naomi Beckwith and Valerie Cassel Oliver spoke in one of the most attended talks to date, entitled “Out of Body: Black Identity in Abstraction,” moderated by Visual Critical Studies and Liberal Arts Associate Professor at SAIC Romi Crawford.
Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting also featured exclusive conversations including the Museum Governance Forum, presented in partnership with the American Alliance of Museums and BoardSource; a roundtable on Race & Representation in Contemporary Collections, Germano Celant in conversation with artists from the Chicago Imagists and more.
Curated by Florence Derieux, the 2017 IN/SITU program, Chronopolitics, featured major suspended installations in addition to large-scale work capitalizing on the unique architecture of Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. IN/SITU featured the work of Sanford Biggers (moniquemeloche | Chicago), Tom Burr (Bortolami | New York), Alex Chitty (PATRON | Chicago), Bethany Collins (PATRON | Chicago), Nate Lowman (Maccarone | New York, Los Angeles), Lavar Munroe (Jenkins Johnson Gallery | San Francisco, New York), Manish Nai (Kavi Gupta | Chicago), Dan Peterman (Rhona Hoffman Gallery | Chicago), Lara Schnitger (Anton Kern Gallery | New York), Hiroshi Senju (Sundaram Tagore Gallery | New York, Singapore, Hong Kong), Troika (Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki, Sebastien Noel) (Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie | Basel) and Wang Du (Galerie Laurent Godin | Paris).
The 2017 EXPO VIDEO program, These Restless Times, was on view in two large-format screenings rooms on the main floor of Festival Hall. Curated by Ali Subotnick, EXPO VIDEO featured an in-depth presentation of dynamic and provocative videos by artists Stanya Kahn (Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects | Los Angeles) and Erik van Lieshout (Anton Kern Gallery | New York), along with shorts by Guthrie Lonergan (Honor Fraser | Los Angeles).
IN/SITU Outside, in partnership with the Chicago Park District and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events featured the work of Roger Hiorns (Luhring Augustine), Isa Genzken (David Zwirner) and Bernar Venet (Paul Kasmin Gallery) and will be on display for an extended period of time throughout Chicago’s neighborhoods and along the lakefront.
OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project, in collaboration with Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, allowed EXPO CHICAGO to once again further extend its reach throughout the city by placing the work of 12 artists from local, national and international galleries on Chicago’s City Digital Network. The citywide public art initiative was on view from August 28 through the close of EXPO CHICAGO, September 17.
