By CGN Staff via PR

EXPO CHICAGO is almost here, and in advance of the fair's opening on April 7, organizers have shared plans for the upcoming EXPO ART WEEK, April 4–10. Programming takes place throughout the city in many different partner arts organizations and institutions and features a robust calendar of art openings, exhibitions, performances, large-scale installations, and other special events taking place throughout Chicago.

Following are some of the featured alignments for 2022. A full list of programs may be viewed online. 

THE PENINSULA CHICAGO X AFRICOBRA: I AM SOMEBODY

April 7 – Mid- May, 2022
The Peninsula Chicago

The Peninsula Chicago is proud to present an exhibition of works by AFRICOBRA founders Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Sherman Beck, Jeff Donaldson and Gerald Williams, along with additional early members of the pioneering collective. AFRICOBRA was an artist collective founded on the South Side of Chicago in 1968. Known for creating art to address social and cultural challenges affecting the Black community, AFRICOBRA is one of the most significant arts movements of the second half of the twentieth century. The exhibition will feature a selection of works from the AFRICOBRA group's groundbreaking early exhibitions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as key insights into their aesthetic explorations before the group came together, and subsequent developments in the following decades. AFRICOBRA's incredible contributions to the history of art have been highlighted in such exhibitions as the 2019 Venice Biennale and the critically-acclaimed Soul of a Nation, which debuted at the Tate Modern in 2017, and traveled to five further museums. This exhibition is in partnership with Kavi Gupta, EXPO CHICAGO and The Peninsula Chicago.

ART AFTER HOURS

A citywide open gallery night inviting EXPO CHICAGO visitors and the Chicago community to experience the city’s vibrant art scene during extended hours from 6:00 – 9:00pm on Friday, April 8, 2022. 

NICK CAVE PREVIEW AT ART ON THEMART

April 8, 2022 | 8:00–10:00am
Art on theMART

Viewable along the Chicago Riverwalk, between Wells and Franklin Streets

In partnership with Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Art on theMART is presenting a brand-new projection by acclaimed American artist Nick Cave. A preview of this projection will be viewable as a pop-up installment at Art on theMART during EXPO CHICAGO on Friday, April 8 from 8:00 – 10:00pm. The projection of Cave’s video work, made specifically for Art on theMART, is a remix of Cave’s original film Drive-By (2011) with new footage as part of the Summer 2022 programming to be shown twice nightly from May 5 through September 7, 2022. Cave’s projection will coincide with his first career-spanning retrospective, Forothermore, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

SENJU’S WATERFALL FOR CHICAGO

On view now through June 26
The Art Institute of Chicago

Under a combination of white light and UV lighting, the works evocatively express the force and motion of falling water. These enchanting painted screens are the work and a gift of Senju (b. 1958), a contemporary proponent of Nihonga, traditional Japanese painting. Known for his signature Waterfall works, Senju created the panels on view at the Art Institute specifically for the museum’s Gallery 109, the space designed by architect Andō Tadao. Thinking of the exhibition as a collaboration between himself and the architect through time, Senju tailored the scale and lighting to best suit this distinctive space.

BARELY FAIR

April 8 – 10, 2022 | 6:00 – 10:00 pm
Color Club | 4146 N Elston Ave.

Barely Fair is a miniature art fair operated by the artist-run project space Julius Caesar. The invitational fair presents a tiny peek inside the programming of 30 contemporary art galleries, project spaces, and curatorial projects from around the world. Included spaces exhibit works in 1:12 scale booths built to mimic the design of a standard fair. Barely Fair opens with a vernissage on April 8 and runs through April 24. Located at the arts and events space Color Club, the fair will run with daily hours through the first weekend, and be open for weekly gallery hours and by appointment through April 24th.

POP STARS! POPULAR CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY ART

March 21, 2022 – March 1, 2023
21c Museum Hotel Chicago

The multi-media exhibition illuminates the intersection of celebrity, commerce, technology and the media, including notable works by Nick Cave, Titus Kaphar, Hank Willis Thomas and Kehinde Wiley, among others. Spanning all 10,000+ square feet of the 21c Museum Hotel Chicago’s gallery space, Pop Stars! features over 90 works of art by 55 artists from around the world. The artists exhibited in Pop Stars! examine recent shifts in how culture is being created and consumed, demonstrating the dominance of the popular as today’s ubiquitous culture. Curated by Museum Director and Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites. 

A guided docent tour will be available on Friday, April 8 from 5:00 – 6:00pm.

THEODORA ALLEN: SATURNINE

March 29 – July 10, 2022
The Richard H. Driehaus Museum

The Driehaus Museum presents Theodora Allen: Saturnine as part of their 2022 contemporary exhibition program A Tale of Today. Drawing upon the museum’s focus on ornamentation and exquisite craft, the exhibition—previously on view at the Kunsthal Aarhus (Denmark), curated by Stephanie Cristello—resonates with specific histories and motifs within the Nickerson Mansion and Driehaus collection, and installed within select period rooms of the Gilded Age mansion. A monograph published by Motto Books in Berlin accompanies the traveling exhibition. 

An opening reception will take place April 6, 7:00 – 9:00pm.

CHRIS LARSON: THE RESIDUE OF LABOR

April 8–May 21, 2022
Opening reception April 8, 6:00–8:00pm | 401 N Paulina St.

ENGAGE Projects is pleased to announce The Residue of Labor, a site-specific exhibition by St. Paul-based multimedia artist Chris Larson. The exhibition will be presented across two locations: Larson will debut a primary, large-scale installation at an offsite warehouse in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood (401 N Paulina St), in addition to a small presentation of works at ENGAGE Projects (864 N Ashland Ave). At the offsite location — a 10,000 square-foot warehouse in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood — Larson’s large-scale, site specific installation will include 55 recent works ranging from sculpture, video, drawing, painting, and photography, as well as an immersive work titled Thread Room.

BOB FAUST: WITH ALL, AND STILL…

On view now through May 2022
The Peninsula Chicago

with all, and still… is a series of layered, billboard-scaled works created from photographic details captured by local Chicago artist Bob Faust from several of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. The vibrant, digital images are used as the main medium to create new artworks with unique reads from differing vantage points. The result is a colorful and immersive experience that feels as if the vernacular panels of distant canvas billboards have been transformed and transported to The Peninsula Chicago lobby, providing an urban and industrial counterpoint to the elegance of the surrounding hotel spaces.