Hot on the heels of the busy September 8 opening of the fall art season, more openings take place on Saturday, September 9 and throughout the week leading up to and through EXPO Chicago. Part II of our September preview gives you the highlights so you can plan ahead. 

September 9

• Ass Grass or Gas at Tiger Strikes Asteroid – Sparked by an interest in vanning culture, curators Josue Pellot and Robin Dluzen explore the aesthetics of the sub-culture with this exhibition that encompasses wider ideas about taste, the vernacular, and the psychedelic. The opening reception on Saturday September 9 will also feature a mini-vanning convention with Chicago-based vanners showing off their vehicles to the public. To read our fall interview with the artists behind TSA click here. 

• José Lerma: Nunquam Prandium Liberum, the artist's solo show, opens at Kavi Gupta Gallery. Gerald Williams also opens on the 9th. Both shows are on view at the gallery's second location at 219 N Elizabeth. 

• Lilli Carré opens at Western Exhibitions in a two part show. It's the artist's third solo show at the gallery, featuring new ceramic sculptures, animation, and prints. It's a great reason to visit the gallery group in the 1709 W Chicago Ave. building, as other openings are also happening this evening from 5 to 8pm. Check out some fancy shiny 1980s chairs while you're at Volume Gallery...

• James Greco is exhibiting tarp paintings at Bert Green Fine Art on South Michigan Ave. across from Millennium Park. The Brooklyn-based painter's newest works are paintings on unstretched, flat tarps on which he rapidly and intuitively applies color from punctured spray paint cans, in a contemporary iteration of action painting. 

• Chris Silva's fall show at Linda Warren Projects takes up two galleries. Open Source is a solo exhibition of new works and installation by the Chicago-based artist, who is showing for the first time at LWP. Silva will present an assortment of 2D collage sculptures and paintings in Gallery Y and a large-scale multi-sensory, multi-media, video animation installation in Gallery X. In LWP's third gallery space (O) Go Figure is a curated group exhibition of female artists from the gallery’s roster: Loretta Bourque, Megan Euker, Lora Fosberg, Paula Henderson, Michiko Itatani, Judith Mullen and Jennifer Presant.

September 12

• The Arts Club of Chicago will have a public opening on Sept 12 to celebrate the centennial of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, welcoming an exhibition by acclaimed Slovak artist Roman Ondak. Known for a conceptual oeuvre that draws on both participatory and object-based processes, Ondak interrogates the peculiarities of daily life in a post-Soviet and increasingly global context. For The Arts Club, Ondak gathers four sculptural installations that have never been shown in the United States along with an ongoing series of paintings begun in the 1990s, most of which were produced expressly for this exhibition. Taken as an ensemble, this work deploys found materials to reflect on aspects of memory and place–indicating Ondak’s rather ambivalent stance toward the legacy of the readymade.

September 14 and 15

• On Thursday, September 14 The Graham Foundation opens David Hartt: in the forest. Borrowing his title from Claude Lévi-Strauss’ 1955 memoir Tristes Tropiques, in the forest continues Hartt’s investigation into the relationship between ideology, architecture, and the environment. Consisting of a film, a suite of photographs, and a series of sculptures, the installation revisits architect Moshe Safdie’s unfinished 1968 Habitat Puerto Rico project through a contemporary lens.

• Gray Warehouse, Richard Gray Gallery's west side location that opened this past April with a show of Jim Dine's paintings, presents new work by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. At Gray Warehouse, Secret Garden presents recent sculptures in wood, stainless steel, and bronze in conjunction with a new suite of drawings. The exhibition continues at Richard Gray Gallery’s John Hancock Center space with a portrait series carved in alabaster, as well as a second exhibition of historical works titled One Thought Fills Immensity. Featuring works from 1989 to 2002, One Thought Fills Immensity offers a deeper view into the artist’s prolific career. The two exhibitions open with a public reception for the artist at Gray Warehouse on Thursday, September 14 from 6-8 pm. An exhibition walk-through and Q&A with Jaume Plensa and curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport will take place at Gray Warehouse on Friday, September 15 at 10:30am.

• Part of EXPO Art Week, Art After Hours is a citywide open gallery night inviting EXPO CHICAGO visitors and the Chicago community to experience the city's vibrant art scene, including alternative exhibition venues and performance spaces, during extended hours on Friday, September 15, 6:00–9:00pm. The list of participating galleries and related exhibitions is here.

• Glenn Kaino's second solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Sign, opens on Friday, September 15 from 5-8pm at the gallery's 835 W. Washington location.

• PATRON Gallery features work by gallery artist Nick van Woert on Friday, September 15

• Carrie Secrist Gallery opens their new season with a show of Anne Lindberg's work on September 15. walking as I stand, features six new monumental drawings that embody the seamless relationship between the pace of Lindberg's step and the evolution of the drawing. Citing a long tradition ranging from Henri Rousseau to William Wordsworth, Robert Walser and Immanuel Kant, the work in this exhibition expounds the relationship of deep thinking and composing with time spent walking. As thousands of lines are pulled across a pliant mat board while walking, an under-layer of graphite builds a matrix into which color is overlaid and embedded. Lindberg’s work has a highly atmospheric inclination towards the rhythmic layers of luminous colors. To read CGN's interview with Secrist for the gallery's 25th anniversary, click here.

There is a LOT of great art to see, and there are just a few highlights around the city. View the entire calendar here. 

To read Part I of our Fall Preview. featuring shows opening September 8, click here.

Top image: EXPO Chicago's Vernissage opening night party takes place Wednesday, September 13