September is a busy time in Chicago's art community, with new shows opening in all the galleries, museum exhibitions happening around the city and suburbs, and of course the season's art fair frenzy - EXPO first in late September and then SOFA in November. Also happening at the same time as EXPO, in the West Loop at the Chicago Artists Coalition, is The Annual, a yearly sales exhibition celebrating cutting-edge Chicago-based artists.

Arranged by a guest curator, The Annual creates an accessible forum for emerging collectors to discover affordable new work and engage directly with its creators. This year The Annual will run for two weeks on either end of EXPO Chicago, opening Friday, September 16 and closing on Thursday, September 29.

SHOWROOM is curated by Edra Soto, and this year's Annual is the strongest to-date. From The Annual's website: "SHOWROOM, is an installation unto itself, bringing together work influenced by fundamental aspects of interior architecture and design objects, and placing them on custom made furniture by Dock 6 Collective. SHOWROOM aims to draw new connections between our understanding of the relationship between art and design, and to make us question our assumptions. SHOWROOM exists within that delicate balance of the expressive world and the pragmatically crafted architecture that holds it." 

Stop in to see the works on view by many of Chicago's rising stars. Highlights include works by Alberto Aguilar, Mariano Chavez, Maria Gaspar, Anna Kunz, Leonard Suryajaya, Ann Toebbe, and Stacia Yeapanis.

Works may be viewed online and bid on at paddle8.com to support CAC. 

More details available here.