This year's EXPO CHICAGO features 170 galleries from around the world – from Paris to to Cape Town to Seoul. Several exhibiting galleries also operate close to home all year round, and in recognition of the special programming that these Chicago and regional galleries are exhibiting this weekend, we have a short wrap–up below. 

Please double checkbooth details as you are able with an onsite map. 

Also visit our CGN booth P7 to say hi and pick up a copy of our spring issue and the 2024 CGN Arts Guide! 

Read Part 1

Read Part 3

– CGN Staff

Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Rhona Hoffman Gallery, founded originally as Young Hoffman Gallery in 1976, specializes in international contemporary art in all media, and art that is conceptually, formally, or socio-politically based. The gallery will feature many gallery artists in their booth this year, from Derrick Adams to Amanda Williams, Spencer Finch, Julia Fish, Bassim Al-Shaker and Judy Ledgerwood, among others. Off-site in their West Town space works by Jacob Hashimoto are on view. 

DOCUMENT

Booth #333

Document, with locations in Chicago as well as Lisbon, Portugal, will be featuring the work of artists Elizabeth Atterbury, Kiah Celeste, Julien Creuzet, Jimmy DeSana, Anneke Eussen, Victoria Fu, Gordon Hall, Laura Letinsky, Erin Jane Nelson, Natani Notah, John Opera, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tromarama, Andrew Norman Wilson. 

Gallery artist Laura Letinsky also has a special program offsite at the Four Seasons, where her photographs are displayed alongside a new porcelain collection by Molosco. This is Molosco’s first pop-up store in North America.

Secrist | Beach

Booth #305

The gallery just unveiled a new name and brand identity in time for EXPO. Appearing for the first time at an art fair as with their new name and Chicago location, for EXPO Chicago, SECRIST | BEACH will present a curated installation featuring new works by represented artists Hilma’s Ghost, Stephen Eichhorn, Anne Lindberg and Liliana Porter. Also on view will be works by artists who will be featured in concurrent invitational salon curations at SECRIST | BEACH’s new Chicago location: Kristoffer McAfee, Jacqueline Surdell and May Tveit. Thematically, this presentation will showcase materiality as a principal means of artistic communication, while investigating conceptual ideas such as the spirituality of abstraction, our common connection to nature and the conceptual necessities of the human condition.

One of the artworks on view will be a monumental painting by Hilma’s Ghost (Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray), Cosmic Altar. This significant artwork, developed in collaboration with a psychic medium and professional witch, is work of such significance, it inspired and won a major public commission that will be realized in New York City later this year. Another artwork, Say Yes by Kansas-based artist May Tveit, is a large abstract wall sculpture made from corrugated cardboard that was developed while in residence at the Lawrence Paper Company, a 130-year old business in Lawrence, Kansas. This artwork evokes metaphorical connotations from ziggurats to minimalism and machine-age living, creating a telling context for today.

65GRAND

Booth #225

The gallery will be featuring the work of artists Sam Jaffe & Brian Kapernekas

Anthony Gallery

Booth #231

Anthony Gallery is pleased to present new work by multidisciplinary artist Michael C. Thorpe at the 2024 edition of EXPO Chicago. Fact and Fiction furthers Thorpe’s exploration of quilting as a painterly medium, utilizing both photographic and textile processing to craft composite artworks that blur the lines between reality and imagination.

This series begins with reference photographs printed onto canvas. Consisting of cluttered countertops, quiet basements, and living room corners, these reference images are rooted in the everyday. Thorpe bears witness to the inner workings of his perception by interrupting photoreal veneers with invented textile compositions. Sketching with his sewing machine, he fuses the plain with the technicolor, collaging his quilted forms onto canvas, curating a variety of whimsical patchwork tableaux.

Guided by his creative intuition and unhindered by aesthetic pretenses—in his own words, first thought, best thought—Thorpe uses automatism to scaffold geometric scenes bursting with color and narrative possibility. It is in establishing these parameters that he is able to breathe life into the most mundane of spaces. Fact and Fiction’s unfailing positivity and generous spirit are contagious, transforming our everyday world into one brimming with possibility.

Fact and Fiction welcomes Thorpe back for his second solo presentation, preceded by his participation in 2023’s Flying on a Moving Mountain, and the group exhibition GUMBO.

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The EXPO CHGO ONLINE viewing room is also on view now and connects you digitally with exhibitors and allows you to view the artworks on display at the fair in advance of the opening. Accessible only until Friday, April 19 at 9:00pm CT, the online viewing room is the place to learn more about exhibitors, discover highlights you might have missed, and contact the galleries.

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CGN will cover the Special Exhibitions participants in another post.