What Galleries Are Bringing to EXPO CHICAGO 2025

Previews

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Apr 17, 2025

The artist Joseph Seigenthaler in his studio

This year's EXPO CHICAGO features more than 200 galleries and exhibiting organizations from around the world – from London to Johannesburg to Seoul, and of course Chicago. Many notable exhibiting galleries 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 are sharing a wrap–up of what they are showing at EXPO. Many spaces are presenting special exhibitions and exclusive editions that are available for the first time at EXPO CHICAGO 2025.

The details below include information available as of press-time, so we will make updates as we are able in an effort not to leave anyone out. A full list of regional exhibiting spaces is also included at the end. We will be sharing visual updates from the fair all weekend long via Instagram.

Please double check booth details as you are able with an on-site map.

See you at the fair!

– CGN Staff

Roy Lewis, Man and Boat in Lagos Harbor, 1977

GRAY

• Booth #204

GRAY is participating in EXPO's CONTRAST sector, with selections from So Be It! Asé! Photographic Echoes of FESTAC ’77, an exhibition curated by Chicago-based art historian Romi Crawford.

This presentation unveils visual documentation of one of the most significant, yet lesser known, cultural events of the twentieth century: the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria. Known as FESTAC, the 1977 Pan-African festival and convening, brought together around 17,000 artists from African countries and Black diaspora communities across the world. GRAY’s EXPO Chicago exhibition features photographs by Roy Lewis, Bob Crawford, and K. Kofi Moyo, three members of the United States delegation to FESTAC.

CONTRAST is a new section of galleries and artist presentations for the 2025 edition of EXPO CHICAGO. The inaugural section will be curated by Lauren Haynes, Head Curator, Governors Island Arts and Vice President for Arts and Culture at the Trust for Governors Island.

moniquemeloche

• Booth #305

moniquemeloche presents a selection of works by Luke Agada, Candida Alvarez, Sanford Biggers, Brendan Fernandes, Ebony G. Patterson, Maia Cruz Palileo, Cheryl Pope, and Arvie Smith — artists who engage history, identity, and cultural narratives. Through sculpture, painting, installation, textile, and performance-based media, the works on view explore themes of memory, visibility, and transformation. Presented in conjunction with moniquemeloche’s 25th anniversary exhibition at the gallery, the booth showcases the broad spectrum of practices championed by the gallery, all of which are united by the desire to disrupt and challenge, both formally and conceptually. The gallery is also celebrating 25 years this year.

Florence Solis, Makahiya VII, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in

THE MISSION PROJECTS

• Booth #108

THE MISSION PROJECTS presents an EXPOSURE booth at EXPO featuring new paintings by Filipino-Canadian artist Florence Solis (b. 1988). A self-taught artist and professional designer, Solis’s practice explores the complex intersections of womanhood, identity, and cultural heritage. Working through a process of digital collage translated into acrylic on canvas, she delves into the emotional and mental transformations that have shaped her, particularly her experiences as a mother and person of color.

MCA x Hebru Brantley

The Museum of Contemporary Art's exclusive Hebru Brantley x MCA Store Collection features limited edition prints and exclusive apparel, and the collection drops first at EXPO Chicago on April 24—only at the MCA Store booth. Remaining pieces will be made available online at 11 am CST April 25, while supplies last.

Hebru Brantley creates narrative-driven work revolving around his conceptualized iconic characters. Brantley utilizes these characters to address complex ideas around nostalgia, the mental psyche, power, and hope. The color palettes, pop-art motifs and characters themselves create accessibility around his layered and multifaceted ideas. Brantley works in a plethora of mediums and his art challenges the traditional view of the hero or protagonist. Through his characters, Brantley seeks to reassess contemporary culture and mythology through the lens of Afrofuturism.

SOO SHIN, We, Dandelions (A lift), 2024, Brass, steel, 61 1/2" x 16" x 19 1/2" (detail)

PATRON

• Booth #109

For the 2025 edition of EXPO Chicago, PATRON will exhibit a solo presentation with Chicago-based artist Soo Shin.

Shin’s conceptual, sculptural practice examines universal experiences of displacement, connection, and belonging, often using the perimeters and gestures of her own body to realize abstract ideas of distance and place. Originally from South Korea, Shin draws upon her personal journey of migration and connectedness, to inform a materially driven, poetic sculptural practice. Utilizing ceramic, brass, concrete, wood, seawater, and other materials drawn from personal experience, Shin has developed a visual vocabulary that connects what is deeply human to the natural world.

Diane Simpson, Armour Pattern #2, 1975, collagraph print, 35 x 30 1/2 inches, signed and dated recto, edition 2/6.

Corbett vs. Dempsey

• Booth #230

Corbett vs. Dempsey presents a solo booth featuring a selection of historical prints by Diane Simpson. Created over a period from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, most of these extraordinary works on paper have never been exhibited. Deploying various techniques including collagraphy and collage, the works' images consist of some of the same types of forms Simpson would explore over the subsequent five decades: architectural shapes and ideas drawn from women's clothing. The earliest prints are uncommonly vivid, later ones more subdued, in browns, blue, and grey tones. Made in tiny editions, some in fact unique, these printworks allude directly to the artist's work in three dimensions; one of them was designed to be cut out and folded into a kind of origami sculpture.

Left: Edie Fake, Two of Wands (Facing), 2025. Right: Edie Fake, Two Of Wands (Future), 2025

Manneken Press

• Booth #472

This will be Manneken’s sixth time exhibiting at EXPO, participating as part of Editions + Books, a distinct gallery section which features artist books, editions and multiples. Manneken Press’s presentation will feature prints by notable contemporary artists, published by and produced at Manneken Press.

2025 is Manneken Press’ 25th anniversary. At EXPO Manneken will acknowledge their silver jubilee year by hanging some of Manneken’s earliest published prints alongside the most recent. Rupert Deese’s Iris suite of six etchings, produced in 2000 were among the first projects. A pair of exquisite etchings with aquatint by Edie Fake and monotypes by Andrea Ferrigno, both published in 2025, represent the latest.

Two aquatints by Jason Karolak and monotypes by Catherine Howe, both from 2024, and Array 1000/Dark Blue, also by Deese, from his 2012 Array opus of woodcuts, and at 45 x 45 inches one of the largest prints published by Manneken Press, will also be on view.

Handmade paper editions by Claire Lieberman, etchings by Jill Moser and Matt Magee, monotypes by Sarah Smelser, Judy Ledgerwood, and Anna Kunz, will round out Manneken Press’ presentation. Several print portfolios, including Ted Kincaid’s Kakistocracy Portfolio, a timely comment on the tenuous state of our nation, will be available to view, as well as new photogravures by Claire Seidl and collaborative monotypes by John Yau and Richard Hull.

Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP)

• Booth #256

MoCP will present a selection of fine prints by Henry Nias Business in Arts Fellow Hiwot Ayele-Schutz. Displayed prints are a thematic extension of the museum’s current exhibition Regina Agu: Shore | Lines about environment, place, and identity - on view during EXPO. Fine prints and publications will be available for purchase with guided conversations from museum staff and friends.

On Saturday, April 26, at 1:00 pm there visit MoCP’s booth to celebrate the premier and signing of Regina Agu’s Field Guide by Kris Graves Publishing.

Process/Process

• Booth #449

Process/Process will release an edition with artist Edie Fake at EXPO Chicago. The woodblock print merges Fake's long held interest in queer spaces of potential and vernacular culture with a new subject of chromatic and compositional exploration: the board game.

VOLUME Gallery

Volume Gallery will exhibit a solo presentation of handwoven weavings by Chicago-based artist SHENEQUA.

SHENEQUA’s work is a material celebration of her Afro-Caribbean identity. Born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, raised in Miami, Florida and having studied with master weaver Sebastian Dayi in Ghana, West Africa, SHENEQUA deftly weaves together meaningful materials to honor the resilience, beauty, and creativity of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Throughout her practice, she incorporates plaits of synthetic hair and sculptural bobby pins to honor the Black hair salon as a center of community, intimacy, and friendship. Her intricate textiles push the boundaries of form with shifts in scale, organic edges, and improvisational moments.

Recent work in vivid colors is inspired by the exuberant Sugar Mas carnival celebrations of Saint Kitts and Nevis, of which her family are longtime participants. Carnivals arose in the Caribbean as independence celebrations, and now the weeks-long festivities feature elaborately costumed dancers, soca music, food, and pageantry. SHENEQUA weaves vibrantly colored fabric with braids of synthetic hair, jewel-like embellishments, strips of Caribbean batik fabric, and iridescent elements, all intertwined to create rich, layered textures that echo African and Caribbean cultural heritage in a striking, tactile display of communal joy.