ANTICIPATING A SEASON OF ART FIVE TO TALK TO

SPRING IS ONCE AGAIN THE SEASON OF THE VISUAL IN CHICAGO. KNOWING THAT ALL EYES WILL BE ON THIS YEAR’S ART FAIRS, MARKETS AND NOTABLE EXHIBITIONS, WE SPOKE TO FIVE ART COMMUNITY LEADERS ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE WORKING ON NOW AND LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT.

“As we approach our tenth anniversary edition, I am deeply proud of both our legacy, and the future of EXPO CHICAGO. Our annual exposition activates our great city in collaboration with, and in service of, our institutions, galleries, artists, and the broader cultural tourism and hospitality communities. Our core programs – /Dialogues, Curatorial Forum & Exchange, Override, In/Situ and In/Situ Outside – and the Directors Summit continue to grow, while providing opportunities for international artists and generating important discourse for the global arts community. I remain proud that we make an annual contribution to the global image of our diverse, innovative and vibrant city and that we generate direct support to Chicago’s civic and cultural ecosystems.”

EXPO CHICAGO runs April 13-16 at Navy Pier. expochicago.com

Tony Karman, Founder EXPO CHICAGO

Sally Schwartz, Founder Randolph Street Market

“I can’t believe how much the West Loop has grown – especially at the West end and Fulton Market area, just since we had to shut down for the pandemic in 2020. Since we reopened Randolph Street Market last summer, so many new visitors are coming who have never been to an antique flea market before. Art is actually the top purchase now, next to vintage fashion. I think no matter the size of a city dwelling, these buyers want to adorn their walls.

We’re happy to give them a lot to choose from. What makes the Randolph Street Market so unique is the depth and quality of our vintage “pickers” who hit all the fanciest estate sales and flea markets throughout the U.S., plus dealers who bring global textiles and artifacts from France, Germany, Poland, Senegal, Ghana, Kenya, Columbia, Argentina, Guatemala, Turkey, Syria, Mexico and elsewhere.”

South Side Community Art Center

“The South Side Community Art Center’s (SSCAC) exhibition, “where the light corrupts your face,” features artists Andres L. Hernandez, Roland Knowlden, and Tonika Lewis Johnson and is curated by Lola Ogbara, SSCAC Exhibitions Manager and Curator. These incredible Spatial griots – historians and storytellers – invite you to consider how socio-economic and geographic oppressions impact the way we see (or don’t see) our environments. Hernandez uncovers embedded histories and systems of power within built and speculative landscapes to imagine these spaces otherwise. Lewis Johnson advocates for urban communities by documenting disparities among Chicago residents who live on opposite ends of the same streets across the city’s racial and economic divides. Knowlden critically deconstructs the elements of our urban fabric and its architectural histories to reassemble them as cartographic abstractions and imagined landscapes. Gwendolyn Brooks, a brilliant author, poet, and life-long resident of the historic Bronzeville, becomes the Mecca of these stories as this exhibition interrogates dilapidation, buried histories, and what it could mean to be Black in space.”

More info at sscartcenter.org