Can a Slimmed-Down Expo Chicago Still Throw Its Weight Around?

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, art news Newsletter about the art market and beyond. Register here Receive it every Wednesday.

Ask incoming Expo Chicago director Kate Sierzputowski what her city’s arts scene is like, and you’ll get several very illuminating examples of its nature, which she describes as “clearly collaborative.”

Scherzputowski told reporters that dealer Lorna Hoffman has hosted the August table tennis tournament for several years. art news recent. “Everyone showed up, drank some beers, and put their name on the board, from gallery owners to art fair directors to art dealers to artists to independent space directors and museum directors,” she said. (After Hoffman gave up her space in 2024, another Windy City dealer, Carrie Secrist, hosted the event in her new, larger space, Secrist Beach.) Beloved for its great shows, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago is now hosting its third consecutive November fundraiser at Seventy Lane in Hyde Park, where ticket holders can show off their bowling skills; 2025 The year’s event page promises “strike, spares, foam and sliders.”

It is here in this unique Midwestern city on the shores of Lake Michigan that some 130 galleries will gather for Expo 15 Chicago (April 9-12), the first under the leadership of Scherzputowski and the third appearance as part of the international Frieze brand, which purchased the fair in 2023 (together with the Armory Show New York).

There are rumors in the art world that many art fair booths are struggling to be fully subscribed as the market slumps. art news For example, it was reported in October that at least eight galleries had withdrawn from Art Basel Miami Beach in December after announcing their participation. When the Expo announced its 2026 lineup of more than 130 exhibitors, it was down nearly 25% from the previous three editions (170 galleries).

Sierzputowski insists it was a well-thought-out decision made before the show opened its application process. “This is a purposeful move for us,” she said. “We decided that beyond 2025 we wanted the show to look more approachable and curated, to showcase the sophistication of Frieze. At a more manageable scale, our visitors could feel they had a direct relationship with the gallery and not feel overwhelmed.” While major galleries such as Gagosian and Zwirner are waiting on the sidelines, Karma in New York and Los Angeles (showing for the first time), Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York, Nara Major galleries like Roesler (São Paulo, New York and Rio de Janeiro) and Vielmetter Los Angeles are on the list, as are Chicago mainstays like Monique Meloche and Patron.

If the main art fair has lost some of its weight, the city is hosting a new satellite fair, Neighbors, in a luxury apartment on the Gold Coast, which, along with the Barely Fair (an “international contemporary art fair in 1:12 scale”), which has been running since 2019, brings new meaning to the term “micro-art fair”, displaying miniature artworks in Lilliputian spaces.

What’s more, the energy of Exposition Week is likely to only be greater this year, as both the Renaissance Society and the Museum of Contemporary Art are cooperating with their benefit events to coincide with the Expo. RenBen, as the former is affectionately known, “always creates so much FOMO and iconic moments,” Sierzputowski said. That’s certainly the case this year, as world-renowned Italian artist and magician Maurizio Cattelan, who serves as RenBen’s artistic director, will organize a “Silent Party” on April 8, transforming two floors of the historic Chicago Athletic Association Hotel into a maze filled with countless art performances, food, and more.

This year, the expo aims to capitalize on the buzz at the Obama Presidential Center, which opens to the public on July 19, and has commissioned projects from high-caliber artists such as Mark Bradford, Nick Cave, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu and Carrie Mae Weems. The “Embodied” section of the fair is curated by the center’s founding director, Louise Bernard, and will feature galleries inspired by its architecture (designed by the husband-and-wife team of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien) and the artists it commissioned. These include Anton Kern Gallery and Regen Projects, which are jointly showing paintings by Mexico City-born, New York-based Aliza Nisenbaum, who has a major mural commission at the center.

“I am honored to be part of a legacy of social activism and diversity and all the values ​​that Obama shares,” Nissenbaum said. art news In a phone conversation before the show. This was a homecoming for her, as she earned her BFA and MFA from the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. Her 70-foot-long Obama Center mural, Reading Circle/Weaving Dreams/Sowing the Future (2026), celebrates public libraries and will spotlight a range of writers and visual artists. At the same time, the gallery will present portraits she created during her long engagement with immigrant communities, works that undoubtedly have particular resonance in the context of the Trump administration’s violent attacks on immigrant communities, including in the Windy City.

Sierzputowski joined the fair in 2020 as coordinator and was promoted to program director in 2021 and artistic director in 2023 before being named director last year. During her early years in these roles, Fair organized a museum curators summit as well as a curator forum (called “one-of-a-kind” by a Chicago publication) new city), she hopes the show’s institutional attitude will be clearly reflected on the show’s main floor. This will be accomplished in part through a lecture by Louise Bernard, and in part through the contributions of fair curator Essence Harden, also appointed in 2025, who will oversee the fair’s overview section (featuring individual and group projects from international galleries), and Detroit Institute of Arts associate curator Kate A. Pfohl, who will organize the spotlight section (highlighting emerging galleries and artistic practices).

But the success of the fair does not depend solely on the presence of museum directors and curators, important as they may be. Patricia Pericas, senior director at Nara Roesler, said the fair was successful in that regard. The gallery will feature works by two young Brazilian artists, Elian Almeida and Mônica Ventura, whose works sell for as much as $35,000 and as low as $7,000.

“I love the collectors there,” Perikas, who is also a member of the fair’s selection committee, said in a phone conversation. “They’re old school. This is not a jazzy, flashy collector. They dig deep into the project.” Collecting may proceed at a “different pace” compared to glitzier fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, she said, but the collector remains “cosmopolitan and elegant.”

Even museum trustees, she says, are fearless in their collections, purchasing works that may be provocative or political: “They’re not afraid.”