I used to be going to kick this off with a enjoyable anecdote about my daughter strolling into my workplace to ask whether or not I knew there was a man trapped contained in the Bean, adopted by my inevitable dive into the Man in Bean motion (together with Sarah Cascone’s wild dissection). Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate is the form of paintings individuals like to hate whereas nonetheless lining as much as slap their greasy palms on it to get the identical warped selfie everybody takes. And whereas I often take pleasure in a great dunk on that type of factor, it feels somewhat tone-deaf given what’s taking place within the Windy Metropolis proper now—from ICE patrols to the arrival of Nationwide Guard troops.
The concept Trump might deploy these troops in Chicago—invoking the Rebellion Act within the course of—feels dystopian and doesn’t monitor with my expertise of town in any respect. Does Chicago have crime? Sure, Chicago has crime. So does each metropolis. Extra individuals, extra issues. Is Chicago, because the president has claimed, the “world’s most harmful metropolis”? Please. Not even shut. It’s only a metropolis—and from every thing I noticed throughout a visit that took me from the Loop to Streeterville, from East Village to Washington Park and the Fulton Market District—it’s a reasonably chill one. Positive, I solely noticed a sliver, however to echo the phrases of U.S. District Choose April Perry, I noticed nothing resembling a “hazard of revolt.”
What I do see whereas I’m right here for Chicago Exhibition Weekend (CXW) is gorgeous in the best way most city locations are lovely—filled with laborious edges paired with softness and united by the broadly held conviction that artwork is the answer to a variety of challenges. Chicago’s artists—and their champions, from patrons to gallerists to curators—are as open as they’re unfiltered. After I ask Scott Speh, founding father of Western Exhibitions, what makes the Chicago artwork scene completely different from, say, New York or L.A., he’s fast to inform me how a lot he hates that query, then launches into a wonderfully clear-eyed reply: “I feel in all places, individuals wish to placed on good exhibits. It doesn’t matter what metropolis they’re in, they wish to put ahead fascinating artists.”
That’s what he’s been doing for 21 years (“Chicago can be a far much less fascinating artwork metropolis if Scott wasn’t doing what he was doing,” artist Stan Shellabarger informed The Chicago Reader in 2024), and he’s in good firm. Speh would possibly resist boiling all of it down, but when I needed to attempt, I’d say Chicago’s is a scene grounded in and by the people who find themselves within the thick of it. “In Chicago, there’s a extremely good ecosystem as a result of it’s not too small and it’s not too massive both,” Sibylle Friche, Doc gallery accomplice, tells me. “You don’t get bored—there’s at all times sufficient happening.”
Sufficient, after which some—as is the case with Chicago Exhibition Weekend, now in its third yr. Round 50 galleries and inventive areas citywide mounted exhibits and every thing from panel discussions and artist meet-and-greets to collector excursions and an art-and-tennis mixer. The entire thing is the brainchild of Abby Pucker, Gertie founder and Pritzker household scion—sure, that Pritzker household. However regardless of her affiliation with massive bucks and large names (Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is a cousin), Pucker is—as I discover out in dialog after dialog, together with with the lady herself—concurrently down-to-earth and dedicated to lifting others up.
I’m right here for CXW, in fact, but additionally to determine what makes Chicago’s artwork world tick. Pucker deserves severe credit score for rallying next-gen patrons and collectors via Gertie’s EarlyWork program of curated cultural occasions. Nonetheless, she’s one voice in a wonderful refrain of artists, curators and civic-minded supporters—all of whom, it appears, are prepared to ask outsiders like me in.
Day 0
It’s simply round lunchtime after I contact down at O’Hare, however I’m thrilled to search out my room at Chicago Athletic Affiliation already prepared after I arrive after an uneventful trip on the Blue Line. I can see Cloud Gate from right here, or at the least glints of it between the leaves of Millennium Park’s many bushes, which implies I’m additionally close to Jaume Plensa’s ever-smiling crowd-pleaser, Crown Fountain. It’s hours earlier than I have to be anyplace, and my dwelling base is simply steps from the Artwork Institute of Chicago (the second-largest artwork museum in the USA, after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork), which seems like the proper solution to begin an unfamiliar metropolis fling with artwork.
Within the elevator, somebody cheerfully asks if I’m headed out to see the Bean. “Positive am,” I reply—and I assume I’m simply that suggestible as a result of abruptly I really feel compelled to make that my first cease. Shut up, it’s filthy, lined in smeary handprints and streaks, however from a distance, framed by town skyline, it’s pure sculpture drama. I take selfies from afar however resist the urge to the touch it since I left my sanitizer again within the room—rookie mistake.
On a traditional journey, I’d price range at the least 5 hours for the Artwork Institute, however this isn’t a traditional journey, so I resolve to deal with the heavy hitters: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Van Gogh’s The Bed room. Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Grant Wooden’s American Gothic. My all-time favourite Cézanne, Basket of Apples. I’m waylaid early on by the Elizabeth Catlett present, “A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies,” a unbelievable profession survey on view via early subsequent yr and completely definitely worth the flight alone. In Gallery 262, everyone seems to be clustered round Nighthawks, which might be among the many least fascinating work there—although it’s undoubtedly larger than you’d anticipate. Way more charming are Peter Blume’s weirdly sensible The Rock (commissioned for Fallingwater however rejected for being too massive) and Kay Sage’s deliciously desolate Within the Third Sleep. There’s even an early cubist-expressionist Pollock, which seems like recognizing a star earlier than their glow-up.
And so it goes. The Artwork Institute of Chicago is dwelling to work we’ve all seen 100 occasions on mugs, tote luggage and in films—you’ll be able to completely have your Ferris Bueller second in entrance of the Seurat—but it surely’s the lesser-known gems that basically sparkle. There’s a stellar number of Georgia O’Keeffe’s works (Ballet Skirt or Electrical Mild is a standout) and Alma Thomas’ Starry Night time with the Astronauts. Different highlights: William Zorach’s Summer season, Marsden Hartley’s Motion, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones’ Store Ladies and Mary Cassatt’s The Youngster’s Tub.
Time-bound as I’m, I really feel like I’m jogging via the galleries. (Enjoyable truth: Giant because the museum is, lower than 20 p.c of the gathering is on show at any given time.) I pause for a late lunch on the café—nice meals—and sit within the backyard for an enthralling little reset earlier than diving again in. Monet’s stacks of wheat remind me what repetition can obtain. There are Van Goghs right here you haven’t seen on one million mugs, however don’t skip the Pissarros. I breeze via the Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian galleries however one way or the other miss all the Asian artwork assortment. I cap off my go to at Marc Chagall’s America Home windows and depart feeling artistically overfed but hungry for extra.
After a cease again on the resort, the place I clean up and take a look at Andi Crist’s Precautionary Measures, a site-specific set up that transforms symbols of warning and containment into a brand new visible language (then put in at Chicago Athletic Affiliation), I hop on the practice towards 400 N. Peoria. It’s the hub of CXW and the location of “Over My Head: Encounters with Conceptual Artwork in a Flyover Metropolis, 1984–2015,” a particular exhibition curated by Gareth Kaye and Iris Colburn and introduced by Abby Pucker’s Gertie.
The climate is perfection—so near splendid it’s virtually invisible. However I’m off to an inauspicious begin. My GPS goes haywire, and I’m spinning round River North in a gentle panic, attempting to determine the place the hell I’m. And as soon as I do, I’m unfashionably early—as in, they’re-still-setting-up-the-bar early. However somebody lets me in, and the bartenders take pity on me, which is how I rating a non-public preview of the present. I spend an embarrassingly very long time standing within the room the place Jordan Wolfson’s hypnotic Good Lover (2007), considered one of my favourite works, is enjoying on a loop.
Because the gallery fills, I’m nonetheless feeling untethered. I spot Tony Karman. I snoop on conversations, enjoying a recreation of Artist, Collector or Scenester? I linger by Wendy Jacob’s Untitled (1988), watching it breathe, then lose myself in Rashid Johnson’s Remembering D.B. Cooper (2013), till Ellen Kaulig, chief of workers on the Chicago Reader, saves me from myself by introducing me to Pucker. In a comparatively quiet spot underneath the steps, she tells me how Chicago Exhibition Weekend advanced over three years and the place the thought for “Over My Head” got here from.
“It’s a little bit of a double entendre—being a flyover metropolis, proper? Folks don’t typically attribute actions like conceptual artwork to Chicago, however it’s a tremendous nerve middle of that,” she says, calling the planning section a whirlwind. “We talked to those absolute icons. Folks like Karsten Lund, Helen Goldenberg, Laura Paulson, John Corbett and Jim Dempsey… simply individuals who have been integral to this space for thus a few years.” Chicago’s artwork elite have been, she stated, excited to share, and the ensuing present collected work from Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Dara Birnbaum, Rosemarie Trockel, Martin Puryear, Tony Lewis and others.
“They don’t assume so extremely of themselves that they’re indifferent from actuality,” she provides. “They’re round. I feel generally that may work to our detriment, as a result of it’s laborious to model one thing as cool when it’s so inviting—but it surely’s fucking cool to be invited.”
That phrase—invited—comes up once more after I speak to Chanelle Lacy, Gertie’s director of artwork initiatives, in regards to the crossover between CXW and EarlyWork: “We wish to decrease obstacles to entry. We attempt to demystify issues as a result of when you really get into it, it’s not that scary. The artwork world simply appears to be like somewhat intimidating from the surface. We wish to expose individuals to the finer facet of issues and be a lifeline. And every thing could be very severe—it’s nearly making it extra approachable, so individuals really feel invited into the expertise.”
The exhibition dinner is the place I meet Friche, together with Carla Acevedo-Yates (if the title’s acquainted, it’s as a result of she’s on the documenta 16 curatorial workforce), a number of sellers and a cadre of arts-friendly businesspeople and politicians. I keep and schmooze for so long as I can earlier than exhaustion units in.
Day 1
I’d deliberate to comply with one of many curated routes that the CXW workforce had Chicago artists, gallerists and creatives put collectively, however final night time Friche hand-drew me a one-of-a-kind mapped itinerary—and actually, how might I presumably say no to that? However Chicago’s artwork museums don’t open till 10 a.m., and the galleries open even later, so I resolve to wander towards Lake Michigan. I get sidetracked by absolutely the unit of a fountain within the distance—it’s Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain—and I begin heading that approach, pondering it will possibly’t be too far. And it’s not, technically, however its sheer scale performs methods in your senses. I do know I’m shut after I cross Turtle Boy and Dove Lady and the North Rose Backyard, which should be beautiful on the peak of summer time, after which I hold going for a fast peek at Magdalena Abakanowicz’s leggy Agora.
I haven’t even formally began my day, however I’ve already clocked greater than a mile—in response to Friche’s map, within the mistaken course. After an about-face, I get loads of lake views on my three-mile stroll to the MCA Chicago, which is displaying “Metropolis In A Backyard: Queer Artwork and Activism” and “Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me,” together with “Assortment in Dialog with Pablo Helguera” throughout all three flooring of the museum’s stairwell galleries. Just like the Artwork Institute, MCA Chicago is a feast, however a way more digestible one. You possibly can see every thing in a few hours, which is right as a result of my weekend itinerary is threatening to turn into an endurance sport.
First cease: Patron Gallery for Bethany Collins’s “DUSK,” which is nuanced however underwhelming as introduced—or possibly I’m simply too overstimulated post-museum to course of it correctly. Subsequent up: Western Exhibitions, Doc, Quantity Gallery and David Salkin Inventive, which all share a ground at 1709 West Chicago Avenue. Friche is in, and she or he tells me the neighborhood is a hub for rising up to date artwork, however you’ll additionally discover heavy-hitters like Mariane Ibrahim Gallery and Corbett vs. Dempsey. “It undoubtedly concentrates a whole lot of the scene,” she says. “And it feels fairly supportive—we every have our personal identification. I feel it’s laborious to search out packages in Chicago that resemble one another. I’m not saying something detrimental about New York, however generally you go to Chelsea and see the identical form of portray exhibits time and again. I really feel like right here, you don’t have that.”
In contrast to Scott Speh, she’s more than pleased to speak about what makes Chicago’s artwork scene distinctive: “As a result of our overhead is manageable, it’s extra accessible to open areas and experiment. Finally, you get a bit extra constrained by the industrial features—if you need longevity, you do have to promote some artwork. That impacts your decisions. However there’s nonetheless a bit extra respiration room right here than within the coastal cities, given how unaffordable issues have turn into in San Francisco and New York.”
I linger over Kiah Celeste and Gordon Corridor’s work at Doc and Journie Cirdain’s “The Gloaming” at Western Exhibitions earlier than briefly popping into “Porfirio Gutiérrez: Modernism” at Quantity Gallery. Then I’m again out on the streets, the place I’m spoiled for alternative however already flirting with artwork fatigue. Sadly, Monica Meloche gallery isn’t opening its Luke Agada and Braxton Garneau present till tomorrow, so I make my solution to Mariane Ibrahim for “Yukimasa Ida: Flaming Reminiscence.” It’s, in a phrase, transcendent. I stand for a very long time in entrance of every portray, hypnotized by the large brushstrokes and thick layers of paint that blur into half-remembered faces—like fragments of a dream fading sooner than I can maintain on.
I take into consideration squeezing in a number of extra galleries, however as soon as once more, I’ve grossly underestimated Chicago’s distances—and I’m hitting the wall. In a approach, it’s a contented accident: I return to my resort to the information that the long-lasting Agnes Gund has handed away, and her obit is ready in my manufacturing queue. I edit, publish after which sprint out to gape on the Chicago Picasso earlier than hopping on the practice to one more neighborhood: Washington Park.
I’m right here to see a unique facet of the artwork scene and be a part of the big crowd gathered on the Inexperienced Line Performing Arts Middle for a tour of the imagined Washington Park Public Artwork Hall. In a number of batches, a trolley ferries us to Amanda Williams’ Different Washingtons at 51st and S. King Drive, the longer term web site of Breath, Type & Freedom, created by the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Basis to honor victims of police torture, and Arts + Public Life’s Arts Garden for a preview of Yvette Mayorga’s Metropolis Lovers in Paradise. I be taught extra about Chicago’s current historical past in a number of hours than I might’ve gleaned from every week of studying—and never all of it’s fairly. Again on the arts middle, there’s reside music, dance and collaborative art-making with artist and instructor William Estrada, who’s introduced his Cellular Avenue Artwork Cart Challenge to the Artwork Garden.
After I ask Estrada in regards to the artwork scene, he’s frank. “There are a whole lot of areas the place not everyone seems to be welcome, and that’s the worst a part of it,” he says. “However the perfect half is that there’s a whole lot of artwork in Chicago, and you may see it throughout 77 neighborhoods. That’s the half I get actually enthusiastic about—since you get to expertise completely different artwork in several communities, and truly have interaction in conversations about what that artwork means and who made it with the parents who’re being affected by it or get to expertise it instantly.”
And that’s precisely why I’m right here—not only for CXW (which is unbelievable) or town’s world-class museums (additionally unbelievable) however to grasp what makes Chicago’s artwork pulse so distinct. Again within the Loop, I stroll round Millennium Park ready for a textual content from Wilma’s letting me know my barbecue is prepared. The night is attractive—heat, breezy and buzzing with life. Youngsters are splashing in Crown Fountain, musicians are enjoying on the sidewalks, and the entire scene radiates that stunning mixture of grit and attraction. I can see why so many individuals like it right here.
Day 2
In case you have restricted time in Chicago—say, you’re breezing in for a weekend of artwork and, like me, you’ll be working with out wheels—that you must assume hyper-locally. It is a metropolis of neighborhoods, every with its personal cultural taste and artwork choices. Hyde Park has the Good Museum of Artwork, the Renaissance Society, Hyde Park Artwork Middle and the Logan Middle Gallery (plus the Griffin Museum of Science and Trade, the Institute for the Research of Historical Cultures Museum and the DuSable Black Historical past Museum in close by Washington Park). Lincoln Park has the DePaul Artwork Museum and Wrightwood 659. Ukrainian Village and West City boast a cluster of business galleries, together with the Ukrainian Institute of Trendy Artwork and Intuit Artwork Museum.
If there are particular museums or galleries you’re decided to hit, guide a spot someplace central. As a result of should you’re coming from New York and assuming you’ll simply zip between neighborhoods such as you’re downtown, you’re in for a impolite awakening. Chicago is about ten occasions the scale of Manhattan by way of land space—which is why, throughout my closing hours on the town, I’m speedwalking the South Loop’s Wabash Arts Hall. (Sidenote: I think about myself a resort gymnasium connoisseur, however I racked up so many steps throughout my two-day keep that I by no means as soon as made it to the Chicago Athletic Affiliation gymnasium. No regrets.)
Crisscrossing streets so eerily empty of automobiles they really feel post-apocalyptic, I like murals not simply on partitions but additionally on doorways, alleyways and parking heaps. Initiated by Columbia Faculty Chicago in 2013, the Wabash Arts Hall challenge has introduced greater than 100 murals to the neighborhood, together with We Personal the Future by Shepard Fairey. I’m particularly charmed by Marina Zumi’s Unattainable Assembly and the candy-colored Moose Bubblegum Bubble by Jacob Watts, and want I had extra time to wander—however I have to get again to Chicago Athletic Affiliation for my closing artwork expertise of the journey: the “Metropolis as Platform” breakfast dialog.
On my straight-line energy stroll again to my resort, I marvel at Chicago’s plentiful parking—a downright surprising sight for a New Yorker—and pause to see into the home windows of Elephant Room Gallery, considered one of many I didn’t make it to, which is displaying Darin Latimer’s solo exhibition “Rhinoceros.” Different issues I don’t do in Chicago: take part within the “Throw your cellphone right into a physique of water!” activation by Weatherproof, which invited artwork lovers to toss their telephones into any useful physique of water on September 19, 20 or 21 each time the numbers on a clock added as much as 4 in navy time (e.g. 0400 or 2200)—although I used to be sorely tempted. Attend the Improvised Sound Making at The Franklin. See “Alex Katz: White Lotus” at GRAY. Go to the Nationwide Museum of Mexican Artwork and the Nationwide Veterans Artwork Museum.
Earlier than the speak—an enticing dialog between Kate Sierzputowski (creative director of EXPO CHICAGO), Nora Daley (co-chair of the Chicago Structure Biennial), Christine Messineo (Frieze director of Americas) and, no shock, Abby Pucker, who greets me warmly, by title, after I examine in. As Sierzputowski notes when the convo kicks off, the panel “displays the perfect of what Chicago has to supply: collaboration throughout sectors, deep civic dedication and a shared mission to position town’s cultural work on a worldwide stage.” Daley calls CXW a “cultural palooza” and declares that “Chicago exhibits up,” which is one thing I see in motion, time and again, throughout my brief time right here. “I feel it’s who’s within the room at these dinners is what makes this work,” Sierzputowski agrees—whether or not that’s gallerists, artists, curators, museum administrators and civic leaders or, as Pucker reminds us, engaged company entities dedicated to supporting the humanities in Chicago.
“The artistic economic system contributes massively to metropolis revenues, but the individuals in energy typically don’t see or perceive it,” she says. “We’ve seen notion damage Chicago. Each metropolis has issues—but when the media solely amplifies these, we lose individuals. Artwork and tradition can carry them again.”
Satirically, the tip of the dialog marks the shut of my 48 hours of artwork in Chicago. As I trip the Blue Line again to O’Hare, mulling over every thing I’ve skilled, it hits me: as thrilling as it’s to be right here throughout Chicago Exhibition Weekend, there’s simply an excessive amount of on the CXW agenda and never sufficient time to do it. What I skilled in two days was barely a teaser of what this metropolis has to supply. So with that in thoughts, Abby, should you’re studying this, I’ve three phrases for you: Chicago Exhibition Week. Give it some thought.
