Expo Chicago Archives - Chicago Reader

Style invades Navy Pier

by Isa Giallorenzo June 29, 2023June 29, 2023

In April, a peculiar crowd descended upon Navy Pier, not quite blending in with the spot’s usual and more conventionally dressed clientele. Tourists and local visitors sporting accidental normcore shared the looong path to Festival Hall with EXPO Chicago attendees, who never disappoint in serving the latest fashions. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, it is fair […]

Installation view shows the long rectangular gallery with five large paintings on the floor via wooden stands and a wooden sculptural box in the center.

Art Feature

Spell casting

by Kerry Cardoza April 21, 2023October 16, 2023

A sigil is a symbol believed to have supernatural powers. In Simiya, an Islamic branch of occult practice, letters and numbers are arranged into sigils in order to conjure up metaphysical powers, like the ability to fly or to disappear. Artist Maryam Taghavi has long been drawn to these sigils, and other magic-imbued symbols, ornamented […]

A billboard by Esmaa Mohamoud is seen at night, from below, with the Chicago skyline behind it. It shows two Black male subjects connected by a two-headed durag and standing with Lake Ontario in the background.

Arts & Culture

Finding billboards

by Nicky Ni April 14, 2023April 14, 2023

To see “OVERRIDE,” I had to really look hard for billboards. “OVERRIDE” has been a public art program of EXPO Chicago since 2016, extending the reach of the art fair beyond Navy Pier’s Festival Hall to different locales of the city. “Override,” literally, is an industry term that indicates the continuation of an outdoor advertising […]

The wall-hung sculpture is shaped like a sailboat, with a wooden base, and an arrangement of geometric-shaped pieces of porcelain and glazed pieces on top.

Arts & Culture

Mie Kongo, in profile

by Alan Pocaro April 12, 2023October 16, 2023

The tenth edition of EXPO is upon us, and since its reinvention at Navy Pier, I’ve covered nine of them. I love EXPO; it’s the art equivalent of binge-watching the entire first season of Yellowjackets in a single day. It’s funny, scary, disgusting, uplifting, and shamelessly melodramatic. And like ten hours of your life hazily […]

City Life

Out Here: a comedian walks into an art fair

by Leah Gallant May 17, 2022May 18, 2022

Art writer Leah Gallant tells us about her hangout with comedian Jayson Acevedo.

City Life

Style comes back with a vengeance at EXPO

by Isa Giallorenzo April 25, 2022April 24, 2022

Whoever says people don’t have much style in Chicago has no idea what they’re talking about. I’ve been photographing street style here for over ten years and I know better. When Chicagoans decide to bring it, they bring it with gusto, authenticity, and a very midwestern ease. That’s the kind of style that could be […]

Three dancers in beige clothing are seated on the floor, holding onto each other and stretching backwards. Another dancer stands over them as if tugging at them.

City Life

April showers us with events

by Salem Collo-Julin, Micco Caporale and Kerry Reid April 8, 2022April 8, 2022

It may be a little damp and dreary outside, but there are loads of ways to warm up with some cultural events this week. FRI 4/8 At 5:30 PM tonight, catch a free performance by Xochitl-Quetzal, the dance troupe founded by Henry Cervantes that’s keeping the Concheros dance tradition alive. As the event host—the International […]

Arts & Culture

What’s fair about art fairs?

by Micco Caporale April 5, 2022April 5, 2022

What’s fair about art fairs? That’s the question at the heart of Barely Fair, a show organized by Garfield Park gallery Julius Caesar that’s designed to run in tandem with the international art fair EXPO Chicago. Founded in 2019, this is the second iteration of the Barely Fair, which quietly marks EXPO’s return to in-person […]