22 artworks that stopped me in my tracks at Expo Chicago
Including a basket-woven Carrie Bradshaw, a Mylar-wrapped teddy bear, and a car fender studded with semi-precious stones
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Like most Chicagoans, I make it a rule to avoid Navy Pier - the beating heart of the city’s tourist trail, with its ferris wheel and fudge shops and lurching pedicabs and the city’s only Margaritaville outpost - at all costs.
And every April, I make exactly one exception: when the art world descends on the city for Expo Chicago.
This art fair transforms Navy Pier’s exhibition space - which has as much visual appeal as a Costco warehouse - into a buzzing buffet of contemporary art from more than 130 galleries around the world. Picture a gleaming series of freshly-painted white cubes, hung with millions and millions of dollars’ worth of art, where the hum of the well-heeled crowd is occasionally punctuated by the pop of a champagne cork.
Serious collectors come ready to buy, with detailed battle plans for which booths to visit, dealers to meet, and artists to track down. Art addicts like me come ready to binge, and I took the exact opposite approach: wandering aimlessly, stopping any time I glimpsed a work that piqued my curiosity.
The works that follow are the ones that stopped me in my tracks: the ones that transported me to another dimension; the ones that I was oh-so-tempted to reach out and touch; the ones that made me laugh out loud; and the ones that had me reaching for my credit card (spoiler alert: it was the dog portraits).
Pools I wanted to dive into
Maybe it’s my Pisces moon talking - or maybe I just need a warm weather escape after a brutal Chicago winter. Either way, I wanted to dive head first into these pools.
When I looked at Sangwon Lee’s Floating People, it was easy to imagine myself bobbing lazily in a tube in the turquoise water, squinting in the sunlight, water splashing my face as a swimmer kicked nearby.
Diango Hernández’ Pool 015 felt cool and distant by comparison: there’s something surreal about the pristine pool that seems too shallow to actually swim in and the striking pastel facade where the only sign of life is a half-opened door.
Andy Burgess’ Kaufman House, in contrast, had me craving a poolside cocktail as the sun sets over the San Jacinto mountains in Palm Springs.
Art I desperately wanted to touch
The first cardinal rule of visiting a museum or gallery? Thou shalt not touch the art. I won’t pretend I wasn’t tempted, though: tactility and materiality were fully on display. And this trend towards texture wasn’t only limited to 3D work: even a handful of paintings begged to be touched.
There’s a reason that Chun Kwang Young’s mixed media assemblages are occasionally installed behind glass: Young folds pieces of hanji, handmade Korean mulberry paper, into wedges that, strung together with twine, appear both solid and weightless. I kept imagining what it would feel like to reach out and squeeze one of the wedges. Foamy? Squishy? Fragile? Though I kept my hands to myself, my somatosensory cortex was fully online.
My brain did not know what to make of Ebony Russell’s Decorative Urn - Pink. It almost felt as if it had walked off the set of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette: a quintessentially classical urn and pedestal form, finished with layer upon layer upon layer of frothy porcelain ornamentation that looked straight out of a wedding cake catalog. Though “let them eat cake” may not have been the artist’s inspiration, I felt the inexplicable urge to reach out and swipe a scoop of sweet frosting off the top.
When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with my aunt’s jewelry box. It was bedazzled from top to bottom: every square inch was covered in strings of costume pearls and glittering brooches that had been painstakingly hot-glued to the red velvet-lined box. Kathleen Ryan’s Bad Orange (Deep Blue) sculpture felt like the adult equivalent, this time with a litany of semi-precious stones - lapis lazuli, amethyst, agate, celestite and yes, freshwater pearls - applied to the beat up fender of a powder blue car.
I’ll be honest: what first drew me to Javier Pelaez’ Ted the Beast 8 painting was the subject matter (I’m a sucker for any reference to my Teddy’s namesake). But the more I stared at it, the more I was entranced at how Pelaez managed to convey layers of texture - the shiny, silver Mylar wrapping, the plush stuffed animal underneath, the nondescript background that somehow still managed to convey a sense of depth - all within a restrained, nearly monochromatic color palette. I felt the urge to poke and prod the canvas, to feel the Mylar crinkle between my fingers and to boop the bear’s perfectly pointed snout.
I have a hard time putting my finger on what exactly makes Kenny Nguyen’s massive textile installation Undercurrent Series No. 3 so utterly hypnotic, to the point where I practically had my nose smushed up against the fibers trying to make sense of it all. Somehow it manages to feel both entirely organic - like the inside of a seashell or layers of sediment in a canyon wall - and a product of the digital age, which pixelates the closer you get.
Antonio Santín’s monumental paintings - Tómbola clocks in at more than 7 feet tall by 6 feet wide - have a way of catching your eye from across the exhibition floor and drawing you as close as the crowds and gallery staff will allow. The urge to touch is almost compulsive: it’s nearly impossible to believe that the painting is made of nothing more than teeny, tiny dots of oil paint, meticulously applied with a syringe over many months, without running your hands across the tassels.
Collages that made my pattern-loving heart flutter
I’ve had an affinity for collage ever since the 4th grade, when my beloved art teacher, Ms. Tappmeyer, introduced us to Picasso’s work. Armed with scissors, glue sticks, and a pile of construction paper fragments, we set about creating our own versions of Picasso’s Three Musicians.
I’m reasonably sure my own masterpiece is still somewhere in my parents’ basement, much to my mom’s chagrin. Luckily, the collages on display at Expo did not meet the same fate.
Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Escape Collage pulses with frenetic energy, in a kaleidoscope of familiar images - palm trees, carved wooden masks, mirror fragments, and ceramic tiles, all smeared with gobs of melted black soap. Something about it made me feel unsettled, even a bit anxious: the lush, leafy utopia felt at odds with the work’s more sinister symbolism. I’m counting down the days until Johnson’s solo exhibition, Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago this November.
Like a moth to a flame, I was initially drawn to Ofunne Azinge’s large-scale portrait Precious and Shekinah for its vibrant patterns and warm, layered interior. But what really made my heart swell was realizing that what looked like densely patterned wallpaper from afar was actually a collage of family photographs: smiling babies, giggling siblings, doting parents and grandparents. It felt like a warm hug: not only a portrait of two women, but an intimate portrait of their lives too
Mersuka Dopazo’s group portrait, Uno de Mia Favoritos, made my inner fashionista want to make a beeline for the nearest thrift store. Each of the five figures shares the same style sensibilities, but expressed distinctly: silhouettes are oversized - but not too oversized, patterns are varied and layered (I especially loved the Indian-inspired block print and embroidery fragments), and details like trim, buttons and accessories are thoughtful and make pieces feel custom-made rather than off-the-rack. I’d buy a pair of trousers with an oversized bird print or a matching set of brightly-printed pantaloons and platform sandals in a heartbeat.
The first thing I noticed about Helina Metaferia’s Headdress 68 collage was its restraint: in contrast to the dozens of other maximalist collages on display at the fair, this one uses negative space to immediately focus your eye. The subject gazed at me unflinchingly, seemingly unbothered by the bulk of her towering headdress, assembled from newspaper clippings and photo fragments. Though she carries the weight of the Civil Rights movement on her head, she does not despair: the colorful beads and baubles that adorn her headdress serve as ballast.
Photorealist worlds I wanted to step into
Every photorealist work I encountered at Expo had me second guessing my own eye. Was I looking at a painting, rendered by a skilled hand in microscopic detail? Or a photograph, carefully staged to imitate life imitating art or manipulated with ultraprecision in post-production?
My favorite works were so enthralling, the worlds that they created so complete and so familiar, that the medium was irrelevant. Others - though executed with technical virtuosity - left me feeling slightly empty inside.
I had to circle around Weinstein Hammon Gallery’s booth at least 3 times to get a few moments with Gail Albert Halaban’s photograph Rear Window, My Block on Diwali, Chelsea, all to myself. I felt like I was peering into a modern-day dollhouse, the NYC apartment buildings aglow with the warm lamplight of early evening (and in some windows, the bright LED lights of a big screen TV). Each vignette - the couple lighting candles on the couch, the person stretching at their desk next to a pile of laundry on the floor, the dog leaning in to lick its owner’s face - feels self-contained, and yet somehow connected.
My favorite true-to-life Easter egg? The dog in the top right corner who has been left momentarily unattended, quietly snarfing what looks to be a three-layer cake off the table.
I was so instantly drawn to the rich, layered interior of Karen Knorr’s photograph The Maharaja’s Apartment, Udaipur City Palace that it took me a minute or two to grok the cheetah quietly holding court in the background. Everything about the room signals a royal presence: the powder blue walls and oxblood doors and window frames, the ornate chair inlaid with mother of pearl, the portrait of Maharana Bheem Singh Ji that dominates the back wall. This particular work is less obviously surreal than some of Knorr’s other works (think flamingos getting frisky in a rococo ballroom at Château du Chantilly), but no less captivating.
I’ve long favored Yigal Ozeri’s quiet genre paintings depicting empty cafes over his larger-scale portraits of ethereal women in nature. They display his technical virtuosity to its fullest effect with their dappled light that ricochets off of every surface: worn leather banquettes, architectural glass blocks, stemware on an empty table. But I’ll admit, I was less taken with Ozeri’s works when I saw them on display at what felt like every other gallery across the exhibition floor, each rendered with a sameness that made them feel like they’d just rolled off of an assembly line.
Pop culture references that made me laugh out loud
Did I expect to see a bedazzled Bart Simpson taking a peek at crystal encrusted Lichtenstein nude, on the cover of a luxury interiors publication? Most certainly not. And though it may have made me giggle at first glance, the work has a depth that surprised me. The careful crystal treatment puts The Simpsons and the Lichtenstein on the same cultural playing field - raising the question, why is one considered kitsch and the other fine art?
As I stared intently at Dylan Spaysky’s basket-woven foursome, I couldn’t help but wonder what about it felt so familiar. I was on the verge of recognition when I heard another gallery-goer whisper, “Sex and the City.” Suddenly, I couldn’t unsee it: Miranda’s ginger bob made of clementine peels, Charlotte’s tailored shift dress, Carrie’s Manolos (and yes, SJP’s aquiline nose), Samantha’s bouncy blowout. And Spaysky’s sense of humor doesn’t stop there: the work is titled Girls, in a nod to Lena Dunham’s HBO series, widely considered to be SATC’s spiritual successor.
Whether painter SangHo Byun is a fan of The Devil Wears Prada, I can’t say. But what I can tell you is that the first thing I noticed about this portrait was the proclamation “I LOVE MY JOB” in the upper left corner, which immediately echoed in my mind in Emily Blunt’s voice. It’s easy to imagine the painting’s subject - a thin woman wearing a fitted mockneck sweater and dainty layered necklaces, juggling three jewel-encrusted clutches and a handful of tiny cartoon cats - whispering the same mantra to herself.
Dog portraits that nearly had me pulling out my credit card
I used to think that my obsession with dog portraits was just a quirk that I inherited from my dog-loving dad, whose collection of objects inspired by our family’s black lab, Gracie, borders on pathological. But in 2023, on a visit to The Wallace Collection in London for their exhibition Portraits of Dogs: from Gainsborough to Hockney, I realized that my interest in dog portraiture was hardly unique: humans have been commemorating their four-legged friends in painting, sculpture and other mediums since antiquity.
Though I ultimately came home from Expo empty-handed, it’s no surprise, then, that the dog portraits were the most tempting.
Jin Minwook’s monumental mural depicting hundreds of dogs at play is a rollicking good time, fanned out across two full walls at 021 Gallery’s booth. Each pup is uniquely rendered: some pups pant excitedly while others chase brightly colored balls across the canvas, while still others flop into a gigantic dog pile in the background. I spent longer than I’d like to admit scanning to see if I could find a Teddy doppelganger. If only I had the wall space…
There are few things that crack me up more than dogs showing exceptional self-control in front of a table piled with food (Teddy would never). And Sabrina Bockler’s Dutch Golden Age-style still life Unruly, depicting three curly-haired Russian hounds keeping a safe distance from the fresh fish, is no exception. They may still be in luck, though: it appears as though the impish orange cat has done their dirty work for them, and the hounds will soon be feasting when the food topples to the floor a few seconds later.
One of my favorite memes declares, “Behind every powerful woman, there’s a dog that follows her to the bathroom” - and I have to think that British painter Von Wolfe would agree. And I can relate to the way that Wolfe’s protagonist in She Holds The Day seems to merge her own identity with that of her pooch, and vice versa: her spotted puffer jacket mirrors the dog’s spotted coat, as the pup stands proudly between her feet, his power pose echoing her own stride.
Love that Gracie made it in the piece! The exhibit sounds amazing.
really appreciate this round up bc i realized each time we participate in a fair i become art blind. though the diango hernández and sabrina bockler works managed somehow managed to break through and captivate.