The fifth edition of the Windy City’s annual art fair is currently underway at Navy Pier. EXPO CHICAGO brings together 140 galleries from around the world — here are Elephant’s top booths from within the States.
Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
California’s Jessica Silverman are always on point — and tend to have a good range of strong female artists — and this exhibit contains the well-matched work of Tammy Rae Carland and Judy Chicago, alongside others. The swathes of fabric in Carland’s Untitled #1 (Lesbian Beds) works well with the lung-like puckers on Chicago’s Submerged/Emerged deep purples, reds and fleshy tones building an image of insides, and intimacy, surrounded by the stark white walls of a spacious booth.
Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles
Another Californian gallery, Richard Heller Gallery’s selection is expectedly unnerving. From Amy Bennett’s slightly too perfect to be real Clouds Roll In to Joakim Ojanen’s dead-eyed smoking head sculpture Big Poppa, Heller’s artists turn reality on its head, in some works making a nightmare of the everyday, in others finding fun in violent chaos. As usual, Devin Troy Strother’s piece is not to be missed.
Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles
Holographic paper and sparkles can be found bordering Sadie Barnette’s works at LA’s Charlie James Gallery, contrasted unsettlingly with the dark equine faces lurking within. Images are sliced through, blurred and obscured, their initial vibrant pull giving way to a sinister sense of unease.
Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
New York’s Paul Kasmin Gallery have curated a feast for the eyes, bringing together the bold photographs of Ivan Navarro with a host of other artists, including Bosco Sodi, Robert Polidori and Roxy Paine. Surface and texture are key in many of the pieces, from commanding shots of crumbling walls (Polidori’s Hotel Petra #4, Beirut, Lebanon) to stark close-ups (Sodi’s, Untitled).
Diana Lowenstein Gallery, Miami
There are moments of still violence at Diana Lowenstein Gallery, a pierced apple (the fruit) and smashed Apple (the gadget) falling foul of a sharp stick in Humberto Diaz’s Wounded apple. Elsewhere, Lidzie Alvisa Jimenez’s Trampas del Interior (translates to “The Interior Traps”) shows two hands cupping a nude stomach on which many pins lie. Though not graphic in content, the selection of Dirk Salz’s # 2023 as part of this group draws the mind to the potential blood-shed that could lie ahead.
‘EXPO CHICAGO‘ runs until 25 September 2016
