Artists at this month’s Expo Chicago.
From Berlin and London to Cape Town and São Paulo, the international modern-art world will converge on the city April 13 to 16 for Expo Chicago. Think of it as a massive pop-up global art museum — one where you can actually purchase the pieces. “You can live in Chicago, travel the world with your eyes, and experience an extraordinary amount of work, from beautiful to provocative,” says Tony Karman, Expo Chicago’s president and director. The scope of international eye candy filling Navy Pier’s Festival Hall will include large-scale sculptures, site-specific works, and limited-edition art books, with artists from 36 countries and 170 galleries represented at this 10th edition of the fair.
We asked Expo’s director of programming, Kate Sierzputowski, to identify a few buzzed-about participating artists from around the world, both established and up-and-comers.
Esmaa Mohamoud
“Last year, I met Esmaa in person at her solo exhibition in New York, surrounded by hundreds of steel dandelions,” says Sierzputowski, referring to an installation that occupied 840 square feet. Indeed, the African Canadian sculptor and photographer has a penchant for working on a grand scale. Check it out for yourself at a solo exhibition opening April 13 at Kavi Gupta’s Elizabeth Street gallery. It includes Mohamoud’s eye-popping display of a pink Cadillac with 50-inch rims suspended from the ceiling, a piece, Sierzputowski says, that “speaks about financial literacy in the Black community.”
Where else to see her work All around town. Mohamoud’s photography will be among the images projected on digital billboards in April, part of an annual collaboration between Expo and the city.
