The opening panel discussion at this year’s Art Chicago is titled “What If: To Dream, Desire and Acquire,” and that pretty much sums up the annual fair that brings together collectors, curators, artists, gallerists, scholars, and kibbitzers for four days of looking, talking, and dealing.
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Your Thursday-evening preview options depend on how much you want to spend and how late you want to stay up. First Focus includes appetizers and cocktails, VIP admission to the fairs, and book signings by photographer Laura Letinsky and avant-restaurateurs Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas (3-6 PM, $150). It’s followed by another, more plebeian preview offering wine and beer as well as DJ sets courtesy of Fig Media (6-9 PM, $40).
There’ll be 120 exhibitors on hand at Art Chicago, ranging from local notables like Anchor Graphics, Corbett vs. Dempsey, and the Carl Hammer Gallery to such exotic concerns as Berlin’s Wilde Gallery, Moscow’s Art-Kvartal, Paris’s Martin du Louvre, Tokyo’s Wada Garou, and Houston’s John Palmer Fine Art. Art Chicago and NEXT jointly sponsor Focus Photography, an exhibit of contemporary and vintage photography, and New Insight, a show of MFA work from across the country. Sculpture and installation projects will dot the Merchandise Mart both inside and out.
