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This will make it 18 years for the big crafts fair on Navy Pier. SOFA (aka the Sculptural Objects and Functional Art show) has come down in size from the good old days before the economy crashed, when the number of participating galleries reportedly topped 100. As we go to press, the fair’s website lists a comparatively modest 58 exhibitors, with another 11 joining in under the aegis of SOFA’s sister event, the Intuit Show of Folk & Outsider Art. But that may be an advantage from a visitor’s point of view, making it less exhausting to negotiate the aisles of blown glass, metalwork, ceramics, turned wood, jewelry, and sui generis items like Big Foot by sculptor Beverly Mayeri (represented by Chicago’s Perimeter Gallery)—an outsize clay foot and shin, sans body, with simple, hallucinatory images etched into its black coating. More that’s hard to classify, like drawings by outsider artist Joseph Yoakum, can be found among the Intuit galleries. There’ll be special, thematic exhibits and lectures, too. Of course, the main business of SOFA is to put dealers in touch with collectors. The truly best part, though, may be walking around collecting sights. —Tony Adler Preview Thu 11/3, 7-9 PM, $50. Then Fri-Sun 11/4-11/6, Festival Hall, Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand, sofaexpo.com, $15, three-day pass $25.
National Hellenic Museum
The grand opening of the National Hellenic Museum is scheduled for December 8, but you can get an early peek inside the new $15 million, 40,000-square-foot facility. “Soft opening” events are open to the public, and the museum will begin holding regular hours November 8. Pre-opening-day visitors will be able to glimpse two major exhibits taking shape in the building’s 10,000 square feet of gallery space. The temporary show “Gods, Myths, and Mortals” will offer a taste of life in ancient Greece, complete with cyclops cave and a 12-foot Trojan horse; a permanent exhibit, “In Search of Home: From Myth to Modern Day,” is designed to answer the question, “How did we get from there to Chicago?” The museum will also have a research library, oral-history center, and rooftop event space with sweeping views of the city. Director of external affairs Toula Georgakopoulos notes that despite all those Greek treasures in major art institutions, this will be “the first museum of its kind outside of Greece.” —Deanna Isaacs Beginning 11/8: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Fri 10 AM-5 PM, Sat-Sun 11 AM-5 PM, National Hellenic Museum, 333 S. Halsted, 312-655-1234, nationalhellenicmuseum.org, $7-$10.
A Golden Spider-Silk Textile
Are humans masters of the universe or merely one species among equals? Just because we can harness and control, should we? These thoughts came to mind as I pondered a yellow piece of fabric at the Art Institute. Twelve feet long and four-and-a-half feet wide, the material was hand woven from silken threads produced by the Golden Orb spider of Madagascar. Starting in 2003, female spiders were collected with long poles. Then their legs were bound as they were placed in cones and “silked” as a cow is milked. The effort, led by textile experts Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley, required five years, 80 people, and the silk of a million Golden Orbs. At the AIC one evening in August, visitors called the fringed gossamer result “beautiful,” perhaps because of its unlikely origin. Why was I uneasy? Because it was an unnatural use of another animal’s means of survival? The spiders were released after silking; I’m sure they tolerated their encounter with humans better than the pig whose heart valve sits inside the body of a friend or the bovine creature whose hide became my fanny pack. —S.L. Wisenberg Through 11/6, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artic.edu, free with museum admission.
