Expo Chicago on now

Chicago’s big art fair is running this weekend at Navy Pier, but the 2026 version is smaller than the one many regulars remember. EXPO Chicago opened on April 9 and runs through April 12 with just over 130 galleries, after recent editions hovered closer to 170 or even nearly 200 exhibitors. (expochicago.com) (wbez.org) That cut was deliberate. New director Kate Sierzputowski said the fair was redesigned with a “more focused” floor plan after founder Tony Karman stepped down in May 2025, and local dealers told WBEZ this is the year Chicago will most clearly feel the ownership change after Frieze bought Expo in 2023. (wbez.org) (artnews.com) The fair still works like a temporary city for galleries. One ticket gets you aisle after aisle of booths inside Festival Hall, where Chicago spaces like moniquemeloche, Patron, Gray, Corbett vs. Dempsey and Andrew Rafacz sit in the same building as galleries from cities including Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Busan, Lagos, Taipei and Nassau. (expochicago.com) (wbez.org) What changed this year is that the fair is leaning harder on curated sections instead of sheer booth count. Expo’s own materials say the 2026 edition puts more weight on sections with names like Focus, Profile, Embodiment and Evolution, so visitors are being steered through tighter themes rather than a giant sprawl of unrelated stands. (expochicago.com) (artnews.com) One of those sections is Focus, which used to be called Exposure. In 2026 it was retitled “Gathering of Waters” by Detroit Institute of Arts curator Katie A. Pfohl, using the Mississippi River Basin as a starting point for work about landscape, migration, craft and care. (expochicago.com) (artnews.com) That is where Sarah Nsikak comes in. Sibyl Gallery is presenting Nsikak in Focus with a new installation titled “How could you hold it?”, placing a textile artist inside the fair’s section for younger galleries and more tightly framed discoveries. (sibylgallery.com) (artnews.com) Nsikak’s work makes sense in that setting because her materials already carry a backstory. Biographical notes from her galleries say the Brooklyn-based Nigerian American artist builds tapestries and quilted works from recycled, vintage and dead-stock fabric, drawing on sewing traditions from her grandmother in Nigeria and on African American quiltmaking. (giselaprojects.com) (lareunionstudio.com) Expo is also tying itself more directly to Chicago institutions this year. A new partnership with the Obama Presidential Center brings in museum director Louise Bernard to curate “Embodiment,” inspired by the center’s architecture and commissioned artists, and “Evolution,” built from archival material tied to those commissions. (expochicago.com) (artnews.com) There is a second international layer too. Expo is continuing its partnership with the Galleries Association of Korea, bringing 12 Korean galleries to Chicago after a larger 2025 showing, which keeps the fair plugged into the Seoul market even as the overall exhibitor count shrinks. (expochicago.com) (artnews.com) So the story this weekend is not that Expo Chicago got bigger. It is that the fair is testing whether a 13th edition with fewer booths, stronger curatorial framing, an Obama Presidential Center tie-in and artists like Sarah Nsikak can make Navy Pier feel less like a trade show and more like a citywide art argument under one roof. (choosechicago.com) (wbez.org)