The 13th iteration of Chicago EXPO, an international exhibition of contemporary art, features over 130 galleries, installations, talks, and special events. Here are just a few of the creative exhibitions held during and after the event.
Leah Ke Yi Zheng, The Renaissance Society
Leah Ke Yi Zheng’s ‘Change, I Ching (64 Paintings)’ at the Renaissance Society includes 64 paintings meant to be viewed as one work. The exhibition is ‘contingent’, noted Director and Chief Curator Myriam Ben Salah in a conversation with the artist. Zheng makes marks on silk of varying translucencies, positioning them to let the light into the room. This makes the sun itself part of the exhibit, which changes throughout the day as the luminescence beams and begins to dim. Zheng reportedly reached a ‘semi-transcendent state’ while painting these works.
Youssef Nabil, Mariane Ibrahim
An exhibit titled ‘No one Knows but the Sky’ handles the theme of amnesia with photographs and films spanning from 2005 to 2025. The works include human subjects beside natural phenomena that will outlive them, such as tangled roots or water, to signify impermanence. A few pieces showcasing these themes include Self Portrait with Roots (2008), Sardinia (2005), Say Goodbye (2009), and You will forget (2021).
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Ornament & Information, Chicago Cultural Center
‘Ornament & Information’ explores the interplay between Chicago and Vienna and how the development of modernist architecture and free-market economic theories helped establish the systems navigated by the show’s artists. The show’s title is drawn from an array of sources, including the polemic essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ (1913) by the architect Adolf Loos, ‘Information as Ornament’ (a 1988 exhibition held at Rezac Gallery), and Caryl Churchill’s play ‘Love and Information’ (2012).
Alma Thomas, The Smart Museum
Artist Alma Thomas developed her unique style called the ‘Alma Stripe’ due to her affinity for gardens and the natural world. The new exhibition titled ‘Composing Color’ offers two thematic frameworks through which to view her body of work: sound and space. After observing the Apollo Program and the 1969 moon landing closely, Thomas became fascinated with space, which became a theme in works such as Snoopy Sees Earth Wrapped in Sunsey (1970). The show also highlights the artist’s process of creating paintings within a sonic cocoon and listening to music.
