Jason Foumberg

The name of the hosting venue for Art Chicago 2007, The Merchandise Mart, should give a clear indication as to the order of the day: buying, selling, dealing and shopping. Forget questions of aesthetic identity, poetry and humanity (for the moment)--Art Chicago is about commerce, the assertion of power and passion via the wallet. And perhaps, along the way, it will present the opportunity to witness the newest of the new art being represented by participating galleries. Founded in 1993, Art Chicago was the first art fair of its kind in the U.S. Its organizers sought to corral collectors and galleries in a common location, thus harnessing the power of the art market into a microcosmic week-long party. Booths in a convention hall epitomize the structure of shopping, modeled on trade shows and suburban malls. Despite the extreme amount of profiteering that will happen during the fair, another layer will ultimately emerge (especially for those without the cash to burn). Look for congregations of viewers who have their nodding heads planted firmly in their hand with index finger climbing up the cheek and thumb supporting the jaw. This pose is as common among art viewers as the contropasto is to classical sculpture, and it signifies that we are thinking, listening and conversing about the work of today's cultural producers.

Last year, Thomas Blackman Associates, who founded Art Chicago and produced it for fourteen years, finally got weighed down by lawsuits and debt. Blackman's moment of truth came at the zero hour; participating galleries pulled their trucks into the fair, then hosted in Grant Park, only to find an empty shell of a tent. In what appeared to be a miraculous gesture of saving grace, Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. swept in and saved the fair from demise. Was Chicago's art fair worth saving, especially in the face of overwhelming internal difficulties and competition from other major art fairs? Well, the art market continues to boom. The press releases glow with hope of celebrity sightings. Acclaimed and accomplished galleries are flocking to the Mart in huge numbers. Champagne is flowing, hands are shaking and the art market lives again in Chicago.

Art Chicago
This is the central event with more than 130 galleries coming from cities in Canada, Germany, England, France, Italy, Korea, Spain and across the States. Many of the galleries here are well-established and display offerings from the canon. Come here to fill the holes in your top-notch collection that will eventually be bequeathed to the museum.

International Antiques Fair
Entering its tenth year, the Antiques Fair is home to more than a hundred galleries with goods ranging from fine art to rare books, decorative pieces to ceramics and collectibles to antiquities.

Bridge Art Fair
Now an art-fair brand in its own right with outposts in Miami and London, Bridge, which is Chicago-born and raised (and headed by Newcity's Michael Workman), helps younger galleries and alternative spaces realize their earning potential in the world of art fairs. This satellite fair includes more than seventy international galleries. The focus here is on the most cutting-edge and experimental work, more contemporary than contemporary, and seeks to pair emerging galleries with emerging collectors.

The Artist Project
This section includes fifty artists who do not have gallery representation. Meet the artists and talk with them about their work.

The Intuit Show
Sponsored by Chicago's Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, this fair boasts more than forty galleries selling art by the primitive, untrained and insane, or artists who exist outside of the mainstream. Specialized classes, workshops and lectures will help collectors distinguish the differences between Outsiders and insiders (usually an MFA is the tip-off).

New InSight is a curated exhibition of art by graduate students from twelve of the country's MFA degree-granting institutions. A symposium about the effectiveness of the graduate degree will either deflate or propel some egos. This is blue-chip breeding ground. A three-day symposium titled "The Art World is Flat" engages topics regarding the global economy, sustainable architecture, ecology and their relationships to the visual arts. More than thirty presenters including designers, artists, historians and curators will discuss the pertinence of environmental issues for the arts, April 26-28 at Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavillion (the Gehry building). There will also be tours, seminars, keynote speeches, parties, brunches, gallery openings, art walks, soirees, orgies, intellectual banter and, oh yeah, art!

Version Festival
Related to Art Chicago only in its timing, the Version Festival (through May 6), now in its seventh year, promotes underground art events in all media. Version is the negative to Art Chicago's positive; instead of a focus on the commodity value of art, Version is geared toward performances, film screenings, protests, interventions, technological experimentation, print and Internet "art spaces" and public enrichment. In past years Version has shown that creativity is often best explored and represented beyond the white walls. Chicago has an incredibly rich history of alternative spaces and happenings. Consider Version Festival the true contemporary "Outsiders," turning the city on its head and shaking things up, but aiming for maximum community involvement. At various venues throughout the city, see Web site for details: lumpen.com/VERSION7/index.html.
(2007-04-24)

Also by Jason Foumberg

Eye Exam
Rowley Kennerk's gallery is currently passing its six-month mark in existence. As the new kid on the block of Peoria Street, Chicago's real-estate ground-zero for contemporary art galleries, Kennerk must contend with such legendary heavyweights as Rhona Hoffman Gallery and Donald Young Gallery
(2007-04-17)

Portrait of the Gallerist
Gay pornography, murderous hipsters, hundreds of penises, "disgustingness"--such subjects and topics are granted their full potential for expression and the right to exist as art under Scott Speh's roof at Western Exhibitions
(2007-04-10)

Tip of the Week
There is no conceptual trick to being seduced by and pulled into Amy Mayfield's world of visual pleasure
(2007-04-10)

Tip of the Week
Trench warfare has never been so safe and clean as it is in Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's new collaborative artwork, "Wake Up"
(2007-04-03)

Portrait of the Artist
(2007-03-06)

Gallery of Gallerists
(2007-02-27)

Tip of the Week
(2007-02-20)

Portrait of the Artist
(2007-01-30)

Tip of the Week
(2007-01-30)

Portrait of the Artist
(2006-12-19)

Tip of the Week
(2006-12-19)

Portrait of an Artist
(2006-12-12)

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