The vast festival halls of Navy Pier were crowded with collectors, curators, artists and other VIPs by the late afternoon on Thursday (24 April) for the preview of Expo Chicago (until 27 April). The fair’s 12th edition and second since it was acquired by the international fair and media company Frieze features more than 170 galleries from 36 countries, including a large contingent of South Korean galleries on hand with support from the Galleries Association of Korea. Expo Chicago also welcomed a significant cohort from Canada, Latin America and smaller US cities—from Miami, Aspen and Santa Fe to Minneapolis, Buffalo and San Francisco.
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Another arresting installation, which is part of the fair’s In Situ programme of large-scale interventions, is a collaborative video project by Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport, presented by the San Francisco-based Catharine Clark Gallery. Rebellion (2021) features, on five freestanding video screens, a slowly shifting sequence of images of protesters from various demonstrations around the world.
Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport, Rebellion, 2021, presented by Catherine Clark GalleryBenjamin Sutton
“In this moment of global protests, they’re interested in the visual language of activism across movements—some of these images are from environmental protests, labour rallies or extremely specific political actions,” says Anton Stuebner, a partner and director at Catharine Clark Gallery. “Yet there is a shared formal language of activism. By slowing it down and presenting it at close to life size, they’re asking us to look at this imagery we’re familiar with from the news and social media in a new light.”
On its nearby stand, the gallery is showing a miniature survey of Oropallo’s work and collaborations across several decades, from paintings and photomontages to sculptures made with Michael Goldin and videos made with Rappaport and Jeremiah Franklin. Works on the stand range from $2,800 to $45,000.
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