Under Director Kate Sierzputowski, EXPO CHICAGO Bets On Renewed Institutional Depth

EXPO CHICAGO at Navy Pier." width="970" height="647" data-caption='EXPO CHICAGO returns to Navy Pier’s Festival Hall on April 9 with 130 exhibitors and a stronger curator-led focus. <span class="media-credit">Casey Kelbaugh/CKA</span>'>

EXPO CHICAGO has long been a favorite among curators and museum directors, who come to the Windy City not only for the fair’s annual Curatorial Forum and Directors Summit but also for the ambitious, research-driven gallery presentations and strong institutional programming that coincides with its opening. Making this institutional and curatorial focus central to the art fair’s identity has been a defining priority for its new director, Kate Sierzputowski, who succeeded founder Tony Karman after he stepped down last May.

“My vision for the fair is really focused on quality presentations—ones that feel cohesive and grounded in strong programming,” Sierzputowski told Observer ahead of the fair, which opens on April 9 at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. “EXPO has always had that strong curatorial stance. As we move to the future, I want to really make sure it’s embedded into what galleries are bringing and how they’re being curated into sections to reinforce this reputation.” She joined the team in 2020—well before it entered the Frieze brand galaxy—serving most recently as its artistic director, where she contributed to the fair’s curatorial and public programming, bringing major curators and institutional leaders to the fair while also creating meaningful moments for the local community.

For Sierzputowski, the obvious next step is bringing more of that curatorial rigor onto the fair floor. “Seeing how those programs can be integrated more deeply into the presentations is really how I imagine EXPO evolving,” she said, pointing to the 2026 edition as a clear example of that direction. “EXPO CHICAGO wants to be the fair that curators and directors come to first. That’s the priority.”

This year, the fair’s curated sections reflect several long-standing relationships with curators across the country. Kate A. Pfohl of the Detroit Institute of Arts, who is curating “Exposure,” is a former participant in the Curatorial Forum and has an established relationship with EXPO and its programming partner, ICI. Louise Bernard, founding director of the soon-to-open Obama Presidential Center and curator of the “Embodiment” section, was part of the inaugural Directors Summit cohort and delivered a keynote in 2024. “It shows how EXPO CHICAGO is a fair that has been evolving through these curatorial and director-led relationships,” Sierzputowski added, emphasizing how such ongoing exchanges are shaping a more thematic and cohesive identity for the fair—one where institutional thinking and gallery presentations increasingly operate in dialogue.

Sierzputowski also pointed to Essence Harden, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, who is leading “Profile,” which for the first time is a curator-led section. “She’s really thinking through who’s coming, where there are institutional gaps in collections and who we can invite based on the presentations within that section, making some of that matchmaking happen on site.”

The fair’s curatorial-first approach also connects to Chicago’s art scene, with its strong institutional programming. “How I’m viewing the future of the fair is really through storytelling done with the institutions that we partner with,” Sierzputowski reflected. For the 2026 edition, that narrative inevitably centers on the much-anticipated opening of the Obama Presidential Center, a project more than a decade in the making now set to open June 19. “Telling that story about cultural production in Chicago, but also in relation to Obama’s broader vision is something that feels uniquely Chicago-led. It allows us to shape a very specific narrative for the 2026 edition of EXPO that feels fresh, timely, and of the moment.”

The fair will have a direct curatorial link to the project through Bernard’s “Embodiment” section, which will present a selection of galleries inspired by the architecture and commissioned artists of the Center in something of a sneak preview. According to Sierzputowski, “it’s really about expressing what’s happening right now, rather than relying on more standard programming—programming that’s actively unfolding in the present and anchored in the reality of where the fair takes place.”

Even before her appointment as director, she was working toward strengthening EXPO CHICAGO’s regional collector base, positioning the fair as a central meeting point for the Midwest first. “We’re the largest fair in the Midwest, and we hold this really unique position of having access to, and support from, institutions, artists, collectors, and galleries across the region,” she explained. “It’s been really important for me to show up for those cities and make it clear that we are the hometown fair of the Midwest.”

Via events in Louisville, St. Louis, Detroit and Chicago’s North Shore, EXPO CHICAGO has built relationships with collectors, artists and institutions to better understand local ecosystems while developing a year-round presence that builds toward the event itself. “For me, it’s really important that our regional base shows up in Chicago,” Sierzputowski said. “Of course, we’ll have international collectors, and collectors from the coasts and across the U.S., but what matters most is that galleries are meeting collectors from places like Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Detroit—cities to which dealers might not travel as often, but that can still meet in Chicago.”

That said, she’s also continuing to expand the fair’s international reach, particularly through the ongoing collaboration with the Galleries Association of Korea (GaoK), which will bring 12 Korean galleries to Chicago this year across key sections, building on strong collector response last year. The partnership positions EXPO as a platform for broader global exchange between highly engaged and distinct art scenes and markets, enhancing the U.S. visibility of emerging and established Korean galleries including LEE & BAE, PAIK HAE YOUNG, 021 Gallery and Keumsan Gallery.

The edition’s full roster will see 130 exhibitors taking part—fewer than the 170 that participated in 2024, but positioned within a more thoughtfully curated framework throughout its sections. Sierzputowski sees the 2026 edition as being anchored by a new structure and approach to the fair’s overall presentation that will help visitors navigate its offerings through focused, thematic capsules. In “Exposure,” Pfohl has developed a specific thematic framework, “Gathering of Waters,” which explores migration and landscape across the Mississippi River Basin and diasporic histories. The section emphasizes connections among Detroit, New Orleans and the broader Midwest, with notable presentations of work by African, Latin American and Caribbean diasporas. Highlights include LaKela Brown’s botanical still life sculptures presented by 56 HENRY, while São Paulo-based Mitre Galeria presents new oil paintings by Diego Mouro inspired by Afro-diasporic ancestry, intertwining gesture, memory and spirituality. Also notable are april april’s presentation of minimal sculptures by Faye HeavyShield from the Kainai (Blood) First Nation’s Blackfoot Confederacy, the intricately layered collages and sculptural brass crown of Helina Metafaria presented by Superposition Gallery, and the hand-sewn glass beadworks of Demond Melancon presented by Jonathan Carver Moore, rooted in New Orleans’ centuries-old Black Masking culture.

In “Profile,” Harden will introduce a more institutionally driven structure centered on solo presentations, with a notably international scope including four galleries from Lagos. Highlights include a three-person booth by 47 Canal featuring works by Janiva Ellis, Lewis Hammond and G. Peter Jemison, a cross-generational presentation titled “Cosmic Kinship” shown by Bay Area gallerist Jessica Silverman featuring David Huffman, Lava Thomas, Koak and Sadie Barnette, and Third Born’s solo presentation of Sidony O’Neal’s intriguingly terse formalism balanced with charged intuition and material sensitivity.

Other highlights include Aliza Nisenbaum’s paintings and watercolors linked to a major mural commission for the Obama Presidential Center, presented in “Embodiment” in a joint presentation by Anton Kern Gallery and Regen Projects. In the same section, GRAY’s presentation of works by Candida Alvarez, McArthur Binion, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates, Richard Hunt and Rashid Johnson explores how abstraction becomes a vehicle for transformation, embodiment and liberation. San Francisco gallerist Wendi Norris features a curated dialogue between spiritually attuned practices by artists such as Ambreen Butt, María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Chitra Ganesh, exploring migration, memory and transformation from a diasporic perspective.

Across sections, Sierzputowski’s vision for EXPO CHICAGO is cohesive: a fair grounded in institutional dialogue, balanced between regional depth and global reach and increasingly embedded in the city itself. Beyond Navy Pier, citywide programming remains a defining part of that identity—from OVERRIDE, which activates digital billboards across Chicago with works by participating and local artists, to after-hours programming anchored in individual neighborhoods, museum benefits and late-night gallery openings.

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