EXPO CHICAGO Contemporary Art Fair 2026
EXPO CHICAGO Contemporary Art Fair showcases leading contemporary and modern art galleries each April at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, alongside a diverse and inventive program of talks, on-site installations, and public art initiatives. Inaugurated in 2012, EXPO CHICAGO draws upon the city’s robust history as a vibrant international cultural destination, while highlighting the region’s contemporary arts community. In 2023, EXPO CHICAGO was acquired by Frieze, the world’s leading platform for modern and contemporary art.
The 13th edition of EXPO CHICAGO takes place on April 9–12, 2026 at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall.
Highlights of the 2026 edition include a major partnership with the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center, with dedicated sections curated by its Director, Dr. Louise Bernard; Focus, the emerging galleries section curated by Katie A. Pfohl of the Detroit Institute of Arts; Profile featuring solo booths and focused projects by established international galleries, curated by Essence Harden; and a continued collaboration with the Galleries Association of Korea (GAoK).
Profile presents solo booths and focused projects by established international galleries, curated by Essence Harden. The section builds on EXPO’s institutional relationships and acquisition pathways, highlighting rigorous making and a scholarly impulse that invites sustained engagement over time.
About the 2026 Profile Curator:
Essence Harden has curated the Focus section at Frieze Los Angeles since 2024, and will continue to do so in 2026. Most recently, she curated Made in LA, 2025, at The Hammer Museum. Essence is a 2025 recipient of the Teiger Foundation research grant, a 2018 recipient of The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and is a 2020 Annenberg Innovation Lab Civic Media Fellow. Essence has curated exhibitions at the Southern Guild (Los Angeles), California African American Museum (CAAM), The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), Art + Practice, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), and Oakland Museum of California, amongst others. She previously served as a Visual Arts Curator at the California African American Museum.
2026 Profile
47 Canal, New York
Adegbola Gallery, Lagos
Affinity Gallery, Lagos
Babst Gallery, Los Angeles
Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
Duru Artspace, Seoul*
Gallery FINE, Busan*
Fort Gansevoort, New York
Geary Contemporary, Salisbury
half gallery, New York, Los Angeles
ILY2, Portland, New York
Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles
Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin
Matéria, Detroit
ANDREW RAFACZ, Chicago
Jessica Silverman, San Francisco
Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, Whitehall
Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami
Soto Gallery, Lagos
THIRD BORN, Mexico City
Yenwa Gallery, Lagos
Focus highlights emerging galleries and artistic practices, featuring galleries 12 years old or younger. Katie A. Pfohl, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts and past participant of the Curatorial Forum, will curate Focus in 2026.
Titled Gathering of Waters, Focus will explore landscape, migration, and adaptive practices of craft and care, connecting artists and galleries from the Mississippi River Basin with work from across the African, Latin American and Caribbean diasporas. Participating galleries are eligible for the prestigious Northern Trust Purchase Prize.
About the 2026 Focus curator:
Katie A. Pfohl is a curator and writer who works to amplify the voices of artists, foster connections between communities, and create space to engage with the urgent issues of our time. Since 2022, she has served as Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts. At the DIA, she is organizing a major reinstallation of the museum’s 20,000 square foot contemporary galleries, slated to open in 2026. Most recently, Pfohl curated Tiff Massey: 7 Mile + Livernois, the DIA’s most ambitious show for a Detroit artist in its history, which brought almost a quarter of a million visitors to the DIA. From 2015-2022, she was Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where she curated almost 30 exhibitions, acquired or commissioned over 100 works of art, and reinstalled the museum’s twentieth century and contemporary galleries. In 2014, Pfohl completed her Ph.D. in art history at Harvard University, and in 2006 she participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Pfohl has held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the LSU Museum of Art.
2026 Focus
56 HENRY, New York
april april, Pittsburgh
Artemin Gallery, Taipei
Bertrand Productions, Philadelphia
Bienvenu Steinberg & C, New York
Bianca Boeckel, São Paulo, Salvador
Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam
Buffalo Prescott, Detroit
Jonathan Carver Moore, San Francisco
Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi
Contour Art Gallery, Vilnius
COTT, Buenos Aires
dmincubator gallery, New York
Don’t Look Projects, Los Angeles
EMBAJADA, San Juan
Enari, Amsterdam
GOCA by Garde, New York, Japan
Good Weather, Chicago
Hesse Flatow, New York, Amagansett
High Noon, New York
Jacob Arthur Gallery, Los Angeles
Gillian Jason Gallery, London
K:art Studio, London
Knowhere Art Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard
Latinou, Mexico City
M. LeBlanc, Chicago
Lobster Club, Los Angeles
MAĀT Gallery, Paris
Magenta Plains, New York
Marinaro, New York
THE MISSION PROJECTS, Chicago
Mitochondria Gallery, Houston
Mitre Galeria, Belo Horizonte, São Paulo
Megan Mulrooney, Los Angeles
Nature of Things, Dallas
OSMOS, New York
PARISA Projects, San Diego
Patel Brown, Toronto, Montréal
Public, London
Red Arrow, Nashville
re.riddle, San Francisco
Rivalry Projects, Buffalo
Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles
Sibyl Gallery, New Orleans
Situations, New York
SPACE 776 GALLERY, New York, Seoul
Superposition Gallery, Los Angeles
TERN Gallery, Nassau
TIAN Contemporain, Montréal
VERVE, São Paulo
What Pipeline, Detroit
Yehudi Hollander Pappi, São Paulo
The Galleries section features leading international galleries and special partnerships. EXPO CHICAGO continues its collaboration with the Galleries Association of Korea (GAoK), presenting 12 leading Korean galleries within the fair. This initiative builds on the successful synergy established between Kiaf SEOUL and Frieze Seoul.
An expanded partnership with the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center introduces Embodiment, curated by Dr. Louise Bernard, Founding Director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum, inspired by the architecture and commissioned artists of the Obama Presidential Center, ahead of its anticipated opening in 2026.
Dr. Louise Bernard is a Senior Vice President at the Obama Foundation and the Founding Director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum. Previously, she served as Director of Exhibitions at the New York Public Library, on the exhibition design team for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as a Senior Content Developer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates, and as a Curator at the Beinecke Library at Yale. She received a Joint Ph.D. in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
2026 Galleries
021 Gallery, Daegu*
Gallery 41, Seoul*
Aicon Contemporary, New York
Allouche Gallery, New York
Arcadia Contemporary, New York
Galería Artizar, Tenerife, Madrid
Avant Gallery, Miami
Richard Beavers Gallery, Brooklyn
Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis
BOGENA GALERIE, Saint Paul De Vence, Phoenix
Casterline | Goodman Gallery, Aspen, Santa Fe
Ethan Cohen Gallery, New York, Beacon
Oliver Cole Gallery, Miami
Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London
Gallery Dasun, Gwacheon*
DOCUMENT, Chicago, Lisbon
Ebony/Curated, Cape Town, Franschhoek
Les Enluminures, Chicago, New York, Paris
Robert Fontaine Gallery, Miami
Friedrichs Pontone, New York
GBS Fine Art, London, Somerset
Gefen Gallery, San Francisco
GPG Gallery, New York
GRAY, Chicago, New York**
GalleryGrimson, Seoul*
Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles
Hexton Gallery, Aspen
Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York
Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, London, Miami, Singapore
Karma, New York, Los Angeles
Sean Kelly, New York**
Anton Kern, New York**
Keumsan Gallery, Seoul*
LEE & BAE, Busan, New York*
A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo
David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Nashville
McCormick Gallery, Chicago
Miles McEnery Gallery, New York
moniquemeloche, Chicago
MH Contemporary, New Orleans, Los Angeles
Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg
Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore
Night Gallery, Los Angeles
Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco**
Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
Opa Projects, Miami
Paik Hae Young Gallery, Seoul*
PATRON, Chicago
Galerie Pici, Seoul, New York*
Pontone Gallery, London
Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto
Regen Projects, Los Angeles**
Nara Roesler, São Paulo, New York, Rio De Janeiro
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York
Secrist | Beach, Chicago
Marc Straus, New York
Sun Gallery, Seoul*
Suppoment Gallery, Seoul*
Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York, London, Singapore
TAI Modern, Santa Fe
Ting Ting Art Space, Taipei
Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles
Tanya Weddemire Gallery, Brooklyn
Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis
Wizard Gallery, Milan
Zemack Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg, Dubai, Paris
