Something shifted at Navy Pier this April. EXPO Chicago returned April 9–12 for its annual takeover of Festival Hall, bringing together contemporary galleries from across the globe — but this year’s edition carried a noticeably different energy. Quieter, maybe. More considered. The kind of fair where you actually stop in front of things rather than shuffling past them.
For Michael Ferro, Chicago artist and curator, EXPO 2026 represents a genuine turning point for how the city’s premier art fair sees itself, and how the rest of the world sees it in return. The details of that shift are worth paying attention to. Read the full WBEZ preview here.
New Leadership, New Vision
The biggest change walking into this year’s fair was who was running it. Kate Sierzputowski took over as director from Tony Karman, the founder who built EXPO from the ground up in 2012 and stepped down last May after more than a decade. Sierzputowski came in with a clear mandate: make the fair feel more intentional, not just bigger.
That philosophy showed up in the curatorial appointments, too. Essence Harden, who previously co-curated the Made in LA biennial at the Hammer Museum, stepped into the new Profile section role, presenting focused solo and thematic booths by established international galleries. The Focus section, formerly known as Exposure, landed in the hands of Katie A. Pfohl of the Detroit Institute of Arts, who shaped it around the theme Gathering of Waters, exploring landscape, migration, and adaptive craft practices across the Mississippi River Basin and beyond. And for the first time, EXPO Projects debuted as a dedicated space for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations on the fair floor.
The “Frieze Effect” Takes Hold
Ask anyone who’s attended EXPO over the past few years and they’ll tell you the vibe has been shifting since Frieze acquired the fair in 2023. But 2026 was the year people stopped speculating and started feeling it.
Gallery count dropped from nearly 200 to 130 exhibitors spanning around two dozen countries. On paper that sounds like a step back. On the floor it felt like an edit. The reconfigured layout gave booths more room to breathe, and the international roster remained genuinely global, with representation from South Korea, South Africa, Brazil, Portugal, Singapore, Taiwan, France, Japan, and more. Less noise, more signal.
A Controversial Call — and What It Signals
Not everyone was pleased. The decision to cut nonprofit exhibitor booths drew real pushback from corners of Chicago’s arts community, and it’s a fair critique. Organizations like the Chicago Artists Coalition, which had shown at EXPO in previous years, weren’t included in 2026. The debut of EXPO Projects was partly a response to that tension, carving out a different kind of space for mission-driven groups, but whether that’s a satisfying trade-off is a question the fair’s leadership will keep hearing.
Michael Ferro has long argued that Chicago’s creative strength lies in its community infrastructure, its grassroots galleries, its neighborhood-rooted organizations. A leaner, more globally ambitious EXPO is exciting. Keeping it tethered to that local foundation is the harder, more important work.
What This Means for Chicago’s Art Identity
EXPO has always been Chicago’s loudest statement to the international art world: we’re in this conversation, and we belong here. This year’s edition, smaller but sharper, tied to the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center through the Embodiment and Evolution preview sections, pointed toward something bigger than the fair itself.
The Obama Presidential Center opens on Juneteenth. The Architecture Biennial wrapped in February. EXPO just closed its most intentional edition in years. For a city that’s been named the best big city in America nine years running, 2026 isn’t shaping up to be a quiet year. EXPO Chicago 2026 didn’t just mark a transition in leadership. It felt like a city making a declaration.
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