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Expo Chicago

September 22 – 25, 2016

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates, Expo Chicago 2016

Alexander Gray Associates

Expo Chicago 2016

Installation view

Melvin Edwards, Dan Okay, 2007

Melvin Edwards

Dan Okay, 2007

Welded steel

11.50h x 10w x 6.50d in (29.21h x 25.40w x 16.51d cm)

Melvin Edwards, Addis A., 2007

Melvin Edwards

Addis A., 2007

Welded steel

13h x 10.30w x 7.50d in (33.02h x 26.16w x 19.05d cm)

Melvin Edwards, Off and gone, 1992

Melvin Edwards

Off and gone, 1992

Welded steel

14h x 7.25w x 6.88d in (35.56h x 18.42w x 17.46d cm)

Melvin Edwards, Rhythm and Blues, c. 1975

Melvin Edwards

Rhythm and Blues, c. 1975

Watercolor and ink on paper

24.06h x 18.13w in (61.12h x 46.04w cm)

Hassan Sharif, Counting Cars in Al Dhiyafah Road- Dubai, 1982

Hassan Sharif

Counting Cars in Al Dhiyafah Road- Dubai, 1982

Photographs mounted on cardboard

38.58h x 28.94w in (98h x 73.50w cm)

Hassan Sharif, Rug, Cotton Rope and Glue, 2013

Hassan Sharif

Rug, Cotton Rope and Glue, 2013

Mixed media

59.80h x 27.60w x 2.40d in (151.89h x 70.10w x 6.10d cm)

Melvin Edwards, Good Friends in Chicago, 1972

Melvin Edwards

Good Friends in Chicago, 1972

Welded steel

43h x 77.30w x 64.50d in (109.22h x 196.34w x 163.83d cm)

Jack Tworkov, SS-68 #2, 1968

Jack Tworkov

SS-68 #2, 1968

Oil on linen

40h x 35w in (101.60h x 88.90w cm)

Harmony Hammond, White Rims #1, 2015

Harmony Hammond

White Rims #1, 2015

Monotype on Twinrocker paper with metal grommets

47h x 33.50w in (119.38h x 85.09w cm)

Harmony Hammond, White Rims #2, 2015

Harmony Hammond

White Rims #2, 2015

Monotype on Twinrocker paper with metal grommets

47h x 33.50w in (119.38h x 85.09w cm)

Jack Tworkov, DWG #5-70 (CH #5), 1970

Jack Tworkov

DWG #5-70 (CH #5), 1970

Charcoal on paper

25.50h x 19.75w in (64.77h x 50.17w cm)

Lorraine O'Grady, Miscegenated Family Album (Cross Generational), L: Nefertiti, the last image; R: Devonia's youngest daughter, Kimberley, 1980/1994

Lorraine O'Grady

Miscegenated Family Album (Cross Generational), L: Nefertiti, the last image; R: Devonia's youngest daughter, Kimberley, 1980/1994

Cibachrome prints, 26h x 37w in (66.04h x 93.98w cm)

Edition 1 of 8

Lorraine O'Grady, Miscegenated Family Album (A Mother's Kiss), T: Candace and Devonia; B: Nefertiti and daughter, 1980/1994

Lorraine O'Grady

Miscegenated Family Album (A Mother's Kiss), T: Candace and Devonia; B: Nefertiti and daughter, 1980/1994

Cibachrome prints, 37h x 26w in (93.98h x 66.04w cm)

Edition 2 of 8

Luis Camnitzer, Untitled, 1968

Luis Camnitzer

Untitled, 1968

Etching on paper

26h x 25w in (66.04h x 63.50w cm)

Edition 4 of 10

Luis Camnitzer, This is not a pipe. This is not information about a pipe. This is not a work of art. This is not a work by Magritte., 1974

Luis Camnitzer

This is not a pipe. This is not information about a pipe. This is not a work of art. This is not a work by Magritte., 1974

Mixed media

13.50h x 10w x 2d in (34.29h x 25.40w x 5.08d cm)

Lorraine O'Grady Untitled (Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Leaves the Safety of Home), 1980-83/2009

Lorraine O'Grady
Untitled (Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Leaves the Safety of Home), 1980-83/2009
Silver gelatin fiber print in 14 parts, 50h x 40w in (127h x 101.6w cm) each
Edition of 20 with 2 AP

Press Release

Expo Chicago | Booth 327

For its inaugural presentation at Expo Chicago, Alexander Gray Associates presented an exhibition of the conceptually paralleled artistic processes of Gallery artists from diverse geographical and cultural contexts, featuring recent and historical works by Luis Camnitzer, Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, Lorraine O’Grady, Hassan Sharif and Jack Tworkov. The works on view spanned across a variety of media, including painting, photography, sculpture, and drawings.

Central to the presentation was Melvin EdwardsGood Friends in Chicago (1972), a double tiered steel sculpture, consisting of a mobile rocker atop a stabilized rocker form. Expo Chicago served as a homecoming for the sculpture, which will be exhibited for the first time in Chicago since 1972, when Edwards made the sculpture in the studio of Richard Hunt for an exhibition of his work along with William T. Williams and Sam Gilliam at the Wabash Transit Gallery, an extension of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Also included in the presentation were diptychs from Lorraine O’Grady’s series, Miscegenated Family Album (1980/1994), as well as photographs of the artist’s first public performance Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (1980–83). Throughout her career, O’Grady has blended ideas of personal and political identity, and combines strategies related to humanist studies on gender, the politics of diaspora and feminism, and reflections on aesthetics by using a variety of mediums that include performance, photo installation, moving media, and photomontage.

German-born Uruguyan artist Luis Camnitzer employs language as a medium to comment on art making processes, form, and context. Early etchings and object boxes from the 1960s and 1970s, including Garden Wall Door Table (1968), examine the conceptual meaning behind printmaking and the connection between language, image and perception.

American artist Harmony Hammond was a leading figure in the development of the feminist art movement in New York in the early 1970s. Combining gender politics with post-minimal concerns of materials and process, her work frequently occupies a space between painting and sculpture, body and object. In her recent monotypes on view, gridded fields of grommeted holes physically open the paper surface alluding to layers, spaces and histories buried below, as well as body orifices.

Emirati artist Hassan Sharif, a seminal figure in conceptual art and experimental practice in the Middle East, explores craftsmanship and cultural context through his “Objects” series (1982–present), in which he assembles inexpensive and mass-produced goods from local markets. In Rug, Cotton Rope and Glue (2013), Sharif cuts rugs and rope, weaving them together in a rhythmically repetitive act that echoes the involuntary functions of the human body, such as swallowing, breathing, and blinking.

A pivotal figure in the development of Abstract Expressionism, Jack Tworkov radically shifted his painting style in the late 1960s, as he moved away from overtly gestural brushstrokes to controlled diagrammatic abstraction, as seen on SS-68 #2 (1968). Taking an interest in elementary geometry, he turned to the rectangle and its potential measurements as the basis of pictorial composition. Drawings from this period convey spatial play of interlocking, folding, overlapping, or intersecting planes, with individual marks built up into slightly uneven densities to create a unified, field-like surface.

Expo Chicago
Expo Chicago, the International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, opens the fall art season each September at historic Navy Pier. Entering its fifth edition in 2016, Expo Chicago presents artwork from 140 leading galleries from around the world, and includes Exposure—a section that affords younger galleries the opportunity to participate in a major international art fair. Exposure provides critical opportunities for curators, collectors, and art patrons to survey the best in innovative and emerging programs.