About the Exhibit
The art fairs and visual arts festivals included in this exhibit are widely varied but, with the exception of Art Chicago, the exhibit is focused on non-profit, artist-centered, community-sponsored events at which artists select, display, and market their work.Although a number of neighborhood festivals, such as Fiesta del Sol and the Square Roots Festival, now feature art and craft sales alongside other programming, we have focused on festivals that are either artist directed or highlight the visual arts as the primary purpose of the fair. We also distinguished art fairs - which require the presence of the artist and encourage interaction between artists and the public - from exhibitions, so we have excluded events such as Black Esthetics and the Hispanic Festival of the Arts.
We have selected objects from our member collections that we hope illustrate some of the key questions faced by Chicago’s art fairs: why does the neighborhood need an art fair? Who is permitted to show their art and under what terms? What happens when the festival outgrows the neighborhood, or when the local artists being featured can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood? Much remains to be discovered about Chicago’s art fairs and visual-arts festivals, and we hope this exhibit provides an entry point for additional research on related topics in our members' collections.
