It's curious how most of the major publications are writing about Art Chicago in reference to how bad it is, how sparse it is, how it compares to the other major international fairs, how dull the art is and yet not one has mentioned the Stray Show. Granted, not all of the work in Stray was mature enough and a lot of those participating are temporary/alternative spaces but that was the fair to go to last week if you wanted to see what's coming up. Or, at the very least to see what young galleries and collectives are doing.

I'm not going to bother recapping Art Chicago. As most people and writers will tell you, the Invitational section was good (many of those galleries picked from Stray last year) and the rest, well, just zip on through it. So what I am going to do is discuss Stray here in a broader sense and then I'm going to highlight individiual spaces that I thought showed the best work.

There were 50 booths at Stray from emerging galleries, artist collectives, temporary space, etc. from all over the United States and even one from Tokyo. Though there is less of an emphasis of selling work than at Art Chicago, most of the work at Stray was really affordable. Everything priced under $5000 with most works ranging from the $200-$1000 range and some even priced at $40. The sales seemed better than last year as it seemed that most booths sold something. That being said, there were not a ton of sales despite intense interest which is either an indication that Chicago does not have a solid collector base (and that other collectors aren't traveling there) or Art Chicago has seen better days. It could also be a combination of the two.

Also in comparison to last year, the spaces and artists were better and stronger. I think that people knew a little bit more of what to expect and brought more to the table. But it was withouth a doubt a works-on-paper fair. The smallish paintings on paper and drawings stood out from all the rest and, not surprisingly sold the quickest. Some of the paintings were good (such as Dan Attoe) but the majority of them just seem immature. (Note: by immature I mean under-developed not immature on purpose). You could definitely see the return of craft as many artists are putting an emphasis on technique and the artist hand being involved. Someone called it the "conceptual backlash". There were also a lot of guns…hmmmm.

So, what could have been better? Well, I think that some of the booths were filled floor to ceiling with artwork that, quite frankly, made it difficult to look at everything. For instance in one booth I completely missed these amazing pieces by James Franklin until a friend pointed them out to me. I also think that opening Stray the same night at the vernissage of Art Chicago was a bad idea. People were either too visually overloaded or too loaded on alcohol to make it worthwhile. Not many sales were made that night (most made on Saturday and Sunday) and there weren't as many people as last year. I also think that they should have left some of the Stray graduates (like Daniel Reich, 1R, Kontainer) at Stray to make the draw there. I know that Thomas Blackman Associates considers Stray a breeding ground for new talent to breathe new life into Art Chicago but it seems to me that they either need to include Stray entirely in Art Chicago or let it develop as its own fair.

I'll be posting soon about some of the highlights as well as a gallery feature on Foundation Gallery (that was suspiciously absent from Stray).