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Artadia (Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco), 134
Featuring the three Chicago recipients of the 2022 Artadia Award-Selva Aparicio, Azadeh Gholizadeh and Maryam Taghavi-Artadia's booth is my top pick for Expo Chicago. The work of these artists is elegantly curated and installed. On a wood pedestal under a glass vitrine sits a teddy bear Aparicio found in a cemetery and meticulously covered in dandelion seeds. This work and two others featuring flower stems-also recovered from cemeteries and covered in dandelion seeds-will inspire curiosity and awe. Three tapestries by Gholizadeh depict the abstracted landscapes of Wisconsin and Michigan in monochromatic color palettes. Grounded on canvas mesh, two of these tapestries cleverly break free from their square orientation. And Taghavi's work is based on sigils, spells that use an arrangement of Arabic letters and numbers. Working in wood sculpture and laser-cut cardstock, she employs a sense of magic in her work.