Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
been a fertile breeding ground for emerging artists and innovative art
dealers. Today, the primary gallery district is concentrated in the
River North neighborhood, where century-old, redbrick warehouses
have been converted into lofty exhibition spaces. More recently, a
new generation of gallery owners has set up shop in the rapidly gen-
trifying West Loop neighborhood, where you'll tend to find more
cutting-edge work. The River North gallery district is an easy walk
from many hotels; the West Loop may seem a little farther afield, but
it's only a short cab ride from downtown (you can also take the bus,
but I'd recommend a taxi at night).
The River North gallery season officially gets underway on the
first Friday after Labor Day in September. Besides fall, another great
time to visit the district is from mid-July through August, when the
Chicago Art Dealers Association presents
Vision,
an annual lineup
of programs tailored to the public. The
Chicago Reader,
a free weekly
newspaper available at many stores, taverns, and cafes on the North
Side, publishes a very comprehensive listing of current gallery exhi-
bitions, as does the quarterly
Chicago Gallery News
(www.chicago
gallerynews.com), which is available free at the city's three visitor
information centers. Another good resource is the Chicago Art Deal-
ers Association (
&
312/649-0065;
www.chicagoartdealers.org); the
group's website has descriptions of all member galleries. For descrip-
tions of the city's top galleries, see “Art Galleries” under “Shopping
A to Z,” below.
Along with its status as Chicago's primary art-gallery district,
River North—the area west of the Magnificent Mile and north of
the Chicago River—has attracted many interesting home-design
shops concentrated on Wells Street from Kinzie Street to Chicago
Avenue. My favorites include
Manifesto,
755 N. Wells St., at
Chicago Avenue (
&
312/664-0733
), which offers custom-designed
furniture, as well as imports from Italy and elsewhere in Europe;
Mig
& Tig,
540 N. Wells St., at Ohio Street (
&
312/644-8277
), a
charming furniture and decorative-accessories shop; and
Lightol-
ogy,
215 W. Chicago Ave., at Wells St. (
&
312/944-1000
), a mas-
sive lighting store that carries a mind-boggling array of funky lamps,
chandeliers, and glowing orbs from more than 400 manufacturers
(even if you have no intention of flying home with a stack of lamps
in your luggage, it's fun to browse).
Looming above the Chicago River at the southern end of River
North is the
Merchandise Mart,
the world's largest commercial
building. The massive complex was built in 1930 by Marshall Field
& Company and was bought in 1945 by Joseph P. Kennedy (JFK's
