Shelley Allen and Davide Salvadore, Tirabosson Cavalluccio Marino, 2012. Blown, hot worked, carved glass. $48,000. courtesy habatat galleries
- SOFA CHICAGO 2012 had a more open and airy feeling, thanks to creative widening of aisles that concealed the smaller number of exhibiting dealers this year.
On Sunday, November 4th, the
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet visited the exhibition booths at Navy Pier, where dealers were preparing for the last day of selling at
SOFA CHICAGO 2012 before packing up their displays and returning to their galleries. The goal was to document what had sold, researching for our regular Red Dot Report, but also collecting impressions of dealers. For 2012, there was no shortage of space for the 64 exhibiting dealers, closer to the 2009 turnout than the 100-plus dealers that turned out in the mid-2000s. With the Intuit Outsider Art Fair’s presence reduced to a single special exhibition area this year, show organizers made up for the surplus of space by widening the aisles, both within the show and around its perimeter. These techniques were effective at artfully disguising the fact that the show no longer completely fills Festival Hall, and some dealers appreciated the effect of the smaller number of booths and more airy atmosphere.
“The wide aisles make the art really come to the fore,” said Duane Reade, who reported sales on par with 2010, the year many dealers reported buyers returning to the show. “The quality of the work at this year’s SOFA was very high, and the buying activity was similar to our best recent years at SOFA.”
