Tonight through Sunday, Chicago River on the Level - it's Expo Chicago weekend!

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As we wrote back in August, this is the big weekend.  Expo Chicago, with over 120 international art galleries, is back for its second year at Navy Pier, Thursday through Sunday.  It's become something of an organizational marvel, spawning an increasingly wide ranging set of parallel events - not officially connected, some not - during Expo Art Week.

One of those events begins tonight at 6:00 p.m.  It's called Level 2013 , and it's. . .

. . .is a free, five-day, annual architecture and art event that showcases site specific, experimental, interactive installations that embrace Chicago’s rich cultural landscape. During Level 2013, architects, designers and artists will transform four unique spaces along the Chicago River into destination places for visitors and locals alike. Level is being held during EXPO CHICAGO contemporary art fair as a complementary design and new media experience. The exhibition dates are September 18-22, 2013, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. nightly.

There are five separate locations along the Chicago River, from Michigan Avenue, all the way down to the Daily News Building plaza at 2 North Riverside.  It's being organized by L.A.-based LERATA (Laboratory for Experimentation and Research in Art, Technology and Architecture), who say the event will “invite locals and visitors to view the Chicago River in a new way.”  It's described as a "preview" of an anticipated city wide event to be held sometime in 2014, the same year Redmoon Theater is scheduled to set the Chicago River on fire.  LERATA's website doesn't offer many details , but in February they're producing Skyline in  L.A., as a “ten-day, free, art, architecture and entertainment event [which] will include 16 installations located in five different downtown Los Angeles districts.”  LERATA says the Chicago event will expand to 16 sites, and that they're going to send out an RFP (request for proposal) on the way to choosing eight local Chicago architects and artists to participate.

For Level, two of the events will take place along riverfront locations between State and Clark that are expected to soon shut down for the construction of the first phase of Chicago's new riverwalk.  Musical performances will take place at two of the sites Friday and Saturday.

Back at Expo Chicago, the Jeanne Gang design of the exposition for the second year.  New for 2013, she's also designing the viewing stations, located under the west frustum in Festival Hall, for Expo Video, an international selection of  “cutting edge film, video and new media works” curated by Dean Otto of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, including Columbia College student Ahmed Hamads “The Home of the Dead.”.   There's also a new installation from Brooklyn-based Snarckarchitecture.

In August, we had also written on how the Mana Contemporary storage and support facilities for local artists at the old Warshawsky tower in Pilsen would be holding an exposition during Expo Art Week.  It now looks like Mana Fest has now been rescheduled for September 29.  More info here.  However, the Chicago version of the Fountain Art Fair will ran at the Mana Friday through Sunday.  Info here.

Read More:

Expo Chicago (official site)

Snarckitecture added, Studio/Gang back at Expo Chicago for 2013

Big Shiny Things: Studio/Gang at Expo Chicago

From Auto Parts to Art - Mana Contemporary opens at landmark Warshawsky tower in Pilsen

Finishing the Chicago River Walk