ESSENCE HARDEN | CONNECTING THE DOTS IN NEW ROLE WITH EXPO CHICAGO

Photo by Barrington Darius

When Frieze tapped Essence Harden to curate the Profile section of Expo Chicago 2026, it wasn't simply a curatorial appointment — it was a statement about what the fair intends to become. Multi-generational Bay Area roots, an academic foundation in African Diaspora Studies, and a practice built on long-term relationships with artists: Harden arrives in Chicago as someone who understands what it means to belong to a place before you've ever lived there.

Harden's road to Expo ran through Frieze LA, where she spent three years curating the Focus section — a program dedicated to galleries under twelve years old. That longitudinal sensibility, the commitment to long-term relationship building with artists, is precisely what makes the leap to Expo's Profile section feel organic for the curator.

Profile features solo booths and focused projects by established international galleries. "What excites me most," says Harden, "is that each booth offers its own singular proposition, while collectively they represent a wider investment in material intelligence and social complexity." The geographic range signals real ambition: galleries from Lagos, South Korea, Mexico City, the Bay Area, Detroit, New York, and Chicago itself. "Visibility and facilitation are defining principles. By creating clear pathways across the Profile section, we aim to connect the dots between artistic practice, institutional interest, and collecting communities."

What anchors that vision is a curatorial philosophy that refuses to reduce artists to their identities. The work comes first. "If you just had to take the materials in front of you seriously, how could you then come into composition with that work and yourself?" she asks. For Harden, that is the essential standard — and it applies equally to seasoned collectors and her six-year-old daughter, who has grown up in galleries and museums and engages with art on pure instinct.

Chicago holds a particular resonance. Harden is the first to acknowledge coming to this city more through study than through lived experience — AfriCOBRA, the South Side Community Art Center, house music, the Great Migration, the arc of Black American cultural production that runs straight through this place. "I love Chicago because I think it's one of the greatest American art cities.” There is no performance of familiarity here. Harden's excitement is the excitement of genuine learning — of a scholar who has read the books and now gets to inhabit the rooms.

Expo Chicago opens April 9–12 at Navy Pier's Festival Hall. Don't miss it.