Boreas Fine Art

Boreas Fine Art Boreas Fine Art offers a carefully chosen selection of conceptual art, artist books, and artist projects.

Contact us to schedule a viewing appointment, or explore our available inventory via the Artnet link below. Visit our website or Artnet page for a current selection. http://www.artnet.com/galleries/boreas-fine-art/
http://www.boreasfineart.com/

We also welcome appointments. To view the current inventory at our Chicago gallery, please email [email protected]

The hottest exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago right now features an artist book: Jazz by Henri Matisse. The show ...
05/17/2026

The hottest exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago right now features an artist book: Jazz by Henri Matisse. The show also has two other books, drawings and graphic works, and several paintings.

While Gates's Smart Museum exhibition in September will focus on an innovative use of reclaimed material, the work in Bo...
08/04/2025

While Gates's Smart Museum exhibition in September will focus on an innovative use of reclaimed material, the work in Boreas Fine Art's inventory is unique in its simplicity. "Untitled (House)," 2010, is a stark work of pen and ink on paper depicting a house, reminiscent of much larger themes in the artist's practice related to property acquisition, renovation, and redeployment.

This particular image can be seen as a reflection back on earlier endeavors, such as the 2009 "Dorchester Project," created just a year before "Untitled (House)." In this project, Gates invested in two abandoned properties on the south side of Chicago with the vision to transform them from sites of neglect into community oriented spaces. The simplicity inherent within this work on paper within his larger oeuvre speaks rather poetically to the very real change the artist has achieved within neighborhood spaces through his re-activation of space.

As "Unto Thee" approaches, we are excited to offer this work through Artnet at the link in our bio. For Inquiries, email us at [email protected].

First Image: Gates "Untitled (House)," 2010, via Boreas Fine Art.

Second Image: Interior photograph of "The Dorchester Project" via Arte Util.

Third Image: "Unto Thee" graphic via The Smart Museum.

Theaster Gates has had many firsts… his first major US exhibition, his first-ever solo exhibition in New York, his first...
07/31/2025

Theaster Gates has had many firsts… his first major US exhibition, his first-ever solo exhibition in New York, his first solo museum exhibition in France, his first solo museum exhibition in Japan, etc. It is surprising, therefore, that his most recent "first" is his first solo museum exhibition in his own hometown of Chicago. This preeminent show will take place at the Smart Museum of Art and is titled "Unto Thee."

The show will build upon his relationship with the University of Chicago as a professor of Visual Arts; the materials and objects used in this show were sourced from the University, and subsequently given a new life and socially infused narrative when positioned within his artistic practice. It is as if each object or material is a palimpsest, carrying the residual context of its former use. We here at Boreas Fine Art are excited to see what works and ghostly traces the Smart will show on September 23.

Stay tuned for an in depth look at the work by Theaster Gates in our inventory entitled "House," 2010. This work is distinct from those in the upcoming exhibition in its material clarity and striking formalism.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

One of the special things about Boreas Fine Art’s copy of Ono’s Grapefruit is its handwritten inscription.Dated London, ...
07/25/2025

One of the special things about Boreas Fine Art’s copy of Ono’s Grapefruit is its handwritten inscription.

Dated London, 1966, the note reads: “To Francis, Yoko Ono London ‘66.”

Below it, Ono includes a poignant haiku by 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō:

Ah! Summer grasses!
All that remains
Of the warriors’ dreams.

Like much of her work from this period, it gestures toward the lingering psychic and cultural imprints of war.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Before the retrospectives, before the Beatles, before "Grapefruit," Yoko Ono’s first-ever US exhibition took place in 19...
07/18/2025

Before the retrospectives, before the Beatles, before "Grapefruit," Yoko Ono’s first-ever US exhibition took place in 1961 at none other than George Maciunas’s AG Gallery on Madison Avenue.

Blink and you might’ve missed it: just a few visitors, a tiny avant-garde space on the brink of closure, and one unknown artist ready for her moment.

Today, Fluxus is institutionalized in museums. But in its early days, it was something more elusive: an entry point, a framework, a disorienting threshold. When asked what Fluxus was, one artist replied: "Fluxus is a blue peanut."

Ono embraced this spirit as she lay the groundwork for participatory and conceptual art. Her 1964 publication "Grapefruit" emerged just three years after that first Madison Ave show.

The signed copy of "Grapefruit" held by Boreas Fine Art was inscribed during her 1966 trip to London (when she first met John Lennon!).

The full story of this inscription—and what it reveals—is coming next.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

This fall, two major exhibitions will open in Chicago spotlighting artists whose work is held in the Boreas Fine Art col...
07/16/2025

This fall, two major exhibitions will open in Chicago spotlighting artists whose work is held in the Boreas Fine Art collection: "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind" at the Museum of Contemporary Art (opening October 18), and "Theaster Gates: Unto Thee" at the SMART Museum of Art (opening September 23).

In anticipation of these shows, Boreas Fine Art will spend the next two months in focused dialogue with the practices of Yoko Ono and Theaster Gates, sharing rare works from our inventory including Ono’s seminal artist book "Grapefruit" and Gates's "Untitled (House)." Each post will offer a closer look at how these works resonate with the ideas unfolding across the city this season, offering space to place these works both in conversation with institutional curation and within each respective artist's oeuvre.

Looking ahead to January 10, 2026, we’ll also share a work by John Cage, whose practice parallels the themes of chance, time, and the I Ching explored in the Renaissance Society’s forthcoming exhibition centered around the work of Leah Ke Yi Zheng.

Josephine Sacabo, Gilded Circles and Sure Trouble, 2012, available at Boreas Fine Art.For inquiries, email us at info@bo...
07/02/2025

Josephine Sacabo, Gilded Circles and Sure Trouble, 2012, available at Boreas Fine Art.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Artwork also available on Artnet: https://www.artnet.com/artists/josephine-sacabo/gilded-circles-and-sure-trouble-a-6YOeKx1f9AqlscrK_0Uzjg2

Boreas Fine Art is happy to present Josephine Sacabo’s work, known for its lyrical, dreamlike, and often surreal imagery rooted in poetry, feminism, and mysticism.

This work comprises both a small bound book with ten platinum prints and a separate large portfolio of ten loose photogravure prints. Sacabo's refined contemporary pictorialist photographs evoke the work of earlier photo-secessionists such as Alfred Stieglitz, Clarence H. White, and Gertrude Käsebier. The text includes fifteen poems by LeJeune inspired by Sacabo's work as well as an introduction by John Wood.

Ai WeiWei, Holzwarth, Hans Werner, ed. Ai Weiwei, 2014, available at Boreas Fine Art. For inquiries, email us at info@bo...
06/26/2025

Ai WeiWei, Holzwarth, Hans Werner, ed. Ai Weiwei, 2014, available at Boreas Fine Art.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Artwork also available on Artnet: https://www.artnet.com/artists/ai-weiwei/holzwarth-hans-werner-ed-ai-weiwei-a-ncX-DwY7bCGYSP5_PftoJg2

This collector’s edition comes wrapped in Chinese silk and is accompanied by a bookstand crafted from marble sourced in Fangshan, China—bringing together concept, material, and meaning in true Ai Weiwei form.

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum, Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei presents a sweeping look at the artist’s work and impact. Also on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum is Water Lilies #1 (2022), Ai's immersive, large-scale reinterpretation of Monet’s famous triptych—meticulously constructed from thousands of LEGO bricks.

John Cage, Global Village 37-48,1989, available at Boreas Fine Art.For inquiries, email us at info@boreasfineart.com.Art...
06/20/2025

John Cage, Global Village 37-48,1989, available at Boreas Fine Art.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Artwork also available on Artnet at the link in bio.

Happenings: Visitors can experience an exhibition at the Parra & Romero Museum in Madrid curated by Javier Panera: FLUXUS: Shattered Music. Sound Art Beneath the Expansive Shadow of Fluxus. As a key figure in the movement, John Cage’s early sonic works are included—illuminating the acoustic dimensions of FLUXUS happenings, exhibitions, and mail art.

Henry Moore, Shelter-Sketch-Book,1967, available at Boreas Fine Art.For inquiries, email us at info@boreasfineart.com.Ar...
04/28/2025

Henry Moore, Shelter-Sketch-Book,1967, available at Boreas Fine Art.

For inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Artwork also available on Artnet at the link in bio.

Address

260 E Chestnut Street
Chicago, IL
60611

Website

,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Boreas Fine Art posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Establishment

Send a message to Boreas Fine Art:

Shortcuts

Share

Category