Y’all remember poor old Art Chicago? Remember when we captured, in this very column, the life mimics performance art of young show-goers eating leftover pizza from the garbage? This city has struggled for years to create a world-class contemporary art show, but hopefully our highfalutin luck is about to change with the second annual Expo Chicago, opening on September 19. A few weeks ago, Bottega Veneta with the fancy PR-folks of Skoog Productions, threw a party for the host committee of Gallery Weekend (GW), which runs concurrently with Expo. Eaves isn’t exactly sure what GW is, but that’s probably because our annual art budget is only in the three figures. I think it’s for trying to convince out of town rich folks that we’re the Miami of the Midwest.

GW founders and gallery owners Monique Meloche and Andrew Rafacz were on deck, along with our public radio crush Alison Cuddy. (Hey, Alison! We always give during the pledge drive but we never win the Subaru!) Architecture and design play big-ish roles in Expo, with the folks at Studio Gang once again designing the exhibit hall and my architecture power couple crushes Dirk Dennison and David Salkin on the GW host committee. Dirk, we didn’t see you at the party, but if we missed you, we blame it on the never-ending Veuve Clicquot.