Prairie Colorfield

April 24 to April 27, 2025 at EXPO Chicago – Booth 146

This installation by Luftwerk captures and reimagines fragments of the landscape we inhabit as a reminder of the loss of native prairie. The color field on the walls, Acres of Blooms, is made from botanical pigments. The abstracted landscape painting references a time when prairies occupied two-thirds of the midwestern landscape, rich in biodiversity, a holistic interconnected ecosystem of healthy soil, abundant flora, and myriads of bees and butterflies.

The interactive work, Extraction, is a mound of sand and botanicals. Visitors are invited to choose from the color spectrum of the botanicals to add botanicals to the mound. The work represents that prairie that has been removed to make way for construction, destruction, and other changes to the land. By visitors adding to Extraction, they acknowledge their daily participation in the changes to the land. As an exchange they are encouraged to plant pollinator seeds.

Luftwerk is the artistic duo of Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero. Since founding in 2007, the practice has developed a significant body of work that explores the interplay of light, color and space through the exploration of data, nature, history, and architecture. Their work is multi-faceted, taking the form of installations, site-specific interventions, and artwork, engaging with landscapes, architecture along with galleries, museums, and art centers.

The first iteration of Acres of Bloom was created as part of Lost & Found, a group exhibition at the Chicago Botanic Garden (2024). The work came alive as part of an effort to raise awareness of the science involved in prairie preservation. The botanicals used were collected by a group of volunteers at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The new iteration uses the remainder of those materials in combination with black eye susan, handpicked along train tracks during last summer and pine needles sourced from repurposed Christmas trees. This project is unique and an expression of our curiosity of the natural world, its color palette and materiality. Prairie Colorfield is not archival, to live with it is like observing an evolving painterly experience that changes like our landscape in seasons.

Installations and artwork by Luftwerk have been exhibited broadly at institutions including: Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, NY; Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, TN; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich; Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL and Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, IL. Throughout their practice, Luftwerk has develop a robust portfolio of projects that engage with notable modern and contemporary architecture including: Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, IL by Gehry Partners;  Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona and Farnsworth House, Plano, IL by Mies van der Rohe; Ford Residence, Aurora, IL by Bruce Goff; Millennium Park, Chicago, IL by SOM; Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA and Robie House, Chicago, IL by Frank Lloyd Wright; and Netsch Residence, Chicago, IL by Walter Netsch. The artists have realized numerous large-scale permanent public and private commissions in Atlanta, Calgary, Charlotte, Chicago, Harare, Tampa, and Kansas City. They have received numerous awards, including project awards from the AIA Chicago, Graham Foundation, and the Illinois Arts Council. Their work is in several public and private collections including the Public Art collections of Chicago and Fulton County, Museum Buchheim, USF Institute for Research in Art. Their work has been featured in publications such as Artforum, Hyperallergic, Time Magazine, The New Yorker. 

Booth 146 Programming

Sonja Henderson and Toni Asante Lightfoot 
Ceded and Reseeded: Seed Balm Workshop
Thursday 2-7pm and Friday 1-5pm

Melissa Potter
Circle Garden: Solstalgia Discussion
Thursday 12-8pm; Saturday + Sunday 12- 5pm

Giovanni Aloi
The Anthropocene and new conceptions of nature in art Discussion
Saturday at 1pm

Paul Naylor 
Parkway Pollinator Ordinance Discussion
Sunday at 4pm

Press

Chicago Reader “Locals Only,” April 16, 2025 by Kerry Cardoza and Shira Friedman-Parks (pdf)

Newcity “Art for Art’s Sake: How to Get the Most of Expo Chicago if you just love art,” April 23, 2025 by Brian Hieggelke (pdf)