Current and Upcoming

Jesús Hilario-Reyes
September 17 - November 21
Opening September 17, 5-8PM

Minor Attractions (London) 
October 13 - 19

 





Exhibition & Fair Archive

Riga Contemporary (Latvia)  
Roland Knowlden
July 2 - July 5, 2026

Rituals for Field Transmissions
josh brainin
Curated by Youssef Boucetta

Barely Fair (Chicago)  
Jesús Hilario-Reyes
April 3 -19, 2026

THROAT
KC Crow Maddux
December 13, 2025  - January 31, 2026

How Close Can You Get to a Stranger
Steven Piper
November 14 - November 23, 2025

Minor Harmonies
Laila Majid, Joseph J. Greer, Anastasia Sif Karkazis. Curated by Misael José Oquendo
October 8 - November 9, 2025

Marked  
Lola Ayisha Ogbara
May 22 - July 22, 2025

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Website currently under construction -
full documentation  to come for:

Neighbors Fair  (Chicago)
Joseph J. Greer
April 8-12, 2026

Verge Showroom (co-curated)
josh brainin, Corrine Slade,
Jairo Granados-Cardenas,
Wendy Robles, Elaine Schutz Kurtz
March 27 - June, 2026

Temenos
Misael José Oquendo
March 14 - April 12, 2025

Barely Fair 2025
Roland Knowlden

Stars Shown In the East
Mandela Hudson, Curated by Denny Mwaura
January 17 - March 1, 2025

[Hold]
Fengzee Yang, Sharon Xinran Zhang, Janet Lee, Eric Saudi. Curated by Rupture

Blinked Twice
Vani Aguilar
August 9 - October 6, 2024

Iceberg Process 5
Pierre-Alexandre Savriacoty. Curated by Stephanie Cristello
June 28 - July 21, 2024


Inaugural Exhibition
Ang Ziqi Zhang, Chaveli Sifre, Corrine Slade, Farah Salem, Jasmine Huaimin Yeh, Isra Rene, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Kushala Vora, Roland Knowlden, Roland Santana, Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty
April 12 - June 9, 2024

Chicago, IL •

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Tala is a contemporary art gallery located in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago, IL founded in 2024 by Francine Almeda. The space includes a gallery, a library, and an atrium marketplace, offering a new model of gallery format that champions confluence and experimentation across disciplines and programming. Tala’s library is the permanent home of Chuquimarca Art Library.

The name Tala means ‘bright star’ in Tagalog and is derived from the mythology of Tala, the goddess of the morning and evening star, who was revered for her guidance of light during times of loss.

Closed for summer - opening on September 17, 2026



1644 West Chicago Ave #1, Chicago IL


info@talachicago.com
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April 3 -
April  19, 2026 Barely Fair 2026Jesús Hilario-Reyes

Press Release PDF





Tala is thrilled to participate in BARELY FAIR 2026. with a solo presentation by Jesús Hilario-Reyes.

In Accrual Poem, Jesús Hilario-Reyes presents an arrangement of figurine sculptures that surge forward, as if clamoring toward an unseen, devotional foci. Suggesting both collective movement and enchanted ritual, the installation unfolds over a miniature dancefloor composed of three-dimensional, fractal tile scans of a dancefloor in Mexico City, extending a new iteration of the artist’s ongoing archival gesture of documenting the duration of a transportive evening of dancing through the marks and traces left by its participants.

Atop this speculative site, a swirl of figurines are situated. These sculptures reference the Caribbean carnival tradition of “Jab Jab” (derived from the French diable, meaning devil), born from the reclamation of the “Jab” as a term of othering and oppression into a festival of freedom from bondage. The Jab Jab is at once satire (as in, ‘If you call me the devil, then I’ll show you the devil’) and emblematic masquerade in which festival goers themselves (doused in oil and adorned with horned helmets amongst other devilish attire) become an
iconography of defiance across the Afro-Carribean islands. Contextualized within this dancefloor installation, these figures begin to allude to the defiance that unfolds amidst parallel conditions of
oppression within queer and underground spaces across the world, calling our attention to the necessities of communal embodiment as a survival tactic to ensure the longevity of certain cultural practices under limiting surveillance.

Jesús Hilario-Reyes (NYC) is an anti-disciplinary artist, their practice works primarily through sculpture at the intersection of sonic performance, land installation, and expanded cinema. Their work explores the im/possibility of the Black body and its entanglement with photographic optics. These investigations are guided by a sustained interest in fugitivity, particularly as it relates to Black subjecthood. Drawing from queer rave culture and carnival practices throughout the West, they use masquerade and spectacle—often through satire—to
interrogate systems of hypervisibility and invisibility.

Their practice as a DJ is central to their inquiry into the art object as a vessel of cultural representation. It highlights the tenuous relationship of a nightlife culture defined by rapid change, or extreme cultural velocity. Their research into atmospherics, lighting, and sound systems within nightscapes such as clubs and raves is foundational. These technologies act as agents of movement, inciting dance and
transcendental states across collective bodies. the role of technology in shaping or capturing these experiences

While this movement is not identical to a diasporic mass movement, it resonates with how they understand displacement, embodiment, and the role of technology in shaping or capturing these experiences. They are also drawn to how language is repurposed in these spaces—for instance, the siren, which can signal urgency and trauma, yet in a club
context becomes a cue for climax or transcendence. This paradox, in which tools of distress are recontextualized for embodiment, is central to their practice.