82 Nights Only*

In conjunction with the fourth iteration of Chicago Exhibition Week, Gertie is pleased to announce 82 Nights Only*, an experimental exhibition and programming series at the Gertie Hub (400 N Peoria Street) from September 16 to December 13, 2026.

82 Nights Only* maps the positions where art and comedy’s mutual concerns overlap. Organized as a rotating series of artworks, performances, and screenings, the exhibition unfolds over twelve weeks, making a structural joke of the fixed exhibition format itself. Rather than presenting a totalizing thesis in which a singular presentation remains fixed—one that necessarily “explains the joke”—82 Nights Only* adopts an episodic model in which the exhibition is continually reconstituted through an ever-changing selection and arrangement of works, off-site installations, and timed artist performances. Each iteration, therefore, operates as a distinct encounter rather than a repetition of a singular presentation, offering viewers multiple points of entry and a layered, accumulative experience of the exhibition over time.

Comic intent has long occupied a consequential, if frequently undervalued, position within the history of art, from the grotesque and ribald scenes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the satirical moralism of William Hogarth to Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier, and the irreverence of the twentieth-century avant-garde. At a moment when the boundaries between disciplines are increasingly fluid, examining humor’s role in contemporary artistic and curatorial practice offers a timely opportunity to reconsider how—and for whom—art is allowed to be. In 82 Nights Only*, humor is taken up not as a secondary quality or vehicle for more consequential critique in art, but as a singular and intrinsically rewarding artistic and curatorial end goal—one that is capable of disrupting expectations, complicating the conventions of exhibition-making, and expanding upon the participatory nature of art viewership without requiring that the joke ultimately resolve itself.

82 Nights Only* opens with a public reception on Wednesday, September 16, 5–8 PM, featuring an opening night performance by New York-based artist and ventriloquist Sophie Becker, as well as Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis, whose performance will be recorded and will serve as the first artwork in the weekly rotation of works featured on stage.

Exhibition hours: Wed–Sun, 11 AM–6 PM, September 16–December 13, 2026

Installation views