Thanks to Will Fenstermaker for including us in his article, Expanding the Map: Art Beyond the Coasts, in EXPO Chicago’s Art Week Magazine. We are delighted to be featured alongside friends at Good Weather, What Pipeline and April April.

Expanding the Map: Art Beyond the Coasts
Four Rust Belt galleries brining an innovative spirit to the cities’ arts scenes
Words by Will Fenstermaker, Illustration by Miki Lowe, EXPO ART WEEK, April 2026

RIVALRY PROJECTS (Buffalo, New York)
Buffalo rose to prominence as a gateway to the Great Lakes, achieving cultural and economic influence as industrial capital moved westward. Glided Age-era institutions like the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (now Buffalo AKG Art Museum) still exert an outsize presence, while 20th-century artist-run spaces such as Hallwalls— founded by Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, and others— helped incubate generations of artist, including many of the Pictures Generation.

Today, “with the exception of the AKG and the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art, much of Buffalo’s ecosystem focuses on the support of local artists,” says Olivia McManus, director of Rivalry Projects, owned by Ryan Arthurs. Located in the city’s Allentown arts district, Rivalry “aims to connect local audiences to national and international contemporary ideas” while also creating pathways for its artists to gain broader visibility.

The outward-facing mission is grounded in a program emphasizing research-driven practices and artists working in nontraditional media— approaches that can be challenging in a market still oriented toward painting. As McManus tells me: “We focus on championing folks who have been overlooked, and providing a platform for them to develop their voices.” Many of the gallery’s artist receive their first solo exhibition at Rivalry.

The artist-run gallery has maintained this focus in part by owning its own space, insulating it from some pressures of Buffalo’s accelerating real estate market. “We have less overhead,” McManus explains, which allows Rivalry to sustain a robust public program of openings, artist talks, and community events.
At EXPO CHICAGO, Rivalry Projects is presenting work by Tucson-based rocki swiderski, whose practice examines unstable sites of transition through landscape and overlooked geographies. “Residing in a border town in the American Southwest, rocki is keenly aware of the instability of boundaries and resources, along with the militarization and eco-politicization of a place, which can quickly become hostile,” McManus says. “That perspective, paired with attitudes toward the Midwest as a ‘flyover’ region, felt like an apt framework for a booth that treats the over-looked site as a metaphor for resistance.”

rocki swiderski is present at EXPO CHICAGO by Rivalry Projects at Booth 336.

Shifting the Center: Rust Belt Galleries at EXPO Chicago