EXPO CHICAGO Announces Unprecedented International Programmic Expansion

CHICAGO — EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, announces an unprecedented programmatic expansion surrounding the seventh annual exhibition, September 27 – 30, 2018. This momentous expansion focuses on extending national and international yearlong programming, developing new and innovative programs during EXPO CHICAGO and increasing partnerships with cultural institutions to enrich the existing /Dialogues program format. EXPO CHICAGO’s 2018 programmatic additions include an onsite panel at the U.S. Pavilion of the Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice—a testament to /Dialogues’ year-round commitment to international programming; the third annual /Dialogues Symposium, tracing select art and design legacies produced in the city, taking place during EXPO CHICAGO in conjunction with the Terra Foundation for American Art’s initiative Art Design Chicago; and the inaugural Professionals Forum program in partnership with Art Vérité, located within the Northern Trust Anchor Lounge at EXPO CHICAGO.  

“Providing a platform for rigorous criticism and discourse is at the core of EXPO CHICAGO’s programming and identity — we are thrilled to be expanding the breadth of this integral facet of the exposition,” said EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming Stephanie Cristello. “In addition to the development of the inaugural Professionals Forum this September, our participation at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition and partnership with the Terra Foundation’s initiative Art Design Chicago on the /Dialogues Symposium allows us to examine the integration of different histories that have contributed to our contemporary moment.”  

2018 Venice Biennale – U.S Pavilion  

EXPO CHICAGO is partnering with the U.S. Pavilion and its commissioners, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the University of Chicago (UChicago), to present an onsite panel discussion at the U.S. Pavilion of the Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice. For more information about the U.S. Pavilion, visit www.dimensionsofcitizenship.org.  

The pavilion will feature Chicago-based artists Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez, both of whom have been featured in EXPO CHICAGO past programming—Public Art and Community Engagement, hosted at the Art Institute of Chicago in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and Northern Trust, and a discussion on the Obama Presidential Center at the DuSable Museum of African American History in alignment with the Palais de Tokyo’s exhibition Singing Stones. EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming and Editor-in-Chief of THE SEEN Stephanie Cristello will moderate this panel on Sunday, May 27, 2018 as part of the official Vernissage programming for the U.S. Pavilion.  

“Dimensions of Citizenship features architects and landscape architects, artists and filmmakers,” said U.S. Pavilion curators Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui and Mimi Zeiger. “We are excited to partner with EXPO CHICAGO to present an interdisciplinary program that tackles the critical issues of belonging, both historical and contemporary.”  

Sunday, May 27  

10:45–11:30am  

/Dialogues Panel Discussion  

Location: U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale  

Panelists | Amanda Williams (Chicago-based Artist and Architect, participant in the U.S. Pavilion), Andres L. Hernandez (Chicago-based Artist and Architect, participant in the U.S. Pavilion) and Shani Crowe (Chicago-based Artist). Moderated by EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming and Editor-in-Chief of THE SEEN, Stephanie Cristello.  

Tackling questions of citizenship status, gender and race at the intersection of history, theory and practice of art and architecture, this panel will explore the unique ways in which black women have historically navigated and shaped space to advance their position in American society. Highlighting the historical figures of Harriet Jacobs and Harriet Tubman as muses, this conversation will trace the impact of American history on Williams and Hernandez’s practice, complemented by a performative element by Shani Crowe, preceding the conversation. Addressing the fraught social-spatial conditions of the African-American experience, this panel will take place in proximity to a new commission by Williams and Hernandez in collaboration with Crowe in the courtyard of the U.S. Pavilion, entitled Thrival Geographies (In My Mind I See a Line). The piece evokes the clandestine routes charted and navigated by African-Americans seeking both temporary escape and permanent freedom from the institution of slavery.  

Presented in partnership with the commissioners of the U.S. Pavilion, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The University of Chicago.  

/Dialogues Symposium  

Present Histories: Art & Design in Chicago  

Located on the east end of Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, the /Dialogues Stage will offer continuous programming open to all EXPO CHICAGO visitors throughout each day of the fair, providing multiple opportunities to attend engaging and provocative artistic discourse featuring leading international artists, curators, scholars and arts professionals.  

A curated component of the full /Dialogues program, presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the third annual Symposium will feature a day-long series of discussions presented in alignment with Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy. Entitled Present Histories: Art & Design in Chicago, the Symposium will trace select artistic and design legacies produced in the city, spanning from 1968–2018, as well as their impact on the larger social, aesthetic and cultural movements from the twentieth-century to the present. Drawing from various Art Design Chicago exhibitions, the Symposium will incorporate South Side Stories: Rethinking Chicago Art, 1960 to 1980 and South Side Stories: The Art and Influence of Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs, at the Smart Museum of Art and DuSable Museum of African American History respectively; Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University; and A Johnson Publishing Story, curated by Theaster Gates at the Rebuild Foundation’s Stony Island Arts Bank, alongside contemporary artists and practitioners working in the field today.  

Looking at the term ‘present’—both as an act of portrayal and demonstration, as well as a tense, of being current—the Symposium will focus on how certain movements founded in the city have been generated, assimilated, and reimagined in our contemporary moment. Resisting a linear canon of art history, the Symposium will question how these histories have been woven into the fabric of mainstream consciousness, and have been reconsidered anew, featuring panels, performative interventions, screenings, and book signings with some the city’s most influential creative figures.  

Presented in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art and Art Design Chicago.  

“As an organization committed to the exploration of American art, the Terra Foundation welcomes the Present Histories symposium which brings together influential thinkers in this arena to discuss Chicago’s unique art and design legacy and its ongoing relevance today,” said Executive Vice President of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Amy Zinck. “EXPO CHICAGO provides an exceptional opportunity to draw attention to some of the Chicago artists and designers who have shaped visual and material cultural locally, nationally, and internationally.”

Symposium Schedule:  

Friday, September 28  

11:30am  

Performance: Révérence

Brendan Fernandes (Artist | Monique Meloche Gallery)  

Initiating the Symposium, Artist Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979 in Nairobi, Kenya) stages a site-specific iteration of his performative work Révérence (2015), featuring a series of choreographed dancers to both welcome and confront the audience. Using his training in classical ballet, alongside his unique cultural background as a Kenyan-Indian-Canadian, the performance features classically-trained dancers from the Joffrey Academy of Dance to question identity and power dynamics.  

The piece interrogates the foundations and origin of the Ballet institution, which began as a way for courtiers to bow to King Louis XIV. The ritual of the révérence in ballet is performed at the end of a stage sequence or class, as a sign of gratitude towards both the teacher and the pianist. Commissioned as part of /Dialogues, the concept of this ‘ending’ will be reversed—not as a closing, but as a beginning—literally ‘setting the stage’ for the series of conversations presented within this focused program. Immediately following the performance piece, the discussions will commence with author and sociologist of culture Sarah Thornton in conversation with Fernandes.  

Fernandes' recent acclaimed exhibition, The Master and Form, took place at the Graham Foundation earlier this year. Presented in conjunction with The Living Mask at the DePaul Art Museum, on view during EXPO ART WEEK through December 16, 2018.  

Révérence features a collaboration with the Joffrey Academy of Dance.  

_________________________________________________________    

12:00pm – 1:00pm  

Brendan Fernandes | In Conversation with Sarah Thornton  

Join author and sociologist of culture Sarah Thornton for this featured conversation with Chicago-based artist Brendan Fernandes. The discussion will trace the impact Chicago had on Fernandes’ work, as well as the role of performance in his practice, which questions positions of power, control and ‘queering space.’  

_________________________________________________________    

2:00–3:00pm  

AfriCOBRA: Chicago in the Age of Black Power  

Featuring | Gerald Williams (Artist | Kavi Gupta Gallery, Founding Member of AfriCOBRA). Additional panelists to be announced.  

Join this panel featuring Gerald Williams, one of the founding members of AfriCOBRA, on the occasion of his inclusion in Art Design Chicago exhibitions at the Smart Museum of Art and the DuSable Museum of African American History, South Side Stories: Rethinking Chicago Art, 1960–1980 and South Side Stories: Holdings, which focus on the Black Arts Movement. An exhibition curated by Williams on the occasion of the fifty-year anniversary of the group, AfriCOBRA 50, will be on view at Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago to align with EXPO ART WEEK, September 8–November 24, 2018.  

_________________________________________________________    

4:00–5:00pm

Alterity and the Exhibition Environment: Feminist History of Alternative Spaces in Chicago

Panelists | Lynne Warren (Adjunct Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago), Torkwase Dyson (Artist | Rhona Hoffman Gallery), and Kay Rosen (Artist | Alexander Gray and Associates, ARC Member). Moderated by Jenni Sorkin (SAIC BFA 1999), Associate Professor, History of Art & Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara.  

Alternative spaces are often discussed within the canon of Chicago’s exhibition history. Yet, these spaces also played a parallel role in the activities that defined feminist art and social practice in the city’s scene. In her chapter for the newly launched publication Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now, author Jenni Sorkin delivers a survey of communal alternative exhibition spaces from 1973 to 1993 as they built momentum in Chicago alongside the commercial gallery system and during the women's movement. The panel features Lynne Warren, longtime champion of Chicago's artists, whose groundbreaking exhibition Alternative Spaces: A History in Chicago (MCA Chicago, 1984)first tracked this history; conceptual artist Kay Rosen, a prominent member of the cooperative feminist art gallery Artist Residents of Chicago (ARC, 1973); and Torkwase Dyson, an interdisciplinary artist, whose projects such as tiny studio have examined a nomadic practice that generates both environmental interdependency and solitude. This conversation will trace the histories and roles of feminism in Chicago's alternative spaces from the 1970s to the present.The conversation aligns with the Art Design Chicago exhibition, Where the Future Came From, at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery (November 1, 2018 – February 15, 2019) which explores the integral role of feminist artist-run activities throughout Chicago’s history. Torkwase Dyson, on view at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, will align with EXPO ART WEEK.  

_________________________________________________________    

5:00pm  

Publication Launch | Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now  

Edited by Maggie Taft and Robert Cozzolino (Judith Kirshner, Consulting Editor and Erin Hogan, Sidebars Editor). Chapter Authors: Wendy Greenhouse, Jennifer Jane Marshall, Maggie Taft, Robert Cozzolino, Rebecca Zorach and Jenni Sorkin.  

Funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art, this newly launched publication will be available for a book signing at the /Dialogues Stage through the University of Chicago Press.  

Screening | Designers in Film: A Glimpse into the Goldsholl Archive  

A screening of select films and reels produced by Goldsholl and Associates—whose films, television ads and other moving image work innovated “designs-in-film”—will be on view at the /Dialogues Stage, as an interlude to the final conversation in the Symposium on Chicago’s Mid-Century impact on the advertising and commercial industry at large.  

_________________________________________________________    

5:30 – 6:30pm  

Making the Modern Image: Mid-Century Commercial Industry in Chicago  

Panelists | Theaster Gates (Artist | Rebuild Foundation), Corinne Granof (Curator of Academic Programs, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University) and Lara Allison (Lecturer, Art History, Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Moderated by Michael Golec (Associate Professor, Art History, Theory and Criticism, SAIC).  

 Through recent exhibitions that relate the advertising and commercial publications industries to the context of contemporary art, this discussion will trace Chicago’s contribution to the glossy image that defined the Mid-Century aesthetic. Examining the political, social and cultural impact of these design philosophies, this panel will look at the national impact of firms and companies whose work pushed industry boundaries through avant-garde approaches. Featuring Theaster Gates, whose exhibition (June 28 – September 30, 2018) A Johnson Publishing Story presented by Rebuild Foundation at Stony Island Arts Bank explores the enduring role of Ebony and Jet magazines in defining and popularizing a black aesthetic and identity around the globe; Corinne Granof on the work of Goldsholl and Associates, whose films, television ads, and other moving image work innovated “designs-in-film” influenced by László Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus approach; and historian Lara Allison, speaking on the seminal legacy of the Great Ideas campaign by the Container Corporation from 1950–80. This discussion, moderated by Michael Golec, will examine the many contributions of Chicago’s enduring impact on a national and international aesthetic. Up is Down: Mid-Century Experiments in Advertising and Film at the Goldsholl Studio at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will be on view from September 18–December 9, 2018 and A Johnson Publishing Story Curated by Theaster Gates at the Rebuild Foundation’s Stony Island Arts Bank is on view June 28 and extends through September 30, to align with EXPO ART WEEK.

Professionals Forum  

Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting  

Since 2015, the Northern Trust Anchor Lounge has hosted Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting, a series of exclusive discussions on the contemporary art market, institutions and the economy located on the Northern Trust Anchor Lounge stage at EXPO CHICAGO. As part of the 2018 program, EXPO CHICAGO and Art Vérité will partner to present the inaugural Professionals Forum in the United States.  

The first of its kind presented in the United States, in the context of a fair, the Forum will provide professional and preventative specialist knowledge and skills as it relates to managing, selling and acquiring a contemporary collection. Presented in two separate panels for the VIP audience, and a closed-door discussion for EXPO CHICAGO Exhibitors, the Forum will address the growing legal issues of fraudulent activity in art, and strategies to subside it. Speakers will include top national and international art attorneys, leading art research and insurance professionals, the FBI and experts in conservation and forensic science.  

“We are privileged to engage in partnership with EXPO CHICAGO and to present the inaugural Professionals Forum,” said Managing Partner, Art Vérité LLC, Jane CH Jacob. “With insight from some of the foremost authorities in both the Legal and Fine Art fields, attendees will gain valuable knowledge, as well as acquire resources to safeguard against the issues of art crime.”  

Presented alongside the exposition’s core Forum programs, the conference will be available for registration by art world professionals during EXPO CHICAGO (September 27–30, 2018), including top national and international collectors, dealers, advisors, valuers, art attorneys and leading museum professionals. As an educational seminar, 2.5 CLE credit hours will be awarded for practicing attorneys who attend all three sessions. The Professionals Forum is open to all EXPO CHICAGO VIPs and guests of Northern Trust.  

“Northern Trust continues to develop both the quality and variety of offerings available to the collectors, dealers and art professionals who visit the Northern Trust Anchor Lounge at EXPO CHICAGO each year,” said Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at Northern Trust, Mac MacLellan. “This constant growth speaks to Northern Trust’s dedication to providing our patrons with the highest quality information, presented by top industry professionals to create a premiere experience.”  

Professionals Forum  

Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting  

As part of the 2018 Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting, a series of exclusive discussions on the contemporary art market, institutions and the economy, EXPO CHICAGO and Art Vérité will partner to present the inaugural Professionals Forum in the United States. The Forum will provide professional and preventative specialist knowledge and skills as it relates to managing, selling and acquiring a contemporary collection.  

Presented in two separate panels for the VIP audience, and a closed-door discussion for EXPO CHICAGO Exhibitors, the Forum will address the growing legal issues of fraudulent activity in art, and strategies to subside it. Speakers will include top national and international art attorneys, leading art research and insurance professionals, a former FBI art crime analyst and experts in conservation and forensic science.  

“We are privileged to engage in partnership with EXPO CHICAGO and to present the inaugural Professionals Forum,” said Managing Partner, Art Vérité LLC, Jane CH Jacob. “With insight from some of the foremost authorities in both the Legal and Fine Art fields, attendees will gain valuable knowledge, as well as acquire resources to safeguard against the issues of art crime.”  

Held in the Norther Trust Anchor Lounge, the Professionals Forum conference will be available for registration by art world professionals during EXPO CHICAGO (September 27–30, 2018), including top national and international collectors, dealers, advisors, valuers, art attorneys and leading museum professionals. As an educational seminar, 2.5 CLE credit hours will be awarded for practicing attorneys who attend all three sessions. The Professionals Forum is open to all EXPO CHICAGO VIPs and guests of Northern Trust.  

“Northern Trust is pleased to continue to support EXPO CHICAGO and gratified to see the growing variety of high-quality offerings for collectors, dealers and art professionals who will visit the Northern Trust Anchor Lounge this year,” said Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at Northern Trust Mac MacLellan. “This growth speaks to Northern Trust’s dedication to providing our stakeholders with the latest from top industry professionals to create a premiere experience.”

Professionals Forum Schedule:  

Friday, September 28  

10:00am | Dealer and Professional Panel  

Contract is King: Due Diligence and Reducing Problems in Art Dealing  

Dealers Can Protect Themselves: Case Studies (Panelist | Chris Robinson, Cahill, Cossu, Noh & Robinson, LLP)  

Fakes and Forgeries and Consignment Fraud: Case Studies (Panelist |Judd Grossman, Grossman, LLP)    

Clearing the Way: Legal Title and Dealer Due Diligence: Case Studies (Panelist | Kevin Ray, Greenburg Traurig, LLP (Chicago-based))  

Criminal Case Studies: Dealer-to-Dealer Relationships (Panelist | Laura Patten, Specialist Leader, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory LLP and former FBI Senior Intelligence Analyst, Art Crime Team)  

_________________________________________________________    

1:00–2:00pm | Professionals Forum Panel  

Caveat Emptor: Equipping Collectors and Art Professionals  

Stolen Art: Jasper Johns Case (Panelist | Judd Grossman, Grossman, LLP)    

Case Study: Authenticity, Provence and Other Issues (Panelist | Dr. Sharon Flescher, Executive Director of IFAR, and Editor-In-Chief of the IFAR Journal)  

Scientific Analysis and Forensic Surprises (Panelist | Jennifer Mass, Ph.D. and President Scientific Analysis of Fine Art, LLC)  

Diligence: Transparency vs. Opacity (Panelist | Andrea Danese, CEO and President, Athena Art Finance)  

_________________________________________________________    

3:00–4:00pm | Professionals Forum Panel

Safeguarding Your Rights: What Artists and Collectors Need to Know  

Art Consignment (Panelist | Rebecca Woan, Principal and Founder, Chartwell Insurance Services)  

VARA: 5 Pointz Case (Panelist | Barry Werbin, HERRICK, Feinstein LLP)  

Artist and Owners: Understanding Your Intellectual Property Rights: Case Studies (Panelist | Chris Robinson, Cahill, Cossu, Noh & Robinson, LLP  

*Sponsors include Chartwell Insurance, Christie’s and Grossman, LLP.  

_________________________________________________________