EXPO CHICAGO today announced the participating galleries and program schedule for EXPO CHGO ONLINE (April 8–12, 2021), a curated digital exposition of contemporary and modern art complemented by five days of virtual programming. EXPO CHGO ONLINE will feature 81 galleries in a focused online presentation, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). The site will include a “Dealer’s Choice” feature, inviting exhibitors to select one artwork on view from an artist outside of their roster, emulating casual recommendations made at a physical fair. Additionally, notable international curators, museum directors, and critics including Renaud Proch (Independent Curators International), Humberto Moro (Museo Tamayo), Marcella Beccaria (Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea) and Eric Shiner (Pioneer Works) will curate a selection of works from EXPO CHICAGO ONLINE, to be featured on the exposition homepage (hook.art/expo).
Each gallery will also be invited to present one artwork that contributes to a broad rethinking of the environment, to be exhibited within a focused programming section. Accompanied by a curatorial statement from Katie Pfohl (Curator, New Orleans Museum of Art), the exposition’s Environmental Curator, this section is conceptually linked to the fair’s recent symposium Alternate Assembly: Environmental Impact in the Era of Pandemic, and will connect to a virtual panel organized by Pfohl as part of EXPO CHGO ONLINE’s program.
“With EXPO CHGO ONLINE we welcome the world to explore the artwork offered by our participating exhibitors, and to utilize the numerous features included in our virtual programming we’ve built to encourage the interplay between galleries, collectors, curators and patrons like one might experience at an in-person fair,” said Tony Karman, President | Director of EXPO CHICAGO. “We are deeply grateful to our exhibitors and for our partnership with Hook to present this unique platform. We pledge to continue to enhance our virtual offerings to better serve our participants and patrons,” he added. “In addition to maintaining our longstanding Curatorial Forum initiatives and our commitment to supporting local and international art institutions and partners, I am also proud that EXPO CHGO ONLINE will introduce a series of performances and talks that further highlights Chicago’s rich cultural community.”
EXPO CHGO ONLINE exhibitors include:
GALLERIES
· 68projects, Berlin
· Galería Artizar, La Laguna
· Ascaso Gallery, Miami
· James Cohan, New York
· Galería La Cometa, Bogota, Medellin, Madrid
· Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
· Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London
· Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
· DC Moore Gallery, New York
· De Buck Gallery, New York
· Forum Gallery, New York
· David Gill Gallery, London
· Goya Contemporary Gallery, Baltimore
· Gray, Chicago, New York
· The Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis
· Kavi Gupta, Chicago
· Half Gallery, New York
· Harpers Books, New York
· Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
· Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles
· HEXTON | modern and contemporary, Aspen, Chicago
· Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York
· Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
· Kasmin, New York
· Tina Kim Gallery, New York
· Galerie La Forest Divonne, Paris, Brussels
· Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque
· Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Houston
· Diana Lowenstein Gallery, Miami
· Manneken Press, Bloomington
· Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, Los Angeles
· McCormick Gallery, Chicago
· Miles McEnery Gallery, New York
· Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
· moniquemeloche, Chicago
· Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York
· Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles
· Neumann Wolfson Art, New York
· Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
· Over the Influence, Los Angeles
· Peres Projects, Berlin
· Pontone Gallery, London, Augusta
· Galería RGR, Mexico City
· Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
· Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles
· Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto
· Eduardo Secci, Florence, Milan
· Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago
· Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills
· Susan Sheehan Gallery, New York
· Jessica Silverman, San Francisco
· SmithDavidson Gallery, Miami, Amsterdam, Mexico City
· MARC STRAUS GALLERY, New York
· Talley Dunn Gallery, Dallas
· Tandem Press, Madison
· Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York
· Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Belgium
· Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles
· Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis
· Wexler Gallery, New York, Philadelphia
· Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, Seattle
EXPOSURE
· Allouche Benias Gallery, Athens
· Rutger Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam
· Cob, London
· Deli Gallery, New York
· Dio Horia Gallery, Athens, Mykonos
· Embajada, San Juan
· Fridman Gallery, New York
· Gaa Gallery, Provincetown
· The Hole, New York
· Instituto de Visión, Bogotá
· Kristen Lorello, New York
· LUCE GALLERY, Torino
· MICKEY, Chicago
· Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles
· NOME, Berlin
· PICKLEMAN, Chicago
· THE PILL, Istanbul
· Ross + Kramer, New York, East Hampton
· Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, Bucharest, Harare
· Voloshyn Gallery, Kyiv
· Anna Zorina Gallery, New York
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
· Artadia, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York
· CASE Art Fund, Chicago, Oslo
· Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino
· Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago
· Independent Curators International (ICI), New York
· Museo Tamayo, Mexico City
· Pioneer Works, New York
Alongside the virtual exposition, EXPO CHGO ONLINE will offer a series of dynamic discussions, film screenings, exhibition tours, music and dance performances reflecting Chicago’s interdisciplinary arts scene. Programs taking place during EXPO CHGO ONLINE will be free and open to the public via www.program.expochicago.com. The schedule includes:
THURSDAY, APRIL 8
· 12 p.m. CST: ICI | Race and Representation in Museums – A virtual convening of the Curatorial Forum (Closed Door Session)
o The Curatorial Forum brings together curators from across the US with two main goals—promoting collaborations and knowledge-sharing across the country, and advancing civic-minded practice among curators and in the institutions they work for. For the last four years, convenings have addressed issues of racial inequities in the museum and curatorial fields, a topic which will remain at the center of this special interim session of the Forum.
Presented in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI)
· 5 p.m. CST: EXPO CHGO Kick-Off Program | Framing the Moment: On Music, Architecture and Improvisation
o Featuring David Brown (Artistic Director, Chicago Architecture Biennial), Ken Vandermark (Musician), Rosa Barba (Artist), and moderated by John Corbett (Gallerist, Corbett vs. Dempsey), this panel convenes thought leaders from visual art, jazz, and architectural backgrounds to discuss the ways improvisational techniques influence their diverse practices in the creation of visual, sonic, and constructed spaces. Panelists will explore how improvisational methods impact both collaboration and community.
Presented in partnership with Chicago Architecture Biennial
FRIDAY, APRIL 9
· 11 a.m. CST: Curator-Led Digital Tour | Collecting Emerging Artists
o Join Humberto Moro, deputy director and senior curator at the Museo Tamayo and EXPO CHICAGO’s EXPOSURE curator, for a tour of EXPO CHGO ONLINE. Since 2016, Moro has been an adjunct curator at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia and has previously held curatorial positions at the Park Avenue Armory in New York and Museo Jumex in Mexico City. In this program, Moro will present a selection of works from a range of galleries featured in the EXPOSURE section of the digital exposition, in addition to key pieces from emerging artists throughout the exposition.
· 1 p.m. CST: Arts Funders Forum | Art for Environment: How can cultural philanthropy help solve climate change
o Presented in partnership with the Arts Funders Forum, this panel featuring Tracey Robertson Carter (Co-Chair, AIRIE), Sarah Sutton (Principal, Sustainable Museums), and Allison Janae Hamilton (Artist), will examine how philanthropists can work with artists to fund initiatives focused on addressing climate change. Moderated by Melissa Cowley Wolf (Arts Funders Forum) as part of the Remake the Model series.
Presented in partnership with Arts Funders Forum
· 3 p.m. CST Industry Panel | Collection Management Best Practices
o Join leading professionals in art insurance, conservation, storage and shipping in an open discussion on best practices to consider in the management of personal art collections. Featuring Heather Becker (CEO, Conservation Center), Terry Dowd (Terry Dowd, Inc.), Olivia Cinqmars-Viau (AXA XL), Lela Hirsch (ASA, ISA AM) and moderated by Maureen Bray (Executive Director, ADAA).
Presented in partnership with the ADAA
· 6:30 p.m. CST Program | An Evening with Theaster Gates
o A program led by artist, and Founder and Executive Director of Rebuild Foundation, Theaster Gates.
Presented in partnership with Rebuild Foundation
SATURDAY, APRIL 10
· 11 a.m. CST: Curator-Led Digital Tour | Collecting International Artists
o Join Marcella Beccaria (Chief Curator and Curator of Collections, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea) as she leads guests through her selection of international works from EXPO CHGO ONLINE.
· 6 p.m. CST: Artist Talk | Jill Magid: Tender: Balance
o Featuring the premiere of a new film and other new works, Jill Magid's Tender: Balance at the Renaissance Society thinks about the circulation of currency and measures of absence and loss, with dimensions that are both intimate and attuned to larger systems. This exhibition is the second manifestation of a larger unfolding project by the artist, set against the backdrop of the pandemic. While developing new threads, Tender: Balance parallels Magid's monumental but nearly-invisible public artwork, Tender, produced by Creative Time in New York last fall, for which Magid engraved the edges of 120,000 new US pennies with the words ‘THE BODY WAS ALREADY SO FRAGILE' and quietly put them into everyday circulation. On the exhibition's opening day at the Renaissance Society, artist Jill Magid joins curator Karsten Lund to discuss the project and its various manifestations, in Chicago and beyond.
Presented in partnership with the Renaissance Society
· 7 p.m. CST: Performance | Solo Sets by Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, and Nels Cline
o Tune in for a special live performance from Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline.
Presented in partnership with Corbett vs. Dempsey’s Sequesterfest 5, part of the Experimental Sound Studio’s The Quarantine Concert series
SUNDAY, APRIL 11
· 5 p.m. CST: Performance | Tiny Performances in Empty Rooms
o With The Arts Club of Chicago in a pandemic-induced hibernation during the cold winter months, three polymath artists explore the club’s rooms and think experimentally about how to perform in an empty institution. Featuring musical artist Angel Bat Dawid collaborating with composer and multi-instrumentalist Isaiah Collier, dance-maker/performer/choreographer Jasmine Mendoza collaborating with filmmaker Keaton Fox, and theatre artist/performer Kurt Chiang collaborating with performer Livia Chesley.
Join for an in-depth follow-up with the artists on Monday, April 12 at 11:30 a.m. CST on the EXPO CHICAGO microsite.
Presented in partnership with The Arts Club of Chicago
MONDAY, APRIL 12
· 11:30 a.m. CST: Panel | For and From the Void: Artists on Making in an Empty Institution
o Unable to host audiences en masse for performances in the actual building, The Arts Club of Chicago opted, during a pandemic-induced hibernation, to explore the generative potential of emptiness. The club invited three artists in three disciplines to ponder the question, “What does one do with an empty institution?” Musician Angel Bat Dawid, Dancer Jasmine Mendoza, and Theater maker Kurt Chiang (with their collaborators Isaiah Collier, Keaton Fox, and Livia Chesley respectively) took on the task of making art for and from a void. The three lead artists, with programmer Jenna Lyle, discuss their discoveries from the process and the inherent contradictions in the original prompt: is an arts institution ever really empty?
View Tiny Performances in Empty Rooms on Sunday, April 11 at 5 p.m. CST on the EXPO CHICAGO microsite, and join for this in-depth follow-up.
Presented in partnership with The Arts Club of Chicago
· 1 p.m. CST: Industry Panel | Collection Management Best Practices
o Join leading professionals in art advisory, valuations, legal and art finance in an open discussion on best practices for managing personal art collections. Featuring Elizabeth Amundsen (Gurr Johns), Naomi Baigell (TPC Art Finance) and Marisa Murillo (K&L Gates).
· 2:30 p.m. CST: Artist Studio Visit | Music and Art with Omar Velázquez
o In his first solo museum exhibition, artist and musician Omar Velázquez (Puerto Rican, b. 1984) presents recent paintings and sculptures that address the intersection of painting, music, and folklore at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Velázquez speaks with Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator, from his studio, giving a peek into his painting and instrument-building practice and inspirations including Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller.
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
· 4 p.m. CST: Panel | Exhibiting Latinx Artists in an International Field: Connecting Mexico City + Chicago
o Join Laura-Caroline de Lara (Interim Director, DePaul Art Museum) in conversation with Humberto Moro (Deputy Director and Senior Curator, Museo Tamayo), a member of Museo Tamayo’s young collectors circle Fátima González (Co-Founder González Jassan), and artist Harold Mendez who currently has work in DePaul’s recent exhibition LatinXAmerican on the challenges of representing Latinx communities on an international scale, and the many connections between artists living and making work between Mexico City and Chicago.
· 5:30 p.m. CST: Exhibition Tour | Jill Magid: Tender
o Karsten Lund (Curator, Renaissance Society) leads a virtual walk-through of Jill Magid's Tender: Balance at the Renaissance Society, navigating immersive 3D documentation of the gallery space and discussing the works in the show, their installation at the Ren, and broader conceptual threads running through Magid's practice.
Presented in partnership with the Renaissance Society
EXPO CHGO ONLINE will be complemented by a thematic selection of short films on the environment by emerging contemporary artists, curated in partnership with Daata (daata.art). The works will be screened together as a compilation on Sunday, April 11, and will be available to view throughout the weekend on a dedicated page on the EXPO CHICAGO microsite. Selections include:
o Re-Wildling by Jakob Kudsk Steensen
o Eternal September I-VI by Rustan Söderling
o Shivering Sands: Chaos and Coincidences of History by Rohini Devasher
o Little Lo Ting by Zoe Marden
o Feel My Metaverse by Keiken
The Online Dispatch will be presented daily to relay the program offerings. Subscribe to The Online Dispatch here.
A full schedule of EXPO CHGO ONLINE programming and events including dates, times and streaming links will be available on March 22 via www.program.expochicago.com.