SATURDAY, APRIL 13

12:00 — 12:45PM
SCREENING: DAATA | THE ROCKERS UPTOWN (CHICAGO VERSION)

Daata presents a playlist of commissioned video animations that embody the profound, equivalent coolness of the eponymous reggae dub, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, released as the b-side to Jacob Miller’s record Baby I Love You So in 1975. Exploring collective memories grounded in music, Daata curator David Gryn showcases the digital work of George Barber, Phillip Birch, Jacky Connolly, Jeremy Couillard, Ollie Dook, Ed Fornieles, Jess Johnson & Simon Ward, Takeshi Murata, Eva Papamargariti, Puck Verkade, and Lu Yang.

1:15 — 2:00PM
ART OUTSIDE THE CENTER

Panelists | Jenny Moore (Founding Director, Tinworks), Kristy Edmunds (Director, MASS MoCA), and Jodi Throckmorton (Chief Curator, John Michael Kohler Art Center). Moderated by Cortney Stell (Executive Director & Chief Curator, Black Cube)

Join directors Jenny Moore (Bozeman, MT), Kristy Edmunds (North Adams, MA), and Jodi Throckmorton (Sheboygan, WI) in a conversation that will explore how exhibition-making in locations outside the country’s art centers. From innovative exhibitions in repurposed buildings to arts meccas far from city centers, the panel emphasizes the transformative potential of art in less conventional settings. At the panel’s core is the recognition that artists play a unique role, bringing audiences to places they might not travel. This nuanced perspective prompts a profound exploration of the civic responsibilities inherent in situating art institutions in ‘unlikely’ places, and the conditions of possibility for new arts spaces to take root.    The conversation will be moderated by Cortney Stell of Black Cube, a nomadic contemporary art museum based in Denver, Colorado.

Presented in partnership with Esse.

2:00PM — 3:00PM
DIRECTORS SUMMIT | PAVING COMMON GROUND: PART II

Panelists | Asma Naeem, Ph.D. (Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, Baltimore Museum of Art), Brooke A. Minto (Executive Director and CEO, Columbus Museum of Art), Reuben Roqueñi (Executive Director, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art), Yasufumi Nakamori, Ph.D. (Museum Director and Vice President of Art and Culture, Asia Society). Moderated by Jill Snyder (Principal, Snyder Consultancy).

In 2024, EXPO CHICAGO will celebrate the third edition of the annual Directors Summit, an initiative that gathers an emerging generation of art museum leaders from across the country for a three-day program of conversations around civic responsibility and advancing organizational growth and change in response to the call for an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future. Facing the profound challenges of an election year, the 2024 Directors Summit offers a forum for museum leaders to share how their institutions offer an invaluable “third space” to explore civic discourse and foster common ground. The summit is produced in partnership with museum consultant Jill Snyder (Principal, Snyder Consultancy) and features a keynote lecture at the University Club of Chicago by Dr. Louise Bernard, Founding Director of the Obama Presidential Center Museum (The Obama Foundation).

This panel is presented in partnership with Sotheby’s, Bloomberg Connects, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the University Club of Chicago.

3:15 — 4:00PM
SCREENING: DAATA | DEEP SPACE MATHEMATICS & OTHER STORIES

Curated from the Daata archives, Deep Space Mathematics & Other Stories presents digital and video works that are unpolished yet glamorous, always energetic, girly, and unflinchingly raw. Spotlighting works by Rebecca Allen, Helen Benigson, Keren Cytter, Keiken, Rosie McGinn, Hannah Perry, Georgie Roxby Smith, Molly Soda, Anna Sophie de Vries, Chloe Wise, and Zadie Xa, the playlist takes its title from the featured video by Xa, originally introduced to Daata by Legacy Russell in 2016.

4:00 — 5:00PM
ON COLOR

Panelists | Amanda Williams (Artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery), Alteronce Gumby (Artist). Moderated by Jordan Carter (Curator & Co-Department Head, Dia Art Foundation)

Join artists Amanda Williams and Alteronce Gumby in a conversation exploring the symbolism of color and its broader societal associations through several of the artists’ past and current series. In her breakout series, Color(ed) Theory (2014–16), Williams painted houses in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood that were marked for demolition in a spectrum of monochrome hues associated with Black culture. The photographs that document the intervention serve as a striking interrogation of the inequities in urban development and the question of value in the Chicago community and elsewhere. In Gumby’s work, color is also a tool of investigation, bringing his audience closer to an understanding of light and space. Gumby first began using unconventional materials like resin and glass when he discovered a shattered bus stop pavilion outside his neighborhood bodega in the South Bronx. Series such as The Color of Everything, an exhibition of what Gumby termed ‘tonal paintings,’ use these materials to reference connections between historic color-theory and contemporary interstellar discovery. From Williams’ inquiries into the narrative histories of Black identity through more recent series such as What Black Is This, You Say? to Gumby’s continued exploration of light and tonality in the ongoing series Glass & Gemstones, the conversation investigates the multifaceted role color plays in contemporary art practices. The conversation will be moderated by Jordan Carter, Curator and Co-Department Head at Dia Art Foundation and formerly the Associate Curator in the Art Institute of Chicago’s department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

5:15 — 6:15PM
DARKROOM A TO Z: PAUL MPAGI SEPUYA IN CONVERSATION

Panelists | Paul Mpagi Sepuya (Artist, DOCUMENT and Vielmetter Los Angeles), Silas Munro (Partner, Polymode). Moderated by Drew Sawyer (Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art)

Join Los Angeles-based artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya in conversation with Silas Munro on the occasion of Sepuya’s most comprehensive monographic release to date Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Darkroom A to Z, which will be published by Aperture in Fall 2024. Designed by Munro and his studio, the monograph guides viewers through the vast network of subjects, references, and interconnected artist communities within Sepuya’s photographic practice over the past 15 years. Sepuya will speak on the varies bodies of work featured in the monograph, in addition to discussing the development of the project and its larger relationship to publishing, zines, and bookmaking. Munro is the founder of Polymode, an LGBTQ+, minority-owned design studio working with various high profile cultural institutions and community-based organizations across the country. The conversation will be moderated by curator Drew Sawyer who curated the recent exhibition Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines at the Brooklyn Museum: the first museum exhibition dedicated to the rich history of artist self-publishing and zines in North America.

This panel is presented in partnership with Aperture.