EXPO CHICAGO Announces 2018 On-Site Program for IN/SITU, EXPO VIDEO, EXPO Sound and IN/SITU Outside Including Works by Major International Artists

CHICAGO—EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, announces selections for the 2018 EXPO VIDEO, IN/SITU, EXPO Sound and IN/SITU Outside programs presented during the seventh edition (September 27 – 30). Selected by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin Curator Anna Gritz for EXPO VIDEO, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Curator at Large, Latin America Pablo León la Barra for IN/SITU and Daata Editions for EXPO Sound, each program presents works by leading international artists throughout the exposition. Additionally, IN/SITU Outside, featuring large-scale public works curated by EXPO CHICAGO, in partnership with Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and Navy Pier, showcases artwork throughout the City of Chicago, making high caliber contemporary art accessible to the public.  

"The 2018 program focuses on challenging curatorial thematics surrounding how our bodies respond in space, both physically and politically—a lens that carries historical precedence, while also imagining the role that contemporary art has within the marketplace to promote new futures,” said EXPO CHICAGO Director of Programming Stephanie Cristello. “What sets this iteration of EXPO CHICAGO apart is the deep critical engagement of its core curatorial programs: from large-scale sculptures that were once sited along the US-Mexico border, to moving image and video that examines the senses beyond sight and sound pieces that question the role of a voice in the 21st century.”  

IN/SITU  

Installed within the vast architecture and vaulted ceilings of Navy Pier’s iconic Festival Hall, the IN/SITU program features major installations and large-scale work. Curated by Pablo León la Barra (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Curator at Large, Latin America), the 2018 program explores the role art plays in promoting positive societal change and broadening ways of thinking. Several of the artists selected by León la Barra have been directly affected by human rights violations and marginalization, their work giving visibility to their struggles.  

“Our recent political times have been characterized by a resurgence of new extreme fascisms, characterized by the spread of hate towards those that are different and the erosion of the rights of minorities,” said Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Curator at Large, Latin America Pablo León la Barra. “As such, IN/SITU presents works by artists addressing issues regarding gender, feminism, otherness, ethnicity, migration, a search for home, as well as activism and community building in order to transform the viewer to leave the exposition as an empowered citizen.”

2018 IN/SITU Artists:  

Carmen Argote | Instituto de Visión (Bogota, Colombia)  

Iván Argote | PERROTIN (New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai)  

Firelei Báez | Kavi Gupta (Chicago)  

Judy Chicago | Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco) and Salon 94 (New York)  

Sam Durant | Praz-Delavallade (Los Angeles, Paris)  

Iván Navarro | Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York)  

Postcommodity | Bockley Gallery (Minneapolis)  

Carlos Motta | P.P.O.W. (New York)  

Oscar Murillo | David Zwirner (New York, London, Hong Kong)  

Bosco Sodi | Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York)  

Additional IN/SITU Programming | /Dialogues Stage  

IN/SITU — In Conversation  

Saturday, September 29 | 11:30am – 12:30pm  

Panelists | Iván Navarro (Artist | Paul Kasmin Gallery | New York, TEMPLON | Paris, Brussels)  

Known for his large-scale installations in both public and indoor spaces, using neon as a primary medium paired with mirrored reflections, Iván Navarro discusses various projects on view in Chicago within the context of his relationship to critiquing power and institutional structures. Additional artists and panelists to be announced. Presented in partnership with Artnet.  

To read full descriptions of the selected artworks, click here.  

Past IN/SITU curators include Florence Derieux (2017) | Independent Curator; Diana Nawi (2016) | Associate Curator at Pérez Art Museum Miami; Louis Grachos (2015) | Executive Director of The Contemporary Austin; Renaud Proch (2014) | Executive Director, Independent Curators International (ICI); Shamim M. Momin (2013) | Director and Curator, Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND); and Michael Ned Holte (2012) | Independent curator and art critic.

EXPO VIDEO  

The 2018 EXPO VIDEO program, entitled Portrait of a Tongue — Towards Non-Visibility, will be on view in two large-format screenings rooms on the main floor of Festival Hall. Curated by Anna Gritz (Curator, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin), EXPO VIDEO features an in-depth presentation of dynamic and provocative videos by nine artists whose films question the material reality of contents pictured in an image, including a dedicated two-channel installation by Kandis Williams (Night Gallery | Los Angeles); and a group presentation of artists Judy Chicago’s (Jessica Silverman Gallery | San Francisco and Salon94 | New York) seminal Women and Smoke (1971), featuring complex firework pieces that involved site-specific performances around California; a cinematic and visceral investigation into the physicality of film by Ed Atkins (Gavin Brown's enterprise | New York, Rome); and Kathleen White’s (Martos Gallery | New York) earliest post-college performance, The Spark Between L And D (1987) — made in response to the global AIDS crisis, the film demonstrates a humorous and horrific allegory of the artist’s transcendent sense for loss, among others.  

“For this year's EXPO VIDEO screening program, I assembled a group of artistic positions that look at the body as a way to escape the limiting options for existence that our socially conditioned sensorium leaves us with," said KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin Curator Anna Gritz. "Somewhere between mysticism, media critique and empathy, the program petitions for a reimagining of what it means to have a body, or what it means to have to have seen, heard, touched.”  

2018 EXPO VIDEO Artists:  

Screening Room 1  

Kandis Williams | Night Gallery, Los Angeles  

Eurydice (2018)  

Screening Room 2  

Ed Atkins | Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York, Rome  

Delivery To The Following Recipient Failed Permanently (2011)  

Hannah Black | Arcadia Missa, London

My Bodies (2014)

Judy Chicago | Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco and Salon 94, New York  

Women and Smoke (1971)  

Tony Cokes | Video Data Bank  

6^ (2001)  

Adam Putnam | P.P.O.W, New York  

Reclaimed Empire (2008–2017)  

Nicole Wermers | Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco  

Palisades (1998)  

Kathleen White | Martos Gallery, New York  

The Spark Between L And D (1987)  

To read full Curatorial Statement and descriptions of the selected artworks, click here.  

Past EXPO VIDEO curators include Ali Subotnick (2017) | Independent Curator; Daria de Beauvais (2016) | Curator at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris); Alfredo Cramerotti (2015) | Director of MOSTYN (Wales, United Kingdom); Astria Suparak, (2014) | independent curator; and Dean Otto (2013) | Program Manager of the Film/Video Department at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center.

EXPO Sound    

The 2018 EXPO Sound program entitled The Afterlife Will Have Everything, curated by Saskia Hubert and David Gryn for Daata Editions (an online platform for the sale of commissioned artist video, sound and web art editions), introduces recent artworks by select international artists whose works explore the role of speech within the context of the rise of artificial intelligence, and a growing aspiration for human embodiment.   “The 2018 EXPO Sound program exposes the voice as the designator of present comfort and future angst,” said Daata Editions Director David Gryn. “Amidst the waves of artificial intelligence, there is an increased need to perceive chances brought to us, risks to anticipate and actions to take in preserving self-evident commodities. The voice is in flux and the selection of 2018 sound works signifies this process, illuminating present and future dimensions of voice.”

Paired with sound pieces produced by current students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the program will be installed at the /Dialogues Stage within the exposition hall, providing a dynamic interlude to the panel programming at the 2018 edition.  

2018 EXPO Sound Artists:    

Maria Antelman | Daata Editions Thora Dolven Balke| Daata Editions Jenny Boyles | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Matt Copson | Daata Editions Xiaolong Fang | School of the Art Institute of Chicago FlucT | Daata Editions Jack E Jacob | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Anthony Janas | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Yitong Lu | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Kevin McGrath/Yu Nong Lin | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Fay Nicolson | Daata Editions Marina Rosenfeld | Daata Editions  

Jon Skoog | Daata Editions  

Andy Slater | School of the Art Institute of Chicago  

Stephen Vitiello | Daata Editions      

To read the full Curatorial Statement, click here.

IN/SITU Outside  

IN/SITU Outside provides the opportunity for EXPO CHICAGO exhibitors to present temporary public art installations situated along the Lakefront and throughout Chicago neighborhoods, presented in partnership with the Chicago Park District (CPD), the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and Navy Pier.

The selections for 2018 IN/SITU Outside installations include Justin Brice Guariglia (MARUANI MERCIER) | We Are The Asteroid I (2018), Navy Pier; Iván Navarro (Paul Kasmin Gallery) | This Land is Your Land (2014), Polk Bros Park, Navy Pier; and Lawrence Weiner | OUT OF SIGHT (2016), Maggie Daley Park and 606/Walsh Park.  

The 2018 IN/SITU Outside works join previously sited installations, including: Bernar Venet’s (Paul Kasmin Gallery) | Disorder: 9 Uneven Angles (2015), Congress Pkwy and Columbus Drive; Mark Di Suvero (Paula Cooper Gallery) | Magma (2008-2011) and Destino (2003), Queen’s Landing and East of Lakeshore Drive / 53rd Street; Daniel Buren (Bortolami) | Attrape-Soleil (2013), Chicago’s Museum Campus and Ewerdt Hilgemann (BORZO Gallery) | Habakuk (Homage to Max Ernst) (2014), Chicago’s Museum Campus.  

2018 IN/SITU Outside Artists:  

Justin Brice Guariglia | MARUANI MERCIER  We Are The Asteroid I (2018)  

Presented with Navy Pier and made possible by a grant from Science Rising and the Union of Concerned Scientists  

Located at Navy Pier  

Iván Navarro | Paul Kasmin Gallery  

This Land is Your Land (2014)  

Presented with Navy Pier  

Located at Polk Bros Park, Navy Pier  

Lawrence Weiner | Courtesy of the Artist and Larry Warsh  

OUT OF SIGHT (2016)  

Presented with the Chicago Park District and DCASE  

Located at Maggie Daley Park and the 606/Walsh Park