Artforum

EXPO CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, announced today the fourteen artists who are creating work for the third edition of its citywide public art initiative OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project. Titled, Interlude at Hand, the program will feature the works by Sam Durant, Judy Chicago, Theaster Gates, and Portia Munson, among others, and will be on view from September 17 to October 7.

“The curatorial framework of the 2018 program interrogates various contemporary thematics that employ a hand-made gesture—from signs of protest, to texts, archives and modes of representation,” said EXPO CHICAGO director of programming Stephanie Cristello, who curated this year’s OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project in collaboration with Alexis Brocchi, the exposition’s exhibitor relations and programming coordinator, and Daniel Schulman, Chicago’s department of cultural affairs and special events program director.

Commenting on the works going on view, Cristello said that Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates’s site-specific installation series “Black Madonna” (2018), sourced from the Johnson Publishing Company’s archives, “reveals the unique viewing experience of OVERRIDE, as [it is] both embedded within, and critically engaged with, the advertising language the works adopt.” The series will be displayed on a billboard located at 515 W. Ida B. Wells Dr.

“Images pervading the city, inviting us to look at something other than a cell phone advertisement are so important,” said Gates. “Images that question and affirm who we are as we walk and bike and drive. The Billboard, adopted by artists like Martine Syms and Hank Willis Thomas, are a necessary intervention in our cities.”

The full list of participating artists is as follows:

John Bankston
Olaf Breuning
Brian Calvin
Judy Chicago
Douglas Coupland
Sam Durant
Paul Heyer
Glenn Ligon
Portia Munson 
Anahita Razmi
Lee Wan
Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez
Theaster Gates