/Dialogues 2016

Friday, September 23, 2016

The New Global Economy: Contemporary Art from Africa and its Diaspora in the Marketplace

Featuring Collector Kenneth Montague, Artist Mary Sibande, and Logan Center Exhibitions Curator Yesomi Umolu. Moderated by Bomi Odufunade.

This panel will survey how contemporary art practice in Africa has been enacted through globalization. Moderated by Bomi Odufunade, the speakers will identify the opportunities and challenges of artists working within the world’s fastest growing continent. How has this rapid growth impacted artists in the marketplace today? This question will be considered through the voices of institutional and independent curators, a collector, and an artist.

Documenta 14: Looking South

Featuring Artists Irena Haiduk, Claire Pentecost and Angelo Plessas. Moderated by Dieter Roelstraete, Curator | Documenta 14.

A roundtable devoted to Documenta, the quinquennial exhibition of contemporary art held in Kassel since 1955; Roelstraete will moderate a conversation between participants from past Documenta editions and artists taking part in the upcoming 14th iteration, which will take place simultaneously in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany. Discussing the exhibition’s temporary relocation to the crisis-stricken Greek capital in particular, this panel will focus on large-scale exhibition making and globalized art practice in relation to intensifying socio-economic instability and uncertainty. Presented in partnership with Goethe Institut Chicago.

A History of Performance in 20 Minutes

Featuring Guillaume Désanges, Curator and Art Critic with Frédéric Cherboeuf, Performer.

Led by Désanges, along with Cherboeuf, the two explore the history of performance art through gesture and movement, creating a living exhibition separate from objects and traditional historical discourse. The presentation has previously been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), De Appel (Amsterdam) Artists Space (New York), Centre d’Art Santa Monica (Barcelona) and U-TURN (Copenhagen), among other major institutions.

ART & LANGUAGE Symposium | Conceptual Paradise

Featuring Director of the film Conceptual Paradise Stefan Römer, Collector and Founder of The Philippe Méaille Collection - Château de Montsoreau Philippe Méaille, Independent Curator Guillaume Désanges and International Curator of The Philippe Méaille Collection - Château de Montsoreau Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts.

Established in the late 1960s, ART & LANGUAGE has been a shifting collaborator practice that many feel launched Conceptual Art. Stemming from the title of Director Stefan Römer’s documentary, Conceptual Paradise, which examines the debates that allowed the intellectual movement of Conceptual Art to emerge, this panel discussion invites a selection of individuals, including Römer, who have a singular and extensive knowledge of ART & LANGUAGE’s legacy.

ART & LANGUAGE Symposium | Keynote: ART & LANGUAGE

Featuring ART & LANGUAGE’s Mel Ramsden and Michael Baldwin in conversation with Independent Curator Guillaume Désanges and International Curator of The Philippe Méaille Collection - Château de Montsoreau Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts.

This discussion will examine ART & LANGUAGE’s role in the definition of Conceptual Art, and the creation of a new and ongoing radical paradigm in art and history. The panel will also address how the movement shaped itself while demystifying the heroic figure of the individual artist, and how its foundations are rooted in contemporary epistemological and philosophical issues that first emerged in the 1960s.

ART & LANGUAGE Symposium | Conceptualism and Rock & Roll

Featuring ART & LANGUAGE’s Mel Ramsden and Michael Baldwin and Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at SAIC Seth Kim-Cohen. Moderated by Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art at the RISD Museum Dominic Molon.

Examining the relationship between Conceptual Art and rock and roll music, this panel delves into the collaboration between ART & LANGUAGE and the experimental rock band Red Krayola which began with Mayo Thompson in 1967. Moderated by Dominic Molon, whose exhibition Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 took place at the MCA in 2007, the discussion will focus on the improbable yet historically fruitful relationship between a music genre associated with intensity and excess and an approach within the contemporary visual arts defined by rigorously reductive and administrative aesthetic.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

EXPO VIDEO | Ghost in the Screen

Daria de Beauvais, 2016 EXPO VIDEO Curator | Palais de Tokyo and Stephanie Cristello, Director of Programming | EXPO CHICAGO and Editor-in-Chief of THE SEEN

Curated in two distinct sections, the 2016 EXPO VIDEO program traces darker thematics in contemporary film, video, and new media work. Located on the west end of Festival Hall, the pieces included in The Yellow Wallpaper and Daedalus are imbued with mystery, archetypal images of the underworld, and psychological references to the unknown. This panel will trace the more haunted potentials of film from the last two decades, showing the evolution of video art and the experimentation of many techniques—from scratched film to 16mm to digital technologies. This interview will examine de Beauvais’ motivations for the concurrent programs, discuss the artists’ works on view, and how EXPO VIDEO relates to her current curatorial practice in recent exhibitions.

Hans Ulrich Obrist | In Conversation with Joseph Grigely

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes, Director of International Projects | Serpentine Galleries and Joseph Grigely, Chicago-based artist and academic

Internationally renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes, Director of International Projects | Serpentine Galleries, in conversation with Chicago-based artist and academic Joseph Grigely on the legacy and importance of his work. Presented in partnership with Cultured Magazine.

MCA Presents: Kerry James Marshall In Conversation with Sarah Thornton

Featuring author and cultural sociologist Sarah Thornton and artist Kerry James Marshall.

Renowned author and cultural sociologist, Sarah Thornton, will interview Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall to align with the closing of his retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (April 23 – September 25, 2016). Considered one of America’s greatest living painters, Marshall explores African American identity in American history and Western art historical movements—from the Renaissance through twentieth century abstraction—in his signature large-scale interiors, landscapes and portraits. Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, a survey of his paintings from the last 35 years, will soon travel to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Presented in partnership with the MCA.

Picturing Punk: The Legacy of Mark Morrisroe

Featuring Beatrix Ruf, Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Jack Pierson, Artist. Moderated by Linda Yablonsky, Artforum

This panel will focus on the work of artist Mark Morrisroe (1959–1989), providing an insight into the radical and innovative output of his short career. Known for his performances and photographic work, Morrisroe was germane to the development of the punk scene in Boston in the 1970s, and mid–late 1980s in New York City. This discussion will expand on first comprehensive monograph on the artist’s work published in 2011, edited by Ruf with contributions by Yablonsky, alongside Jack Pierson, an artist from the group of photographers known as the Boston School.

Aperture Live: On the Direct Gaze

Featuring Deana Lawson, Artist, and Franklin Sirmans, Director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Moderated by Brendan Wattenberg, Managing Editor of Aperture Magazine

Join photographer Deana Lawson for a conversation about style, beauty, and African American identity in photography in conversation with Franklin Sirmans, moderated by Brendan Wattenberg, Managing Editor of Aperture Magazine. For Lawson, a Guggenheim Fellow and featured artist in MoMA's New Photography exhibition in 2011 and recent solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, an intense curiosity about cultural dynamics sets the tone for striking, large-format images taken in the US, the Caribbean, and Africa. Presented in partnership with the Aperture Foundation.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Publication as Exhibition

This panel will examine how publishing models have influenced the production of exhibitions, and vice versa, since the 1960s. Featuring voices from different platforms—from art book publishing and editorial focuses on curating, to online formats and publication-owned project spaces—this discussion will trace how each of these sites for contemporary art has shifted in recent years. Presented in partnership with the Italian Cultural Institute.

Pablo León de la Barra | In Conversation With Iván Navarro

Pablo León de la Barra, Independent Curator and Iván Navarro, Artist

Internationally renowned curator Pablo León de la Barra, independent curator based in London/New York and curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for the Latin American phase of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, inconversation with Iván Navarro (Paul Kasmin) on the legacy and importance of his work.

Curating in Place

Featuring Dan Handel, Curator of Design and Architecture | Israel Museum; Aric Chen, Lead Curator for Design and Architecture | M+, Hong Kong, Zoë Ryan, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design | Art Institute of Chicago; and James Zemaitis, Curator and Director of Museum Relations | R & Company. Moderated by Jonathan Solomon, Director of the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects | The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

This panel will consider contemporary approaches to the collection and exhibition of architecture and design. Considering both how design is influenced by the places in which it is conceived, fabricated and used; and the local and global influences on design exhibition, this discussion will trace current practices of curating in the field today. Presented in partnership with the William Bronson and Grayce Slovet and Mitchell Lecture Series in Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and support from the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.