The University of Chicago will once again serve as a partner and participant in EXPO CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, September 27–30, 2018 at Navy Pier.

In its seventh edition, EXPO CHICAGO, presents artwork from leading galleries from Chicago and around the world. Through collaborative EXPO ART WEEK, /Dialogues, and Special Exhibition programs, it also reveals how the University of Chicago is shaping Chicago's greater contemporary art landscape.

As in years past, the 2018 EXPO CHICAGO features the work of DoVA alumni and faculty and showcases several University of Chicago arts organizations.

For information on tickets, hours, and a full list of EXPO CHICAGO programs and participants, visit expochicago.com.

CONCURRENT EXPO CHICAGO EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

Events and Openings
EXPO ART WEEK kicks off with an evening of overlapping receptions and programming on Chicago’s vibrant South Side. Explore a few of the galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces in this dynamic community of arts and culture. 
FREE. Complimentary shuttle transportation will be provided between Sweet Water Foundation and the University of Chicago for Town Hall participants. Throughout the evening, a hop-on-hop-off shuttle will be circulating the University of Chicago campus. Guest parking is available in the University’s Campus North Garage at 55th Street and Ellis Avenue.

For Freedoms Federation Town Hall
Tuesday, September 25, 4:00–5:45pm
Sweet Water Foundation, Perry Ave Commons, 5749 S. Perry Avenue
For Freedoms—a platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists—in collaboration with the Smart Museum of Art, Sweet Water Foundation, and EXPO CHICAGO, present a town hall that aims to model how art and discourse can engage communities. This Town Hall features a series of discussions between artists and practitioners across disciplines and generations addressing strategies for reclaiming and operating within public space. There will be time following each discussion for guests to workshop the ideas presented and explore strategies that may be applicable to their own practices.
Free, but space is limited for the Town Hall. Please register in advance (registration opens August 25).

Shadi Habib Allah
Tuesday, September 25, 5:00–8:00pm
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 5811 S. Ellis Avenue, Cobb Hall, 4th floor
Palestinian artist Shadi Habib Allah works across film, drawing, sculpture, and installation, often drawing on a process of deep research and on-the-ground physical engagement in specific locales. Richly varied in form and focus, his recent projects run the gamut from traveling along illicit trade routes with Bedouin smugglers to documenting labor and banter between mechanics in a Miami body shop. For his exhibition at the Renaissance Society, Habib Allah presents new photographs alongside recent video works.

Candice Lin: A Hard White Body, A Porous Slip | Opening Reception and Artist Tour
Tuesday, September 25, 6:00–8:00pm
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, The University of Chicago, 915 E 60th Street
Bringing together fragile porcelain fragments in a fountain-like arrangement alongside drawings, archival documents and audio-visual works, Los Angeles-based artist Candice Lin weaves together narratives of racial, sexual and gender marginality with processes of decay, contamination and purification. Lin’s installation draws on the history of 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition and the artist’s ongoing exploration of the biographies of three distinct figures: novelist James Baldwin, botanist and first woman to circumnavigate the globe Jeanne Baré, and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian. Artist-led tour of the exhibition begins at 6:30pm.

Jason Doge: The Broad Church of Night | Opening Reception
Tuesday, September 25, 6:00–8:00pm
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, The University of Chicago, 5701 S. Woodlawn Avenue
For his first solo exhibition in Chicago, Berlin-based American artist Jason Dodge will further expand the reach of his sculptural language and its handle on the serendipitous poetry of everyday life. Dodge’s site-specific installation, conceived in direct, “live” response to the peculiar architecture of the Neubauer Collegium Gallery, will be animated in part by the Jamaican poet Ishion Hutchinson, from whom the exhibition derives its title.

The Time Is Now! | Expo Art Week Kick-Off Party
Tuesday, September 25, 8:00–10:00pm
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue
End your evening at the Smart Museum of Art to celebrate The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960–1980, which explores the cultural history of Chicago’s South Side during a momentous era of change and conflict, from the Black Arts Movement to the Chicago Imagists. The party features the live collaborative performance “Cultural Confluence” from Douglas R. Ewart’s Nyahbingi Drum Choir and Tatsu Aoki’s Miyumi Project that blends global traditions into a unique confluence of concepts and cultures that represent now and the future. Plus, food, drink, and after-hours access to the museum. 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27–SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

DoVA at EXPO CHICAGO 
Sep 27–30, 2018 
EXPO CHICAGO, Navy Pier, Booth 170 
Focused on making, the Department of Visual Arts (DoVA) is one of the many specialized knowledge communities at the University of Chicago. We encourage the development of independent and challenging thought as expressed and inscribed in the visual arts. This year, DoVA’s booth at Expo Chicago presents work by the MFA class of 2017 curated by Alyssa Brubaker and Alexandra Drexelius.
Presented by UChicago Arts and Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

Book Launch | Art In Chicago: A History From The Fire To Now
Friday, September 28, 5pm
EXPO CHICAGO, Navy Pier
Art in Chicago is a magisterial account of the long history of Chicago art, from the rupture of the Great Fire in 1871 to the present. Published as part of Art Design Chicago by the University of Chicago Press, the book is co-edited by art historian Maggie Taft (UChicago PhD 2014) and Robert Cozzolino, Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings, Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art, this newly launched book will be available for a signing at the /Dialogues Stage as part of the symposium Present Histories: Art & Design In Chicago. 

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29

Dimensions of Citizenship —U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale
Saturday, September 29, 2–3pm
EXPO CHICAGO, Navy Pier
How do we visualize belonging? Tracing the responsibility of the architect and the artist to depict not only flows of data, but also manifestations of glitches or abstractions, this discussion will examine the role of representation as an agent to reveal truth. Moderated by Mimi Zeiger, Co-Curator of the US Pavilion, this panel will be hosted within the context of the exhibition at the Venice Biennale for Architecture, entitled Dimensions of Citizenship. Panelists: Keller Easterling (Architect, Writer and Yale University Professor), Laura Kurgan (Associate Professor of Architecture, Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University), and Robert Gerard Pietrusko (Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Architecture, Harvard University Graduate School of Design). Moderated by Mimi Zeiger (Co-Curator, U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale). Followed by a book signing with the curators.
Presented by EXPO CHICAGO in partnership with CULTURED Magazine, and commissioners of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale’s U.S. Pavilion, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

Making a University Museum
Sunday, September 30, 1pm
EXPO CHICAGO, Navy Pier
Explore the role that contemporary art plays at university museums nationwide, and get insights into the Smart Museum’s current collection and acquisition strategy through projects like Expanding Narratives: The Figure and the Ground. The panelists will also talk about the work selected for the Northern Trust Purchase Prize and the specific impact of adding emerging artists to the collection. Panelists: Alison Gass (Dana Feitler Director, Smart Museum of Art) and Jill Ingrassia-Zingales (Member of the Smart Museum’s Board of Governors). Moderated by Sarah Thornton (author and sociologist of culture).
Space is limited. This VIP program is presented as part of Exchange by Northern Trust: An Interactive Conversation Around the Art of Collecting.