Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Debra Kerr of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.

&nbsp;

Age: 59

Current Position: Executive Director

Hometown: Chicago for 32 years. Original hometown: Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Previous Occupations: Director of YouthMuse and Executive Vice President at Shedd Aquarium

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

Restaurant: Mart Anthony&rsquo;s on Hubbard is quintessential old-school Italian, and the food is amazing.

Shop: Can I say my favorite shopping is the store at Intuit? We have so many cool things right now, from painted Chinese parasols to funky jewelry to hand-made dolls to decorated boxes.

Read: The Devil and Webster by Jean Hanff Korelitz is a recent read. It&rsquo;s so timely as our society struggles with both student entitlement and instructor entitlement in the university environment.

Travel: Southwest Airlines is a favorite. It&rsquo;s so easy to make changes in my plans, since the tickets can be refunded to my account! I just hop on the orange line near my home in the south loop and I&rsquo;m at Midway in 20 minutes.

Music: I&rsquo;m digging the opportunities to hear Indonesian gamelan from the new Chicago Balinese Gamelan (performing Dec. 20 at Merit School of Music) and the Javanese ensemble that plays select Thursdays at Rickshaw Republic restaurant

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your background and how you originally connected with Intuit?

Debra Kerr:&nbsp;My museum career started about 25 years ago at Shedd Aquarium, where I worked for 17 years. I&rsquo;m a total museum geek! My personal passion is about the role museums can and should be playing in social good and social justice. In 2010 I formed a project called YouthMuse, which engaged young people in creating online social change campaigns that aligned with the missions of the museums where the teens were participating. One of the museums that asked me to get involved was Intuit, and I fell in love. Outsider art is made oftentimes by artists who are disenfranchised in some way, and the stories of the artists allow us to have meaningful conversations about physical and mental disabilities, the impact of violence and abuse and incarceration, poverty, gender and cultural identity, homelessness, and loss&mdash;all topics of relevance in our society today. In 2014, the executive director position came open, and I jumped at the chance to help grow this small nonprofit into a museum with an important voice in the Chicago cultural scene.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical day in the life.

DK: Ha! Every day is different, which is part of the fun. I might be plunging a clogged toilet in the morning and standing on a stage at the House of Blues in the evening. Most of my days are spent talking to donors and board members or strategizing with our small, yet amazing, staff on anything from memberships to education programs. Every day at Intuit involves meeting a museum guest and showing them something cool, like the recreation of Henry Darger&rsquo;s Room.

&nbsp;

CGN: Share some successes as well as challenges from this year.

DK:&nbsp;An amazing opportunity&mdash;one that we never expected&mdash;came to us earlier this year. Howard Tullman of 1871 is selling his loft space on the second floor of our building, and we are in the process of buying this space. It&rsquo;s very exciting, because it will double our size. That brings about the challenges of staffing additional space and refinancing our mortgage, but it also brings the opportunity to display our collection and give our guests a more in-depth experience of this amazing art genre. Currently, two or three special exhibitions are available at any given time, but now we&rsquo;ll be able to share some amazing pieces from our own collection in a permanent exhibition&mdash;and just in time for 2018&rsquo;s citywide initiative, Art Design Chicago, which will celebrate Chicago&rsquo;s national and international art influence.

&nbsp;

CGN: You were Executive Vice President at the John G. Shedd Aquarium for 11 years before joining Intuit. Are there any key lessons or values that you have learned from holding leadership roles in such public organizations?

DK: My leadership philosophy is to be both humble and self-confident. With self-confidence one doesn&rsquo;t need to boast about one&rsquo;s accomplishments, especially when what we do in the museum world is accomplished by a team. This perspective serves me well, coming from such a large institution to a small one. At Intuit, I wear many hats, such as CFO, HR director, development director, IT troubleshooter and store cashier, depending on the day. If I didn&rsquo;t already believe in a little humility, running a small museum certainly would instill that quality!

My Shedd background plus my many years teaching museum management in the museum studies program at Northwestern&rsquo;s School of Professional Studies has exposed me to many facets of museum operation. Thank goodness, because running a small nonprofit, with its inherent challenges of too few resources, means this is the hardest job I&rsquo;ve ever had. It&rsquo;s also the most fun, since Intuit has a great team of folks who every day turn on the creativity to get the most done with the fewest resources. My favorite new phrase&mdash;credit goes to Lisa Corrin of the Block Museum:&nbsp;&quot;Intuit punches far above its weight class.&quot;

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;How do you see Chicago&rsquo;s art scene in comparison to other cities? What do you think makes it particularly unique?

DK: Most Chicagoans don&rsquo;t realize that Chicago is renowned as a center for outsider art. For its contribution to Art Design Chicago in 2018, Intuit will tell the stories of the outsider artists who lived and worked in Chicago, and the collectors and enthusiasts who sought them out, in a major new exhibit, Chicago Calling: Art Against the Flow. Early on, other cities didn&rsquo;t consider this genre along with the mainstream, Euro-centric art world. That&rsquo;s rapidly changing now, but Chicago can take pride in being a city that embraced edgy and unusual before it was fashionable. This aspect of Chicago&rsquo;s reputation is more well known elsewhere than here.&nbsp;Four European venues are excited to host our exhibit, where it will travel in 2019 and 2020.

&nbsp;

CGN: How have you seen technology directly affect/alter the art world?

DK:&nbsp;One of the coolest uses of technology is to discover what earlier works are under the paint or using science to analyze the work, such as the recent announcement by the Louvre of a Jaconde Nue, or nude Mona Lisa. My favorite use of technology, though, is to provide museum access to audiences around the world. By putting our exhibits and collections online, Intuit, despite its size, is a leading museum of self-taught art that is now accessible to international audiences.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;What do you want to tell a young person considering this business?

DK:&nbsp;Since I teach museum management, I&rsquo;m always coaching young people who are thinking of working in museums or galleries. You don&rsquo;t go into this field to make money. You do it because you can&rsquo;t imagine doing anything else. This is not work you do to live; this is a life of living to work. It&rsquo;s a passion, a great love. More realistically, I suggest volunteering first to get your foot in the door and discover if that experience ignites the passion. Most of Intuit&rsquo;s employees, including me, volunteered here first before being hired.

&nbsp;

CGN: One piece of advice you would send back to yourself when you started out?

DK:&nbsp;Ignore my father&rsquo;s well-meant advice to seek a career that would guarantee a salary. It took me 10 years to figure out I wanted to work in a museum. Follow your passion.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

DK:&nbsp;Travel. But even that doesn&rsquo;t happen outside of art, because I visit museums around the world when I travel, and I pursue my own creativity in the form of travel photography.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

DK:&nbsp; My favorite piece is completely mainstream: the statue of &quot;Ceres&quot; on top the Board of Trade Building, by John Storrs. I love that a female goddess sits atop a monument to a traditionally male-dominated field. Sometimes a maquette of the statue appears on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I can get a close-up view of her.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s coming up next at the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art?

DK:&nbsp; Intuit is partnering with jorsTAP Chicago to present a family-friendly, transgender, tap-dancing version of Hansel and Gretel, Dec. 7-10. It&rsquo;s totally fun, and a great holiday-time outing. When I saw it, I had a giant smile pasted on my face throughout the performance. Children and teens are free on the Saturday and Sunday matinee performances on the 9th and 10th. Tap-dancing witches and cats with beautiful David Csicsko-designed props: You won&rsquo;t believe it until you see it!

&nbsp;

Debra Kerr is the Executive Director of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago. For more information about the gallery please visit:<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/chicago-calling-art-against-the-flow--2"> Intuit.</a>

(Key Image, Photo Credit: Northwestern University)&nbsp;

An Interview with Debra Kerr, Executive Director of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art

<h2>Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs</h2>

After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci&rsquo;s &ldquo;Salvator Mundi&rdquo; sold on Wednesday night for $450.3 million with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso&rsquo;s &ldquo;Women of Algiers,&rdquo; which fetched $179.4 million at Christie&rsquo;s in May 2015. The buyer was not immediately disclosed.

There were gasps throughout the sale, as the bids climbed by tens of millions up to $225 million, by fives up to $260 million, and then by twos. As the bidding slowed, and a buyer pondered the next multi-million-dollar increment, Jussi Pylkkanen, the auctioneer, said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an historic moment; we&rsquo;ll wait.&rdquo;

-- Via Robin Pogrebin&nbsp;and&nbsp;Scott&nbsp;Reyburn, The New York Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/arts/design/leonardo-da-vinci-salvator-mundi-christies-auction.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=0">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="A kayak tour group on Chicago’s Riverwalk. Chart at left shows estimated visitors per year for recent U.S. waterfront projects. (Original Photo ©Christian Phillips)" data-rich-file-id="2489" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2489/original/chicagoriverwalk.jpg" />

<h2>Three U.S. Cities Reinventing the Modern Waterfront</h2>

Projects such as the High Line in New York City and Discovery Green in Houston have upped the ante for cities, showcasing landscape architecture as a powerful tool for urban change and raising public awareness of the multifaceted value of well-designed public spaces.

These projects&mdash;and many more like them&mdash;are a far cry from the pastoral, largely unprogrammed spaces championed in the last century by visionaries like Olmsted, Burnham, L&rsquo;Enfant, Kessler, and Cleveland. Today&rsquo;s urban parks, instead, face intense pressure to provide &ldquo;something to do&rdquo; for an increasingly wide array of users&mdash;and are often, by necessity, thrust into new management and operational structures (think: conservancy or public/private partnership models). For the first time in history, the&nbsp;majority of the world&rsquo;s population&nbsp;lives in urban areas. Since the average city apartment&rsquo;s footprint is significantly smaller than that found in suburbia, urban public spaces increasingly serve as an expansion of one&rsquo;s apartment. The city, in essence, becomes one giant shared frontyard.

--Via Gina Ford, Urban Land Magazine

<a href="https://urbanland.uli.org/planning-design/three-u-s-cities-reinventing-modern-waterfront/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Florentijn Hofman's inflatable duck afloat in Hong Kong during the summer of 2013. Photo: Philippe LopezAFP/Getty Images." data-rich-file-id="2488" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2488/original/east-west-art-market.jpg" />

<h2>The Art Market Moves East: How Gagosian, David Zwirner, and 14 Other Western Art Businesses Are Trying to Expand to Asia</h2>

In the past year alone, no fewer than six galleries have opened or announced plans to open an outpost or office somewhere in Asia.

Amid announcement after announcement, it may feel like Western art businesses have been working forever to tap into the Asian art market. But in fact, the push to set up outposts in China&mdash;as well as South Korea and Japan&mdash;began less than a decade ago. And much of the momentum has picked up only in the last several years.&nbsp;

--Via artnet News

<a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/asia-round-up-galleries-auction-houses-1135454">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>The Man Behind the Wall&nbsp;</h2>

It seems fitting that Bill Walker wants to meet on the corner of Woodlawn and Hyde Park Boulevard. The street has always been his workplace, and that&#39;s where you most easily picture him&mdash;the father of the community mural movement, capturing, as he once wrote, the &quot;human side of street life in the city.&quot;

Photographs and films of Walker from the 60s and 70s always show him on the street, on sidewalks and in parking lots, climbing scaffolds to fill brick walls and viaducts with spirited reflections on the urban black experience. In three decades of painting murals in Chicago&#39;s neighborhoods, he became an authority on the culture of poverty, racism, and the simple healing effects of goodwill. The street was both Walker&#39;s milieu and his canvas.

--Via&nbsp;Jeff Huebner, Chicago Reader

<a href="https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-man-behind-the-wall/Content?oid=894264">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption=" Internationally renowned curator Dieter Roelstraete will oversee all aspects of the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions Gallery. Photo by Franziska Gilli" data-rich-file-id="2487" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2487/original/uchicagonews.jpg" />

<h2>Dieter Roelstraete appointed curator of Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society</h2>

Dieter Roelstraete, an internationally renowned curator of contemporary art, has been named the next curator of the&nbsp;Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.

In his new role, effective November 10, Roelstraete will oversee all aspects of the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions Gallery, working with the University arts community as well as with arts organizations in the city of Chicago and around the world.

Roelstraete joins the Neubauer Collegium after serving on the curatorial team that organized documenta 14, the international art exhibition that ran this past spring and summer in Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece. Widely hailed as a significant statement about the relevance and aesthetic concerns of the contemporary art world, the show brought together work by 160 artists at more than 80 sites.

--Via Andrew Bauld, UChicagoNews

<a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2017/11/09/dieter-roelstraete-appointed-curator-neubauer-collegium-culture-and-society">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

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News from Around the Art World: November 20, 2017

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Peter Vale of Vale Craft Gallery.

&nbsp;

Age: 54

Current Position: Owner/Director of Vale Craft Gallery

Hometown: Chicago

Previous Occupation: Instructor in museum education programs

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Restaurant: Tallboy Taco

2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Shop: Jeni&rsquo;s Ice Cream

3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Read: American Craft Magazine

4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Neighborhood: Old Town

5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Music: WFMT

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your background and how Vale Craft Gallery came to fruition?

Peter Vale:&nbsp;Since childhood, I have always enjoyed making art and looking at art. As a high school senior, I took two courses in Art History and Ceramic Sculpture (both with James Mespl&eacute;) that would influence my pursuits later in life. After earning a Bachelor&rsquo;s degree in History I worked for several museums in the Boston area, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. I was an instructor in a community outreach program, which combined looking at art in the museum with hands-on art making projects.

I decided to pursue a Master&rsquo;s degree in Art History and chose a program at Boston University that&nbsp;included a Museum Studies diploma. I already had a strong interest in contemporary crafts and earned course credit while working on an exhibition of American craft. The exhibition addressed issues of social concern for the B.U. art gallery, as well as another project researching the history and future plans of the Society of Arts and Crafts, the oldest contemporary craft gallery in the country.&nbsp;

After receiving my Master&rsquo;s, I returned to Chicago and began to think about starting a gallery&nbsp;focusing&nbsp;on contemporary fine craft. I also returned to making ceramics by taking classes at Lillstreet Art Center, something I have continued to do ever since. My mother was an artist (as well as a great salesperson) making jewelry at the time. She gave me support and encouragement to pursue my interests. My aunt and cousin were also both in the gallery business.&nbsp;When I decided to open my gallery, my aunt gave me a copy of her gallery&rsquo;s consignment form and said that the first thing I should buy was a fax machine. This was new technology at the time.

I rented a small space in River North at 207 W. Superior (now occupied by Jet&rsquo;s Pizza) in the fall of 1992 and contacted artists I had seen at art fairs and craft shows. With no business background or sales experience, I learned by doing. After three years at the original location, I was fortunate to move the gallery into its current home on the lower level of 230 W. Superior, where we have great visibility on a corner location. It&rsquo;s hard to believe that Vale Craft Gallery&nbsp;is celebrating its 25th anniversary this&nbsp;November.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical day in the life.

PV: I live in Old Town and usually start my day with a walk to the gallery. The best days are busy with customers, who&nbsp;are always priority. We have a diverse clientele that includes&nbsp;established collectors as well as first time art buyers and&nbsp;shoppers looking for gifts or&nbsp;decorating their home. We also see&nbsp;tourists exploring the gallery district looking for a unique souvenir of their Chicago visit.

We frequently receive new artwork, and I enjoy changing our displays on a regular basis to add new energy to the gallery. Many of our artists are from the Chicago area or nearby states, so they deliver their art in person and we enjoy visiting with them and learning about their work. When we are not busy with visitors, we are emailing with artists and customers, or we are researching artists on the Internet, packing and shipping work, updating the sales journal and sending artists their checks. At home, I spend a lot of time gardening and playing with my cat, Frankie.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Best sale you ever had?

PV:&nbsp; The best sale was my first sale when I opened the gallery 25 years ago, because it gave me confidence in what I was doing.

&nbsp;

CGN: Share some successes as well as challenges from this year.

PV:&nbsp;We changed our July opening on short notice so that we could honor Steve Rebora, a beloved long-time gallery artist who passed away in June. Our July opening turned into a celebration of Steve Rebora&rsquo;s life and work, with many sales to the artist&rsquo;s family, friends, and collectors. An ongoing challenge had been to get River North galleries to coordinate their openings on a set schedule, but this year the galleries banded together to make it happen, starting with a fantastic mid-summer gallery night.

&nbsp;

CGN: How do you see Chicago&rsquo;s art scene in comparison to other cities? What do you think makes it unique?

PV: I think the Chicago art scene is more accessible and approachable than in other large cities. The diversity of Chicago&rsquo;s art scene, including the wide range of galleries in various neighborhoods, world class museums, architecture, a collection of public art, international fairs such as EXPO and SOFA&nbsp;and fantastic local artists, makes the city a unique destination for art lovers.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;How have you seen technology directly affect/alter the art world?

PV:&nbsp;Because people can now buy art on the Internet through galleries, auctions, and artists&rsquo; websites, there is increasing competition&nbsp;but also new opportunities&nbsp;in the online global marketplace. Although some people may choose to shop for art on websites, I feel that an image viewed on a computer does not offer the same experience as seeing (and touching) the actual object in person.

&nbsp;

CGN: What do you want to tell a young person considering this business?

PV:&nbsp;I would suggest starting with a pop-up gallery in a visible location near other galleries.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;One piece of advice you would send back to yourself when you started out?

PV:&nbsp;I would hire an assistant much earlier, rather than running the gallery by myself for the first five years.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

PV:&nbsp;Anish Kapoor&#39;s&nbsp;Cloud Gate,&nbsp;also known as &ldquo;The Bean&rdquo;

&nbsp;

CGN: Artists you admire most.

PV:&nbsp;Michael Sherrill and Janet Kelman. I admire artists who continue to experiment with their work throughout their career, learning new techniques and exploring new ideas.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s coming up next at the gallery?

PV:&nbsp;We will be changing our display for the holiday season to focus on pieces that are popular for gift giving. We also plan to redo the gallery website and add e-commerce in the coming months.

&nbsp;

Peter Vale is the Owner and Director of Vale Craft Gallery in Chicago. For more information about the gallery please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/vale-craft-gallery">Vale Craft Gallery.</a>

An interview with art dealer Peter Vale of Vale Craft Gallery

An Interview with a Dealer: Peter Vale, Vale Craft Gallery

<h2>Chicago&rsquo;s South Side Community Arts Center named a National Treasure</h2>

As the National Trust for Historic Preservation continues a push to oppose the&nbsp;elimination of the federal Historic Tax Credit program, the organization focused its attention on Chicago&rsquo;s Bronzeville community today to officially designate the South Side Community Arts Center as a National Treasure.

Situated at 3831 S. Michigan Avenue, the historic Georgian-Revival style building was originally built as a residence for grain merchant George A. Seaverns, Jr in 1892.

-- Via Jay Koziarz, Curbed Chicago

<a href="https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/11/7/16617884/bronzeville-community-arts-center-national-treasure">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2482" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2482/original/triannual.jpg" />

<h2>Here&rsquo;s the Artist List for the 2018 New Museum Triennial</h2>

The New Museum has revealed the list for its 2018 New Museum Triennial, which opens on February 13 and runs through May 27. Curated by New Museum curator Gary Carrion-Murayari and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami deputy director and chief curator Alex Gartenfeld, the exhibition will be titled &ldquo;Songs for Sabotage,&rdquo; and will include more than 30 artists from 19 countries&mdash;a much smaller group than the last triennial, in 2015, which included 51 artists.

The exhibition, which is the triennial&rsquo;s fourth edition, will loosely focus on the relationship between art objects and the societies artists hail from, with meditations on the circulation of images and the legacies of colonialism and systemic racism interspersed throughout. &ldquo;The exhibition amounts to a call for action, an active engagement, and an interference in political and social structures urgently requiring them,&rdquo; a press release reads.

-- Via Alex Greenberger, ARTNEWS

<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2017/11/13/heres-artist-list-2018-new-museum-triennial/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h2><img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2485" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2485/original/archtiects.jpg" /></h2>

<h2>In Chicago, graffiti comes into its own as public art precedes major building developments</h2>

Graffiti in Chicago is not always vandalism. Though tagging, the stylized signatures sometimes used as gang markings, still pervade alleys and the occasional blank&nbsp;wall, graffiti has come into its own as&nbsp;public art. Whether on &ldquo;permission walls&rdquo; or commissioned by businesses, many neighborhoods in Chicago are filled with large-scale artworks that, until recently, were relegated to train cars and out-of-the-way&nbsp;places. But in neighborhoods on the near northwest side and near south of the city, fewer and fewer commercial walls are left blank. Partially as an attempt to stem random tagging and partially as an attempt to connect with young locals who may be future customers, businesses and developers are commissioning, or at least allowing, 
massive works of graffiti on their property.

-- Via&nbsp;Matthew Messner, The Architects Newspaper

<a href="https://archpaper.com/2016/12/chicago-graffiti-public-art-developments/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h2>Tracing the Education of Michelangelo</h2>

It&rsquo;s rare that a major museum gives drawings top billing. They are not seen as alluring enough to engage the public. But one thing they can do is lift the veil on the artistic process, even for such a secretive artist as Michelangelo (1475-1564). And the Met&rsquo;s new exhibition does this beautifully.

-Via Cammy Brothers, The Wall Street Journal&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tracing-the-education-of-michelangelo-1510401602">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2481" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2481/original/nytimes.jpg" />

<h2>Why Richard Avedon&rsquo;s Work Has Never Been More Relevant</h2>

In 1964, Richard Avedon published &ldquo;Nothing Personal,&rdquo; a lavish coffee table book with gravure-printed portraits of individuals who do not fit into any single classification: Allen Ginsberg standing naked in a Buddhist pose opposite George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party; the puffy-eyed&nbsp;Dorothy Parker, her bags containing a lifetime of tears, side by side with a sullen and deflated, if still-shimmering,&nbsp;Marilyn Monroe; a young and earnest&nbsp;Julian Bond&nbsp;among members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and the grizzled&nbsp;William Casby,&nbsp;who had been born into slavery about 100 years earlier.

&ldquo;Nothing Personal&rdquo; was published only months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, in the period of profound cultural soul-searching following President Kennedy&rsquo;s assassination. Despite Avedon&rsquo;s glamorous reputation, it was his social conscience &mdash; revealed in the range of photographs in this book &mdash; that may be the surprise that deepens his enduring legacy.

-- Via Philip Gefter, The New York Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/arts/design/richard-avedon-nothing-personal-pace-macgill.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=arts&amp;region=rank&amp;module=package&amp;version=highlights&amp;contentPlacement=1&amp;pgtype=sectionfront&amp;_r=0">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

News from Around the Art World: November 13, 2017

An interview with Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, exhibiting at Richard Gray Gallery and Gray Warehouse September-November 2017

An Interview with Artist Jaume Plensa

Huge Mural Tackling Gentrification Coming To Logan Square Blue Line Lot

LOGAN SQUARE&nbsp;&mdash; A huge mural tackling&nbsp;gentrification&nbsp;is coming to a prominent location in Logan Square.

The mural will&nbsp;be on the wall facing the Logan Square Blue Line station&#39;s lot, where buses loop around. It will feature cultural landmarks, as well as neighborhood folks and scenes, that depict the neighborhood&#39;s once-predominant Latino community.

--&nbsp;Via&nbsp;Mina Bloom,&nbsp;DNAinfo

<a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20171018/logan-square/mural-logan-square-blue-line-parking-lot-jenny-q-sam-kirk-sandra-antongiorgi?utm_source=Logan+Square+%26+Humboldt+Park&amp;utm_campaign=a65960370c-Mailchimp-CHI&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_dfef6fa313-a65960370c-174900213">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>3Arts awards grants to more than 90 Chicago artists</h2>

More than 90 Chicago artists will receive grants Monday at the 10th annual 3Arts Awards, a yearly celebration held by the Chicago-based nonprofit organization that advocates for artists of color, artists with disabilities and women in the arts.

This year&rsquo;s unusually large group of awardees is a result of the new peer-to-peer &ldquo;Make a Wave&rdquo; giving initiative, which allowed 83 former 3Arts recipients to select 83 winners of $1000 grants.

-- Via Morgan Greene, Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/news/ct-ent-3arts-grants-20171104-story.html">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Dealer Simon Lee and Simon Lee Gallery’s Ying Yue Li." data-rich-file-id="2469" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2469/original/cyber-attacks.jpg" />

<h2>Wave of Cyber Crime Hits Art World</h2>

Hauser &amp; Wirth, London-based dealers Simon Lee, Thomas Dane, Rosenfeld Porcini, and Laura Bartlett, and Tony Karman, the president of Expo Chicago, have all been targeted by hackers or had money stolen from them in the midst of transactions over artworks, according to a report in the&nbsp;Art Newspaper. The most common form of fraud so far consists of criminals hacking into an art dealer&rsquo;s e-mail account and monitoring incoming and outgoing correspondence.

-- Via Artforum

<a href="https://www.artforum.com/news/id=71944">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2>Buyer Beware: Looted Antiquities Flood Online Sites Like Amazon, Facebook</h2>

Earlier this year, Stephennie Mulder was in her office at the University of Texas at Austin when she received a Facebook message from Yemen with pictures of gold coins and an ancient tomb.

&ldquo;I found the treasure in my towns,&rdquo; read the message from Ahmed Bakil Al Marhabi, who was a stranger to Ms. Mulder.

--&nbsp;Via&nbsp;Georgi Kantchev, The Wall Street Journal

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-online-bazaar-for-looted-antiquities-1509466087">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption=" Jacob Ochtervelt’s The Oyster Meal (around 1664-65) Commission for Looted Art in Europe" data-rich-file-id="2470" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2470/original/nazis.jpg" />

<h2>Lord Mayor of London returns Nazi-looted Dutch Old Master</h2>

The Lord Mayor of London is today (6 November) returning a Dutch Old Master that was looted from the Netherlands during the Second World War and has been on display at Mansion House, his official residence, for nearly 30 years.

The Oyster Meal by Jacob Ochtervelt (around 1664-65) was one of 14 paintings that J.H. Smidt van Gelder, the director of the children&rsquo;s hospital in Arnhem, stored in a bank vault for safekeeping during the Second World War.

The paintings were looted in January 1945, when the Nazis plundered the town after British troops were forced to retreat in the Battle of Arnhem. The Oyster Meal is one of six works the family were not able to track down after the war, despite extensive searches. It is to be handed over to Smidt van Gelder&rsquo;s 96-year-old daughter, Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, at a ceremony at Mansion House today.

-- Via Catherine Hickley, The Art Newspaper

<a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/news/lord-mayor-of-london-returns-nazi-looted-dutch-old-master">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

News from Around the Art World: November 6, 2017

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2472" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2472/original/yocylogo.jpg" />

As the first ever Year of Public Art wraps up in the coming weeks,&nbsp;Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) announced that they have designated 2018 as the &ldquo;Year of Creative Youth.&rdquo; The official naming means that&nbsp;the City has pledged&nbsp;$2 million to related programming and events and will be behind&nbsp;a Creative Youth Festival that will take place across the Millennium Park Campus on September 22, 2018, offering performance opportunities for teens at city festivals and partner events, as well as cultural grants and convenings for youth arts organizations. The event will showcase teen artists in dance, theatre, music, spoken word, the visual arts and more. Details will be announced next year.

DCASE will collaborate with Chicago Public Schools and Ingenuity, Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Library, the Department of Family and Support Services and other city departments to engage Chicago&rsquo;s youth and youth arts organizations. As part of the Year of Creative Youth, the city will work with After School Matters, Chicago Children&rsquo;s Theatre, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, Free Spirit Media, Marwen, SkyArt, Urban Gateways, Yollocalli Arts Reach-National Museum of Mexican Art and Young Chicago Authors and other organizations to inspire the next generation of artists.

Seeking to build up Chicago&#39;s reputation as an arts-centric city that attracts visitors from around the world, Mayor Emanuel said,&nbsp;&ldquo;The Year of Creative Youth provides an incredible opportunity to support the creativity and growth of artistic children across Chicago,&quot;

<img alt="" data-caption="A Marwen student" data-rich-file-id="2471" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2471/original/marwen-photog-phil-dembinki.jpg" />

The Year of Creative Youth annoucement follows the Mayor&#39;s the unveiling a few days prior&nbsp;of the City&#39;s first&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/provdrs/public_art_program/news/2017/october/public_art_plan.html">Public Art Plan</a>, through which&nbsp;Mayor Emanuel wishes to establish&nbsp;continued investments for art and cultural affairs in the 2018 budget. Proposed amusement tax changes will close an existing loophole that benefited large live performance venues while cutting taxes for neighborhood theaters. The goal is to free up&nbsp;revenue to support expanded youth programming, as well as capital projects and cultural investments across the city.

&ldquo;Chicago should be very proud of its innovative youth arts organizations&mdash;and the many cultural institutions that are committed to unleashing the creative potential of our teens and young adults,&rdquo; said DCASE Commissioner Mark Kelly. &ldquo;We are pleased to announce IncentOvate grants for six of these amazing institutions.&rdquo;

A $1.8 million investment will support the new Creative Youth Festival, expanding of existing City of Chicago cultural programming that engages youth, performance stipends for teens at City of Chicago festivals and partner events, convenings for arts educators and young artists and a marketing campaign.

An additional $200,000, amounting to nearly half of the Cultural Grants Program-IncentOvate funds awarded by DCASE will be designated to support creative youth. IncentOvate grantees organizing creative youth-focused projects include:

Art Institute of Chicago &ndash; Teen Programs 
Chicago Children&rsquo;s Choir &ndash; Long Way Home 
Inner-City Muslim Action Network &ndash; Beloved Community Ceramic Arts Studio 
Lincoln Park Zoo &ndash; Wild Marshall Square Sculpture Project 
National Museum of Mexican Art &ndash; Year of Creative Youth Exhibition and Chill Set Series 
Old Town School of Folk Music &ndash; Music Moves: An Arts &amp; Community Wellness Initiative

The complete list of grantees will be announced in the coming months.

The Year of Creative Youth is part of the Mayor&rsquo;s citywide vision for raising up youth in Chicago, including the extensive One Summer Chicago jobs program, Mayor Emanuel&rsquo;s Mentoring Initiative, Chicago City of Learning, the Chicago Public Schools Arts Education Plan, Night Out In the Parks presented by the Chicago Park District, YOUmedia at select Chicago Public Library locations and more. For details&nbsp;visit&nbsp;<a href="http://cityofchicago.org/yocy">cityofchicago.org/youth</a>

The Year of Creative Youth is also aligned with &ldquo;Art Design Chicago,&rdquo; a citywide initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art&mdash;featuring over 25 exhibitions and hundreds of public programs in 2018. Arts education and youth engagement will be important components of the overall program, including art making workshops and field trips.

To read CGN&#39;s fall 2017 interview with DCASE Commissioner Mark Kelly on the Year of Public Art, please <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/8/commissioner-mark-kelly-chicago-s-out-of-the-box-culture-wizard-on-public-art">click here</a>.&nbsp;

Top image: Marwen students

City of Chicago designates 2018 Year of Creative Youth

2018 is City's Year of Creative Youth

By GINNY VAN ALYEA&nbsp;

Friday, November 3 will be a big opening night around the city, as many galleries open major shows that will be their final exhibitions of 2017. &nbsp;The busy night also coincides with the 24th edition of SOFA, which will be taking place on Navy Pier all weekend. Following the end of the fair&#39;s show on Friday, art lovers are encouraged to go out into the city&#39;s dozens of art spaces to see what is new in area galleries. Free shuttles take people between SOFA, the MCA and River North, but openings are happening in multiple neighborhoods. Some hightlights are listed below, and our full calendar may be viewed <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar">here</a>. Note that there are several tours and artist talks also happening on Saturday, November 4.&nbsp;

See you in the galleries!&nbsp;

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

<h3>Traduttore, Traditore</h3>

On view at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/traduttore-traditore">Gallery 400</a> through December 16

Artists:&nbsp;Bani Abidi, Arturo Hern&aacute;ndez Alc&aacute;zar, Carlos Arias, Luis Camnitzer, Alejandro Cesarco, Bethany Collins, Brendan Fernandes, Dora Garc&iacute;a, Emily Jacir, Katia Kameli, Harold Mendez, Paulo Nazareth, Sherwin Ovid, Michael Rakowitz, Raqs Media Collective, Emilio Rojas, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Edra Soto,and&nbsp;Stephanie Syjuco

Traduttore, Traditore&nbsp;brings together a group of artists from around the world who employ processes of translation to expose, question, and challenge global circuits of economic and cultural capital.

<img alt="" data-caption="Traduttore, Traditore at Gallery 400 showing works by Michael Rakowitz" data-rich-file-id="2454" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2454/original/400.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>John Kiley and Dante Marioni&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;Collaborations, and John Kuhn &ndash; Astral</h3>

A unique collaboration between two masters, plus new work by a renowned glass artist.&nbsp;Exhibitions run&nbsp;through&nbsp;December 23 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/john-kiley-dante-marioni-collaborations-jon-kuhn-astral">Ken Saunders Gallery</a>

<img alt="" data-caption="John Kiley and Dante Marioni at Ken Saunders" data-rich-file-id="2461" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2461/original/saunders.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Unison &amp; social distortion</h3>

Exhibition on view&nbsp;through&nbsp;November 23 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/unison-social-distortion">Chicago Artists Coalition</a> (CAC) in the West Loop.

The Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to presents Unison, a BOLT Residency exhibition featuring a&nbsp;new series of sculptural photographic work by&nbsp;Mayumi Lake. Unison, features the artist&#39;s&nbsp;interpretation of the mythic heavenly flowers or Housouge,&nbsp;bright and bold mythical flowers, believed to bloom through the afterlife.&nbsp;

CAC also presents social distortion, a HATCH Projects exhibition featuring new works by&nbsp;Rebecca Himelstein&nbsp;and&nbsp;Joseph Wilcox.&nbsp;The work presented&nbsp;considers data, systems of comprehension and context as one. Two artists inspired by theories, respectively manifest interpretations of their studies.

<img alt="" data-caption="Mayumi Lake at CAC" data-rich-file-id="2456" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2456/original/cac.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Leeah Joo: Knots and Loose Ends</h3>

Exhibition on view through&nbsp;December 16 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/leeah-joo-knots-and-loose-ends">Andrew Bae Gallery</a>

Kurosawa&rsquo;s film&nbsp;Dreams&nbsp;has a scene where a beautiful snow spirit drapes a fallen hiker with layer upon layer of shimmering fabric.&nbsp;Despite their warmth, these blankets of snow, and&nbsp;fatigue and slumber must be shaken off for the hiker to survive. Joo says that her&nbsp;recent paintings explore different connotations of drapery as a subject and she looks to this film as inspiration for many shapes and draped forms in her work.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Leeah Joo at Andrew Bae" data-rich-file-id="2455" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2455/original/bae.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Tanya Agui&ntilde;iga &ndash; Reindigenizing the Self&nbsp;</h3>

On&nbsp;view through December 31

The works featured in Reindigenizing the Self at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/volume-gallery">VOLUME Gallery</a>&nbsp;are the result of Agui&ntilde;iga&rsquo;s own explorations into identity, driven by Latin and Mesoamerican Surrealism. Fully tapping into her Mexican heritage in both material and ideological explorations, Agui&ntilde;iga digs deep and ponders the resulting questions with a nod to Mexican surrealism and the sometimes absurdist explanations of the Popol-Vuh (the Mayan creation myth).

<img alt="" data-caption="Tanya Aguiñiga at VOLUME" data-rich-file-id="2460" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2460/original/volume.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Vale Craft Gallery &ndash; 25th Anniversary Exhibition</h3>

On view through December 30

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/vale-craft-gallery">Vale Craft Gallery</a> will mark its&nbsp;25th anniversary with a show celebrating gallery artists, and&nbsp;including&nbsp;jewelry, ceramics, glass, fiber, metal, wood and mixed media art by gallery favorites from the past 25 years.

<img alt="" data-caption="Vale Craft Gallery marks 25 Years" data-rich-file-id="2459" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2459/original/vale.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Neil Goodman - Twists and Turns: New Sculptures</h3>

On view through December 30 at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/neil-goodman-twists-and-turns-new-sculptures">Carl Hammer Gallery</a>

This well known sculptor has a show of new work.

<img alt="" data-caption="Neil Goodman at Carl Hammer" data-rich-file-id="2457" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2457/original/hammer.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Concrete, Paper, and Plastic: 3 artists, 3 works</h3>

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/concrete-paper-and-plastic-3-artists-3-works">Aron Packer Projects</a> at Chicago Gallery News through December 22

Work by Anthony Adcock, Michael Dinges and&nbsp;Brian Dettmer.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Brian Dettmer at Aron Packer" data-rich-file-id="2458" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2458/original/packer.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>Faith Wilding: un-natural Parables&nbsp;</h3>

On view at <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/faith-wilding-un-natural-parables">Western Exhibitions</a> until December 22

Aa two-part solo exhibition&nbsp;by pioneering feminist artist Faith Wilding. In Gallery 1, the gallery will present&nbsp;Natural Parables, a body of work last exhibited in 1985; large watercolor/drawing hybrids paired with oil-on-panel paintings shaped like pods. In Gallery 2 will be a new series of mixed-media watercolor paintings,&nbsp;Paraguay: Republica de la Soya, that reflect on the artist&rsquo;s recent on-the-ground research into her birth country&rsquo;s ongoing ecological crises.

<img alt="" data-caption="Faith Wilding at Western Exhibitions" data-rich-file-id="2462" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2462/original/faithwex.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<h3>David Kroll: Bouquets&nbsp;</h3>

On view at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/calendar/david-kroll-bouquets">Zolla/Lieberman</a>&nbsp;until December 21

Kroll&#39;s hyper-realistic paintings are like modern Dutch still lifes that reveal internal memories realized, and they are of private memories trapped, as if in amber, within a time of glowing solitude.

<img alt="" data-caption="David Kroll at Zolla/Lieberman" data-rich-file-id="2463" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2463/original/zlkroll.jpg" />

&nbsp;

Top of page image: Tree of Life, Faith Wilding

A preview of exhibitions opening on November 3, 2017

November 3 Openings Highlights

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Victor Armendariz of Gallery Victor Armendariz.

&nbsp;

Age: 47

Current Position: Owner/Director of Gallery Victor Armendariz

Hometown: Born, Chicago IL. Grew up on the central coast of California.

Previous Occupation: Assistant Director at Ann Nathan Gallery (1997-2017)

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

Restaurant: Daisy&rsquo;s Chicago, 2523 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60647&mdash;a friend (and one of our young collectors) is a chef at Daisy&rsquo;s

Read: Currently listening to The Great Courses lecture on the Romantic Poets on Audible

Neighborhood: Lakeview

Music: Spotify playlist of Iron &amp; Wine, Folk, The Cure and Soft Moon, and Barbra Streisand on Fridays.

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your background and how you started Gallery Victor Armendariz?

Victor Armendariz:&nbsp;I began working for the venerable Ann Nathan in 1997 after being introduced to her by her daughter <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/10/an-interview-with-a-dealer-betsy-nathan">Betsy Nathan (Pagoda Red)</a>.&nbsp; I was 27 and immediately fell in love with the gallery business.&nbsp; When Ann announced her retirement in mid 2016, I knew that opening my own gallery was the next step.&nbsp; My husband Christopher Clark and I opened Gallery Victor Armendariz in March of 2017.&nbsp; We have had five exhibitions in our new space.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;How do you sum up your program in one sentence?&nbsp;

VA: We present work in a variety of media and genres, with a strong emphasis on figurative paintings and sculpture and studio furniture. We strive to identify work that reflects a high degree of technical skill. We also believe that art should be exciting and accessible and we attempt to create exhibitions that reflect that belief.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical day in the life.

VA:&nbsp; Unpredictability is typical. My days start early at home where I check emails, social media, and catch up on everything left over from the day before.&nbsp; But once I get into the office the day can go haywire&mdash;there is never a set script. When someone walks through the door, they become my priority.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN: Share some successes as well as challenges from this year.

VA:&nbsp;I feel very grateful that we could get the gallery open in March of this year.&nbsp; Simply getting the business up and running was both our greatest success and biggest challenge.&nbsp; It would not have happened without a huge team effort on the part of my husband/business partner, my colleague Julie Danilek, the group of artists we represent who have placed so much trust in our new venture, an extremely supportive group of friends, family, collectors and members of the art community.&nbsp; We are extraordinarily proud to be part of the Chicago art community.

&nbsp;

CGN: What are some unique aspects about running this type of business, also more specifically, operating in Chicago?

VA: This is a business based on love and want, not need.&nbsp; It is our job to present works that provoke people&rsquo;s imaginations.&nbsp; Drawing the audience into the gallery is a challenge.&nbsp; People lead busy lives&mdash;we must work on capturing their attention.&nbsp; The next generation of collectors will require more and unique ways of getting their attention and we are excited about trying new ways to do that.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Your gallery focuses on figurative works, can you touch on what draws you to this area of the market?

VA: I studied English Literature in college and have always been drawn to narrative.&nbsp; I like to look at a piece of artwork that speaks to me in ways that I don&rsquo;t necessarily understand at first.&nbsp; I like to create a narrative in my head&mdash;a narrative that sometimes changes over time as my appreciation for the artwork grows.&nbsp; When I look at an artist&rsquo;s work, this is what I search for &ndash; a compelling narrative.

&nbsp;

CGN: What is your thought process on appealing to young collectors? This said, any words of wisdom to those potential new collectors?

VA:&nbsp;Our gallery has an area called The Studio&mdash;which includes drawings, sketches, prints, and formative works from artists we represent and some new artists.&nbsp; Everything in the Studio is accessibly priced and it provides a way for younger collectors and new collectors to grow their collections.&nbsp; Most importantly, new collectors need to trust their own instincts.&nbsp; Collect work that speaks to you, excites you, and that you want to live with.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

VA:&nbsp;My husband and I enjoy board game meet-ups from time to time.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

VA:&nbsp;&ldquo;Cloud Gate&rdquo;&mdash; (The Bean by Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park), which is such an amazing ambassador for our city and the perfect representation of what public art should be.

&nbsp;

CGN: Artists you admire most.

VA:&nbsp;I have so much respect for living artists who are working hard to get their work out into the world.&nbsp; When an artist shows me their work, I try always to remember that they are showing me a piece of themselves and try to give them the full attention that it deserves.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s coming up next at the gallery?

VA:&nbsp;We will be participating in the SOFA Chicago 2017 Exhibition at Navy Pier and having a sculptural show called 3-D at the gallery&mdash;followed by a December show of The Studio in the gallery along with a mix of art and some fundraising to give back to the community at the holidays.

&nbsp;

Victor Armendariz is the Owner and Director of Gallery Victor Armendariz in Chicago. For more information about the gallery please visit: <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/gallery-victor-armendariz">Gallery Victor Armendariz.</a>

Photo credit:&nbsp;Carolyn Variano

An Interview with a Dealer: Victor Armendariz

<h2>Wright-designed cottage on market for first time since 1950s</h2>

A cottage in Glencoe that Frank Lloyd Wright designed as part of what was supposed to become a grand estate came on the market Oct. 13 for the first time in more than 60 years.

The asking price is $1 million for the one-story, three-bedroom house on a third of an acre on Franklin Road.

&quot;We&#39;re looking for an architect or Frank Lloyd Wright enthusiast who will restore this house,&quot; said the listing agent, James Tiernan of Re/Max Center. He is representing it for the relatives of its late owners, Meyer and Doris Rudoff, who bought the house in 1956. &nbsp; &nbsp;--Via&nbsp;Dennis Rodkin,&nbsp;Crain&#39;s Chicago Business

<a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/realestate/20171016/CRED0701/171019891/wright-designed-cottage-on-market-in-glencoe">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2><img alt="" data-caption="The Logan Center hosted performances during the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in September 2017. (Photo by Nancy Wong)" data-rich-file-id="2442" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2442/original/logan.jpg" /></h2>

<h2>Logan Center emerges as cultural magnet</h2>

In 2001, a report entitled &ldquo;The Future of the Arts at the University of Chicago&rdquo; documented the increased engagement of students, faculty, staff and the community with the arts on campus, and highlighted the need for new facilities to accommodate the growing demand.

&ldquo;The creative and performing arts should play an important role in the intellectual and cultural aspirations of the University,&rdquo;&nbsp;wrote members of UChicago&rsquo;s Arts Study Group. It recommended a site at 60th Street and Drexel Avenue for a new creative and performing arts center for the University. &nbsp; &nbsp;--Via&nbsp;Andrew Bauld, University of Chicago&nbsp;

<a href="http://www.uchicago.edu/features/logan_center_emerges_as_cultural_magnet/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2><img alt="" data-caption="Los Angeles artist Lindsey Nobel has traded as many as 75 of her abstract paintings for various services and discounts. Photo: Lindsey Nobel" data-rich-file-id="2440" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2440/original/barter.jpg" /></h2>

<h2>How Artists Barter to Pay the Bills</h2>

It&rsquo;s famously hard for artists to pay the bills with income from their work. But some have found a way to do it without having to sell a single piece.

These artists are finding that they can make ends meet by trading their creations for services or items they need, from medical treatments to rent. Meanwhile, the providers of goods and services willing to barter often see it as helping out a struggling acquaintance&mdash;with the promise of a windfall if the artist ends up becoming acclaimed.

But for both parties, there are delicate questions to consider before making any deals. &nbsp; &nbsp;--Via Daniel Grant,&nbsp;The New York Times

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/article_email/how-artists-barter-to-pay-the-bills-1508724240-lMyQjAxMTE3MDI4MzgyNTM1Wj/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<h2><img alt="" data-caption="mural project on the 64th Street Metra viaduct will be unveiled Nov. 9. Courtesy of the South East Chicago Commission." data-rich-file-id="2443" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2443/original/woodlawn.jpg" /></h2>

<h2>New Mural To Be Unveiled In Woodlawn On Nov. 9</h2>

WOODLAWN &mdash; Woodlawn&rsquo;s latest mural will be unveiled Nov. 9 under the Metra tracks on 64th Street.

Arlene Turner-Crawford and Rahmaan &ldquo;Statik&rdquo; Barnes are currently working to finish the mural in time for the unveiling at 3 p.m. Nov. 9 under the viaduct.

The mural depicts artistic and cultural icons like muralists Bill Walker, Siddha Webber and Calvin Jones as well as pilot Bessie Coleman and former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama with their children. &nbsp; &nbsp;--&nbsp;Via Sam Cholke,&nbsp;dna info

<a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20171023/woodlawn/new-mural-arlene-turner-crawford-rahmaan-statik-barnes-64th-street-metra-tracks-viaduct">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

News from Around the Art World: October 23, 2017

By DENNIS CALLAHAN

With the advent of digital devices and smartphones that capture and distribute video with the tap of a finger, the genre of electronic art&nbsp;has become ubiquitous, but it most likely first got its start decades ago.&nbsp;Jean Tinguely (Swiss, 1925-1991) &amp; Marcell Duchamp (French, 1887-1968) may have been the first artists to use electrical/kinetic elements in their sculptures, and then in the late 1960s artists such as Nam June Paik, Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol began to expand the presence of&nbsp;electronic components in their art. By&nbsp;the 1990&rsquo;s the practice became more widespread as&nbsp;artists began to frequently&nbsp;incorporate digital media into their work.&nbsp;

While the mediums are now&nbsp;omnipresent at contemporary art shows, they continue to inspire a degree of mistrust among some buyers, notes curator and journalist&nbsp;Judith Benhamou-Huet. A large part of that hesitation is acknowledging&nbsp;the&nbsp;maintenance and conservation these works&nbsp;require as well as what some perceive as a&nbsp;lack of expertise in this new field.

As old technology becomes unavailable or obsolete, keeping them operating becomes more difficult or even impossible. You have to anticipate problems with conservation. That is why files have to be updated every seven years or sometimes even at the same pace as the technology it utilizes. For example the fluorescent tubes which are the heart of Dan Flavin&#39;s sculptures are no longer being manufactured in the U.S. because of EPA restrictions. The glass tubes and coil amps as well as the CRT&rsquo;s used in the television sets of Nam June Paik are no longer available, and very few people know how to work with them. Transformers for high voltage neon tubes age out and the dangerous PCB&rsquo;s leak from them onto collectors&#39; home or&nbsp;museum floors, or worse. (See&nbsp;Figure 2.)

<img alt="" data-caption="Figure 2" data-rich-file-id="2406" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2406/original/figure-2.jpg" />

Digital drivers for computers controlling interactive LED and audio components wear out and are discontinued by their manufacturers. Recently for example, an expensive, no longer in-production Dell XPS Tower that was programmed with custom software designed by the artist more than ten years ago crashed. It was the beating heart of an interactive monumental sculpture in a large private collection open to the public with millions of viewers every year. With 18 large monitors and a huge, multi-ton steel &amp; LED the art measures over 30&rsquo; tall and 125&rsquo; long and 30&rsquo; wide. The components no longer functioned. After extensive on-site diagnostics, our firm, Callahan art &amp; associates,&nbsp;discovered that a single small capacitor on the motherboard had fried (Figure 3). We&nbsp;safely removed&nbsp;the motherboard, removed the bad capacitor, sourced&nbsp;a replacement for it, and soldered it back on the motherboard (see image at top of page). This saved the sculpture, which otherwise would have been de-accessioned and scrapped, as the operating program and software was too old and unique to operate on any other, let alone newer, machine.

<img alt="" data-caption="Figure 3" data-rich-file-id="2408" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2408/original/figure-3.jpg" />

Only a small number of universities&nbsp;offer training in time-based media conservation. At N.Y.U., Hannelore Roemich,&nbsp;professor of conservation science, and Christine Frohnert, of Bek and Frohnert conservation studio,&nbsp;are developing a graduate specialization that will be&nbsp;part of the 2018 curriculum; it&nbsp;will be the first of its kind in the nation. Compared with traditional art conservation, which deals with, say, restoring Impressionist masterworks or Renaissance sculpture, the preservation of these technologic and time-based media&nbsp;works can be even more demanding.

&ldquo;It becomes so much more difficult when it has a plug,&rdquo;&nbsp;is how Professor Frohnert put it. It is crucial, she said, for conservators to forge relationships with experts in related fields.

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2410" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2410/original/figure-6.jpg" />

Callahan art and associates has restored many electronic components in-house. When we approach a work, we think of it as a work of art that is in need of conservation, not as a piece of outdated technology. Electronic or computer technicians see these works as simply old machines; they&nbsp;lack the experience, creative problem solving or patience to restore them as works of art. Potentially dismissing the machines as totalled, they may not&nbsp;recognize the important social and&nbsp;cultural value of the artworks. They only see disposable or sometimes replaceable technology.

&nbsp;

About Dennis Callahan:&nbsp;

The principal of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/callahan-art-associates">Callahan art &amp; associates</a>, Dennis Callahan, studied electronic art and holography in the early 1980&rsquo;s at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Studying under Steve Waldek Callahan designed and built solid state circuits to control his kinetic sculptures. He also studied holography and&nbsp;created holograms in the then-cutting-edge lab at SAIC as well as&nbsp;worked making neon signs and sculptures and solid state controllers (before they were available commercially) at a neon shop in Chicago.

Callahan has been fortunate to segue into electronic conservation today, providing the experience and technical know-how to maintain analog and digital based artwork. He is also sharing his knowledge with conservators and students in order to keep such works alive in the future and shares his&nbsp;ability to understand the perspective of the artists, collectors &amp; museums.

<img alt="" data-caption="Dennis Callahan" data-rich-file-id="2405" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2405/original/figure-0.jpg" />

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Contemporary Conservation Challenges: Electronic Art

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer or arts professional&nbsp;to discuss the ins and outs of running an art program today. 

This week we caught up with Alison Gass, Director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.

&nbsp;

Age: 41

Current Position: Dana Feitler Director, Smart Museum at the University of Chicago

Hometown: Boston

Previous Occupation: Curator of Contemporary Art

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

Restaurant: Mott St

Shop: Farfetch.com

Read: Alan Alda &ndash; I&rsquo;ve been reading UChicago Professor Darby English&rsquo;s newish book 1971: A Year in the Life of Color

Neighborhood: My husband and I are buying a major architectural renovation project in Printer&rsquo;s Row and we&rsquo;re very excited to move in there&hellip;hopefully a year from now!

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your art background and how you started with the Smart Museum of Art.

Alison Gass:&nbsp;I have been a curator of Contemporary art since 2005, working with many artists at several institutions. I became really hooked on university museums, and over the last few years I have taken on more administrative/leadership roles, leaving pure curatorial practice somewhat behind.

I was thrilled at the prospect of becoming the director of a great university museum in the city of Chicago. The University of Chicago has demonstrated such unparalleled commitment to the arts, and the City is seen globally as a thriving artistic hub. This felt like an incredibly exciting opportunity to help take the Smart into the next phase of its life and ensure it is an impactful, relevant and welcoming museum within the constellation of great museums in this city.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;How do you sum up the museum&rsquo;s mission in one sentence?

AG: The Smart Museum is a place for everyone to examine the world through the lens of art objects and artistic practice from all geographic regions and across all temporal moments.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical day in the life.

AG:&nbsp; My typical day is an exercise in work/life balance! My family -- husband Alec Hathaway and our two kids, Millie (8) and Gus (6) -- moved to Chicago this summer. We are still figuring out our new routines. Usually there is a crush of a morning routine getting everyone out of the house, so I feel like I&rsquo;ve had a whole day before even getting to my office around 8:30am.

At the museum, I am working with an incredibly energetic staff to examine everything from how visitors are welcomed into the lobby of the Smart to how we install our museum collection and what kinds of exhibitions we want to put on the calendar in the coming years. We are really thinking about how to create a balance in the exhibitions program so that we are reflecting the interests and identities of the diverse publics who visit the Smart, from both the University community and the broader communities in Chicago. We consider the balance of historic vs. contemporary projects, with projects that reflect the specific academic life of the students and faculty and the projects that reflect the most critical global issues present in our daily lives.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s the most&nbsp;exciting acquisition you have ever had?

AG:&nbsp;Part of my philosophy as a curator of contemporary art working in encyclopedic museums is that the best art of today often roots itself in art of the past, helping visitors to see through lines of artistic interest across time.

At Stanford University&rsquo;s Cantor Arts Center I acquired a terrific Trevor Paglen photograph series of a motion study he did of a drone landing&mdash;an homage to [Eadweard] Muybridge. The Cantor has one of the largest collections of Muybridge, and Paglen continues the examination of vision mediated by technology in his photographic practice. He also deals with issues of privacy, one of the most pressing issues facing our technologically advancing world today. For me this represents the sweetest of sweet spots in an acquisition: an artist whose work asks us to think critically about our current moment, but also helps us look backwards across the history of art.

&nbsp;

CGN: Any recent travel adventures?

AG: I had a great time trekking my kids through Germany to do the art pilgrimage from Documenta to the Munster Sculpture project this past summer, with a few stops for my architect husband to find remote buildings along the German countryside. We sweetened the deal for the kids with a stopover in London to see the Harry Potter Play&mdash;all in all, a good familial mix of cultural interests!

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;What do you want a young person to know who is considering becoming a curator or arts administrator? &nbsp;

AG: This is a passion career! I feel lucky everyday to be doing something that I think is important: sharing ideas through art. However&nbsp;jobs in curatorial practice or museum jobs in general can be few and far between,&nbsp;and I have been really lucky. I always advise people to do internships (paid!) and be willing to start in administrative roles. Stretch yourself continuously to do things &ldquo;outside of your job description&rdquo; for experience.

&nbsp;

CGN: One piece of advice you would tell your younger self when starting out?

AG:&nbsp;Don&rsquo;t worry so much about what&rsquo;s next&mdash;live in the moment!

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

AG:&nbsp;Restaurant research!

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

AG:&nbsp;That&rsquo;s easy! Christine Mehring, Chair of the Art History department at the University of Chicago, has brought Wolf Vostell&rsquo;s Concrete Traffic to life for myself and countless others. This is a perfect example of the way art historians or curators can share their own knowledge in a way that makes your perspective shift on an object that at first glance may seem tough to understand. Everyone should come visit. It&rsquo;s parked at the edge of the Ellis Garage on the University of Chicago Campus.

CGN: Check out CGN&#39;s feature on <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2016/8/concrete-traffic-gets-moving-again">Concrete Traffic</a> from summer 2016.

&nbsp;

CGN: What are you working on next for the museum?

AG:&nbsp;I&rsquo;m working on a major reinstallation of the museum&rsquo;s permanent collection that will help us examine where we want to go with an eventual collections campaign. We are going to reinstall many of the museum&rsquo;s galleries with works from our collection, along with loans of significant art from collectors connected to the University of Chicago and Chicago in general that will allow us to tell new stories with beloved objects. We&rsquo;re thinking about how the addition of even a single work of art to a collection can offer new platforms for thinking and seeing differently.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;What&#39;s the last&nbsp;Chicago restaurant you visited?

AG:&nbsp; Promontory, in Hyde Park&mdash;it&rsquo;s my go-to when I have art world friends and colleagues from out of town come to visit the museum!

&nbsp;

Alison Gass is the Director of the&nbsp;Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. For more information about the&nbsp;museum please visit:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/institutions/smart-museum-of-art">Smart Museum of Art</a>.

An interview with Smart Museum of Art Director Alison Gass

An Interview with Smart Museum Director Alison Gass

<h2>The U.S. Is Withdrawing from UNESCO&mdash;What Happens Now?</h2>

In a short statement that spoke volumes about American engagement with the international community, the United States announced on Thursday that it will withdraw from United Nations cultural organization UNESCO at the end of the year. The Trump administration has justified the withdrawal in part due to what it claims is UNESCO&rsquo;s &ldquo;anti-Israel bias.&rdquo; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump&rsquo;s move and followed suit. Cultural policy experts have been left shaking their heads.

What does the withdrawal actually mean for UNESCO? Is the &ldquo;anti-Israel bias&rdquo; the administration&rsquo;s main reason for pulling out? And can the organization survive without the United States?

What does UNESCO do?

--Via Isaac Kaplan, Artsy Editorial

<a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-withdrawing-unesco-now">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Red Skull (1982) sold at Christie’s contemporary evening sale in London last week for $21.5 million." data-rich-file-id="2413" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2413/original/red-skull.jpg" />

<h2>Basquiat&rsquo;s &lsquo;Red Skull,&rsquo; Sold at Christie&rsquo;s in London for $21.5 M, Will Fund New Charter Schools in New Jersey and Miami</h2>

There was one bit of good news to come out of the last week&rsquo;s auctions in London: the anonymous consignor of Jean-Michel Basquiat&rsquo;s&nbsp;Red Skull&nbsp;(1982), which sold for $21.5 million at&nbsp;Christie&rsquo;s contemporary evening sale Friday night, announced that he or she would donate all the proceeds after taxes to the the New Jersey chapter of the Knowledge Is Power Program, a nonprofit that helps open new public charter schools.

Today, KIPP New Jersey announced how it was planning to spend the funds, which after seller&rsquo;s fees and taxes amount to somewhere between $7 million and $9 million.

--Via&nbsp;Nate Freeman, ARTNEWS

<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2017/10/12/basquiats-red-skull-sold-at-christies-in-london-for-21-5-m-will-fund-new-charter-schools-in-new-jersey-and-miami/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<h2>Anish Kapoor, &lsquo;Cloud Gate&rsquo; artist: &lsquo;I call it &ldquo;The Bean,&rdquo;&nbsp;too&rsquo;</h2>

Anish Kapoor, the artist who dreamed up &ldquo;Cloud Gate&rdquo; &mdash; the sculpture phenomenon in Millennium Park better known as &ldquo;The Bean&rdquo; &mdash; hasn&rsquo;t seen his internationally recognized work in person since it was dedicated in 2006.

But he&rsquo;ll get another look Tuesday when he&rsquo;s back in Chicago, flying in from his home in London, to be honored at the Grant Park Music Festival&rsquo;s Advocate for the Arts Awards benefit.

--Via&nbsp;Hedy Weiss,&nbsp;Chicago Sun Times

<a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/anish-kapoor-cloud-gate-artist-i-call-it-the-bean-too/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Untitled by Jess, one of many artist inspired by Blake. IMAGE: COURTESY OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART" data-rich-file-id="2412" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2412/original/cg20171004-qa-stephen-eisenman-untitled-jess.jpg" />

Art History Professor Stephen Eisenman on His New William Blake Exhibition

The Northwestern faculty member and curator of&nbsp;William Blake and the Age of Aquariusdiscusses William Blake, 1960s artists, and more.

--Via&nbsp;Christian Belanger,&nbsp;Chicago Magazine

<a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/arts-culture/October-2017/Stephen-Eisenman/">Read Here</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Members of the Chicago Public Art Youth Corps work on a mural called &quot;Mother Nature,&quot; the second art piece the group has worked on this summer. (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune)" data-rich-file-id="2402" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2402/original/50-public.jpg" />

<h2>50 artists and 50 wards: New public art brings new life, reflection to city</h2>

The city of Chicago continues to make good on its declaration that 2017 would be the&nbsp;Year of Public Art. Fifty new murals, paintings, sculptures and other art forms, one for every ward of Chicago, are being rolled out through Nov. 1.

The final installations of 50x50, a public art project announced in June, will come with the help of the Department of Family and Support Services, the&nbsp;CTA, One Summer Chicago, DCASE and the Chicago Park District, along with other businesses and venues.

--Via&nbsp;Erin Ben-Moche,&nbsp;Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ct-ent-50-x-50-public-art-update-1009-story.html">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Are those pants or sculpture? Chicago auction house takes couture beyond the runway

One morning last week, a man roughly the size of an NFL linebacker shoved me aside so he could exit a crowded subway car first. As we rode the narrow escalator to the street, his broad, meaty back rising like a wall in front of me, I thought, &ldquo;I bet that wouldn&rsquo;t have happened if I were wearing the pants.&rdquo;

The pants I had in mind were a pair I had seen a fewlesldays before: blood-red trousers designed by Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons. One might best describe them as overalls, because they hang from shoulder straps.

--Via&nbsp;Cindy Dampier,&nbsp;Chicago Tribune

<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/style/sc-fashion-1016-pants-or-sculpture-auction-20170927-story.html">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

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News from Around the Art World: October 16, 2017

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2415" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2415/original/50-save-the-date-20170526.jpg" />

The Museum of Contemporary Art opened its doors at 237 East Ontario in October 1967, and a great deal of things have changed both inside and outside of the museum.&nbsp;This weekend on October 21 and 22, 2017&nbsp;the museum will once again be opening its doors to the public to invite everyone in to a major celebration&nbsp;to see and participate in the art that has been at the heart of the MCA&#39;s contemporary programming for five decades. The museum aims to share the role of the contemporary museum in today&#39;s community and to celebrate Chicago itself by highlighting history and fostering new creative connections all weekend long. Visitors can enjoy free admission and join Chicago artists and creatives in a range of mediums and fields to commemorate 50 years, celebrate the present and look to the future.&nbsp;

This weekend&#39;s events also inagurate the MCA&#39;s recent renovation, and visitors are invited to dine in the&nbsp;new restaurant, Marisol. The anniversary weekend also launches the&nbsp;museum&#39;s&nbsp;new&nbsp;community space, the Commons. Of course, there will also be a lot of art on view, particularly notable is&nbsp;a museum-wide exhibition, <a href="https://mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2017/We-Are-Here">We Are Here</a>, a&nbsp;three-part exhibition drawn from the MCA&rsquo;s significant collection of twentieth-&nbsp;and twenty-first-century art,&nbsp;organized by three of the museum&rsquo;s visual arts curators,&nbsp;that highlights the museum&#39;s permanent collection of art from 1945 to today.&nbsp;

The museum also opens a collaborative exhibition of&nbsp;two of the most important artists in the museum&rsquo;s history, as well as icons of the last 100 years.&nbsp;<a href="https://mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2017/Heaven-And-Earth-Alexander-Calder-And-Jeff-Koons">Heaven and Earth: Alexander Calder and Jeff Koons</a>&nbsp;finds common ground between these seemingly disparate artists, with Alexander Calder&rsquo;s weightless sculptures nominally representing &ldquo;heaven&rdquo; and Jeff Koons&rsquo;s celebrations of the mundane and concrete as &ldquo;earth.&rdquo; This pairing highlights both artists&rsquo; interest in playing with balance and gravity to make compelling sculptural statements, while reveling in the contrasts between high art aspirations and mundane material choices.

At the end of the day, the birthday celebration is just that &ndash; a party. The events planned promise to be festive and high-energy, and they will take place from morning until late-night. On&nbsp;Saturday evening, October 21, the key program samples the city&#39;s broad range of musical offerings, kicking off with DJ Calixta of CumbiaSazo!, and including showcase sets with theMIND and Kaycee Ortiz as well as a rare live performance by Lupe Fiasco. The evening concludes with Legacy in the Living, an immersive dance party with Kiara Lanier and Dj Duane Powell. that recounts Chicago&#39;s musical history. Visitors are encouraged to come in their best art-inspired dress and to immortalize the occasion with photography by GlitterGuts.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Lupe Fiasco Photo: Rob Norris" data-rich-file-id="2416" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2416/original/img-9366-credit-rob-norris-20-1-.jpg" />

Free reservations for the atrium concert featuring DJ Calixta, theMIND, Kaycee Ortiz, and Lupe Fiasco are available October 18 at noon. Museum galleries and artist projects remain open to all throughout the evening event and the atrium reopens at 9:30 pm for the museum-wide dance party.

A lineup of the anniversary weekend&#39;s events is shown below.*&nbsp;Read the list closely... There are going to be very special birthday cakes served,&nbsp;designed by Emily Nejad of Bon Vivant Cakes, in collaboration with Chicago artists Mari Eastman, Magalie Guerin, Paul Heyer, William J. O&rsquo;Brien, and Amanda Williams.

Here&#39;s to 50 MCA!

&nbsp;

Note: events marked as&nbsp;*Atrium mean that&nbsp;access is by pre-reserved free ticket for these performances. Ticket holders enter Atrium through Plaza steps. Tickets can be reserved starting Wednesday, October 18 at noon. Atrium reopens to the public at 9:30pm for the Dance Party.

MCA Hearts Chicago is co-organized by MCA Chicago and No Small Plans Productions.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

SATURDAY (10 am&ndash;11 pm)

&bull; 10 am&nbsp;Lykanthea&nbsp;(PLAZA) 
&bull;&nbsp;11 am Opening Ceremony, with the&nbsp;Chicago Children&#39;s Choir (PLAZA) 
&bull;&nbsp;Noon&ndash;2 pm&nbsp;Lou Mallozzi with Fred Schmalz,&nbsp;Tracking Shots (PERIMETER OF BUILDING) 
&bull;&nbsp;12:15 pm&nbsp;Liz McCarthy,&nbsp;Whistle Hang Out&nbsp;(ATRIUM and STAIRS) 
&bull;&nbsp;1&ndash;3 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Family Nook and Story Time with Drag Queens&nbsp;featuring Muffy Fishbasket (TERRACE) 
&bull;&nbsp;2 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Participatory Music Coalition&nbsp;(ATRIUM) 
&bull;&nbsp;3 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;South Shore Drill Team&nbsp;(PLAZA &mdash;&gt; ATRIUM &mdash;&gt; TERRACE) 
&bull;&nbsp;3:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Cake is served!&nbsp;Artist-designed cakes created by Bon Vivant Cakes (TERRACE) 
&bull;&nbsp;5 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;avery r. young and de deacon board perform&nbsp;protest pretty, followed by&nbsp;Jamila Woods in conversation with avery r. young and Tasha Viets-VanLear&nbsp;(THEATER)&nbsp;

After Hours in the Atrium&nbsp;(ticket required)* 
6 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;DJ caliXta of CumbioSazo! 
7 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;theMIND 
7:20 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Kaycee Ortiz 
7:50 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;DJ caliXta 
8:20 pm&nbsp;Lupe Fiasco&nbsp;with DJ Double L&nbsp;

9:30 pm&nbsp;Legacy in The Living 
Recount Chicago&#39;s musical history in an immersive dance party with Kiara Lanier and Dj Duane Powell.

SUNDAY (10 am&ndash;5 pm)

&bull;&nbsp;9 am&nbsp;&nbsp;Christa Donner,&nbsp;Guided, reservation required (ATRIUM)&nbsp;RSVP with names of attendees 
&bull;&nbsp;11 am&nbsp;&nbsp;Screening: Nobody&#39;s Here but Me&nbsp;(THEATER) 
&bull;&nbsp;11:30 am&nbsp;&nbsp;Young Chicago Authors Pop-Up&nbsp;(GALLERIES) 
&bull;&nbsp;Noon&nbsp;Michael Rakowitz,&nbsp;Enemy Kitchen&nbsp;(PLAZA) 
&bull;&nbsp;Noon&ndash;4 pm&nbsp;Teen Creative Agency: MCA 100&nbsp;(LAKE VIEW ROOM) 
&bull;&nbsp;12:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Behind &quot;the Stage&quot; Tour with Yolanda Cesta Cursach, Curator of Performance&nbsp;(4TH-FLOOR LOBBY and BACKSTAGE) 
&bull;&nbsp;12:30, 2, and 3:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Brendan Fernandes,&nbsp;Art by Snapchat 
&bull;&nbsp;1 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Aaron Hughes,&nbsp;Tea Performance&nbsp;(PLAZA) 
&bull;&nbsp;1 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Screening: Burden&nbsp;(THEATER) 
&bull;&nbsp;1:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Young Chicago Authors Pop-Up&nbsp;(GALLERIES) 
&bull;&nbsp;2:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Behind &quot;the Stage&quot; Tour with Tara Aisha Willis, Associate Curator of Performance&nbsp;(4TH-FLOOR LOBBY and BACKSTAGE) 
&bull;&nbsp;3 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Screening: Hairy Who &amp; the Chicago Imagists&nbsp;(THEATER) 
&bull;&nbsp;3:30 pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Young Chicago Authors Pop-Up&nbsp;(GALLERIES)

All details may be found on <a href="https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2017/10/MCA-Hearts-Chicago">mcachicago.org</a>

Top image:&nbsp;MCA Prime Time: Off Rack September 23, 2017 Photo: Nathan Keay, &copy; MCA Chicago

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The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago celebrates 50 years Oct 21-22, 2017

Happy Birthday MCA! 50th Celebrations Oct 21 and 22

<html><head></head><body><figure class="image"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1721418161/jbd2rzscq3ot9q5f9vqq.jpg"></figure>&nbsp;Photographer&nbsp;Dawoud Bey was awarded the presigious MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant this week in recognition of his exploration of the role of portraiture and photography in examining life and history in America.Bey is represented in Chicago by <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/stephen-daiter-gallery">Stephen Daiter Gallery</a> and he is a professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago.&nbsp;Following is the announcement from the MacArthur Foundation:Dawoud Bey&nbsp;is a photographer and educator whose portraits of people, many from marginalized communities, compel viewers to consider the reality of the subjects' own social presence and histories. Through his expansive approach to photography—which includes deep engagement with his subjects and museum-based projects—Bey is making institutional spaces more accessible to the communities in which they are situated.During a residency in 1992 at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover, Bey embarked on what would become an ongoing series of portraits of high school students. He made his artistic practice more public and accessible, involving the students in shaping their own representations and working in a semi-public studio. The resultant large-scale, multiple-image works are powerful expressions of the youthful subjects' respective individualities, still in the throes of being formed and negotiated. Bey expanded on this project in&nbsp;Class Pictures&nbsp;(2002–2006), a body of work produced in collaboration with young people and institutions throughout the United States. In addition to playing a role in the construction of their psychologically rich portraits, the students provided written texts about themselves to accompany Bey's photographs of them, creating another layer of evocative self-definition. The exhibitions, public programming, and educational outreach Bey conceived as components of&nbsp;Class Pictures&nbsp;turned the museum into a vehicle for creating a closer relationship between institutions, youth, and the communities they inhabit.More recently, Bey has focused on the construction of collective history and memory. In&nbsp;The Birmingham Project(2013), he commemorates the lives of six children killed in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and its aftermath in Birmingham, Alabama, through a series of portraits of Birmingham residents whose ages correspond either to the ages of the children in 1963 or to how old they would have been fifty years later in 2013. In another recent project,&nbsp;Harlem Redux&nbsp;(2014–2017), Bey returns to the site of his first project,&nbsp;Harlem, U.S.A. (1975–1979), but in this instance he focuses on the urban landscape and its transformation spurred by gentrification. Through his own work and long-time commitment to educating and mentoring young artists, Bey is redefining the role of photography and portraiture as active agents in the examination and formation of communities.BIOGRAPHYDawoud Bey received a B.F.A. (1990) from Empire State College of the State University of New York and an M.F.A. (1993) from Yale University. His work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Walker Art Center, the National Portrait Gallery (London), and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. In 1998, he joined the faculty of&nbsp;Columbia College Chicago, where he is currently a professor in the Department of Photography and a former Distinguished College Artist.Read <a href="https://www.macfound.org/fellows/984/">more here</a> and watch a video about Bey.Photo:&nbsp;John D. &amp; Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation</body></html>

Photographer Dawoud Bey Awarded Prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer or administrator to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery or exhibition program. This week we caught up with curator Georgia Schwender of Fermilab Art Gallery. Though not a &#39;dealer&#39; this interview is still part of CGN&#39;s&nbsp;Interview with a Dealer series.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Age: 55

Current Position: Curator

Hometown: Shoreham, NY

Previous Occupation: Senior Photographic Specialist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

Restaurant: Farm to Table &ndash; both ours! Nothing tastes better than homegrown heirloom vegetables.

Shop: REI

Read: Alan Alda &ndash; &ldquo;If I understood what you were saying, would I have this look on my face?&rdquo;

Neighborhood: Fermilab Tallgrass Prairie

Music: Eddie Vedder &ndash; Tuolumne

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Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your art background and how you started with Fermilab Art Gallery?&nbsp;

Georgia Schwender:&nbsp;In 1995, I was part of a three-person exhibit in the Fermilab Art Gallery, exhibiting &ldquo;Stem&rdquo; large format black and white photographs from the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland. I became part of the Art Gallery&rsquo;s committee and discovered a community of like-minded individuals. I was offered the position as curator in 2001.

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CGN:&nbsp;How do you sum up Fermilab Art Gallery&rsquo;s program in one sentence?

GS:&nbsp;The Art Gallery, including the annual Artist-in-Residence program, is an intersection of art and science.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical &#39;day in the life.&#39;

GS:&nbsp; There are no typical days, which is one of the many reasons I enjoy my job. One day, I&rsquo;m installing an exhibit. The next day, I&rsquo;m collaborating with the Office of Communication for public outreach.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN: Affiliation with Fermilab puts this gallery in a unique position, can you speak to how the partnership affects and influences programming?

GS:&nbsp;The Art Gallery is a fundamental aspect of Fermilab&rsquo;s cultural and scientific heritage. &ldquo;Art@CMS,&rdquo; &ldquo;Art of Darkness &ndash; Images from the Dark Energy Survey,&rdquo; Ellen Sandor&rsquo;s &ldquo;Neutrinos in a New Light,&rdquo; and Edward Tufte&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Cognitive Art of Feynman Diagrams&rdquo; are all exhibits and partnerships exploring experiments and discoveries in physics. Because the gallery is located in the main building of this particle physics accelerator laboratory, the collaboration between artists and scientists is unique. The artwork brings to life the discoveries within Fermilab and engages the surrounding communities.&nbsp; &nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share some successes as well as challenges this year.

GS: Fermilab celebrated 50 years of discovery this year. 10,000 people attended the open house. The art gallery was a destination with presentations by the current Artist-in-Residence Jim Jenkins and Gallery Committee Member Anne Mary Teichert.

&nbsp;

CGN: What are some unique aspects about running a space dedicated to the visual arts while under the umbrella of a science and tech organization?

GS:&nbsp;Robert Wilson, the first director of Fermilab, was an artist and a physicist who created the space within the laboratory for art to thrive. We continue to uphold and further explore this connection between art and science. In 2014, I founded the annual Artist-in-Residence program, which enables an artist to have access to places and experiences not usually open to the public, in order to create a signature body of work that is displayed in the gallery.

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CGN:&nbsp;What do you want a young person to know who is considering this field?

GS:&nbsp;Follow your dreams. Do not be dismayed if you take some right or left turns along the way. You&rsquo;ll get there.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s coming up next at the Fermilab Art Gallery?

GS:&nbsp;&ldquo;Wind Flow Photography&rdquo; by Shirley Nannini and Candace Wark&rsquo;s &ldquo;Viewing Silence&rdquo; on display from October 12 - December 29. At the reception, held October 20, 2017 from 5-8 pm, artists will be demonstrating a Wind Tunnel.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

GS:&nbsp;Understanding the ecosystems of the native Midwest prairie. This inspired my two grid pieces, that were on display at the Bridgeport Art Center during &ldquo;Curators Create&rdquo;, &ldquo;Prairie Quadrat Study I and II.&rdquo; It depicts a prairie quadrat study at Fermilab with the brown images represented as non-native plants and blue as native plants. These 25 pieces are displayed on 8x8 wooden panels and illustrate my passion for native prairies.&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

GS:&nbsp; &ldquo;My Pi&rdquo; by John Adduci

&nbsp;

CGN: Artists you admire most.

GS:&nbsp;Anna Atkins, Julia Margaret Cameron, FSA Photographers, National Geographic Photographers, the list goes on and on...

&nbsp;

CGN: Last Chicago restaurant you visited.

GS:&nbsp; Antique Taco, after collecting my cyanotypes from &ldquo;Curators Create&rdquo; at the Bridgeport Art Center.

&nbsp;

CGN: What have you learned about being an artist and curator?

GS: I am both an artist and a curator. In July 2017, I was an Artist-in-Residence at Homestead National Monument in Nebraska, which gave me time to work on my cyanotypes in the Prairie Quadrat Study series. It also allowed me a time period to identify purely as an artist. Curating a gallery and creating art are uniquely different, but are symbiotic in my pursuit of the arts.

&nbsp;

Georgia Schwender is the curator of&nbsp;Fermilab Art Gallery in Batavia, Illinois. For more information about the&nbsp;gallery and Fermilab&rsquo;s mission please visit:&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/fermilab-art-gallery">Fermilab Art Gallery.</a>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN's interview with Georgia Schwender of Fermilab Art Gallery

An Interview with Curator Georgia Schwender

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2379" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2379/original/chicago-sun-times.jpg" />

<h2>Closed Bronzeville school becomes a student art&nbsp;gallery</h2>

It was hard for Irene Robinson not to cry as she walked the halls of the former Anthony Overton Elementary School. Five of Robinson&rsquo;s children attended the school before it was closed by Chicago Public Schools in 2013. Since then, the building has fallen into a state of disrepair. The flooring has been torn up, ceiling tiles are missing and some doors and windows are now boarded up or covered in caution tape, with glass shattered from attempts to enter.

&ldquo;It was so much more than a school,&rdquo; Robinson said through tears. &ldquo;This was a family. Every time I pass by here I feel like this is a gravesite.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Opening Closings&rdquo;&nbsp;is a collaboration between Borderless Studios, DOCOMOMO-US-Chicago and the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education. For Saturday only, the former Bronzeville school featured student artwork. The exhibit is part of the Chicago Architecture Biennial

--Via&nbsp;Rachel Hinton,&nbsp;Chicago Sun Times

<a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/bronzeville-overton-school-art-exhibit/">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2383" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2383/original/robie-house.jpg" />

<h2>After hours program returns to Frank Lloyd Wright&rsquo;s Robie House</h2>

If you missed the last several iterations of After Hours at Robie House, there&rsquo;s going to be four more events this month. Once again, the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust is opening the historic Prairie School home in&nbsp;Hyde Park&nbsp;to the public for drinks and live music. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1910, the Prairie style home is a Chicago Landmark, a U.S. National Historic Landmark, and is a home that Wright himself considered to be one of his greatest works.

--Via&nbsp;AJ LaTrace, Curbed Chicago

<a href="https://chicago.curbed.com/2017/10/3/16410722/frank-lloyd-wright-robie-house-chicago-happy-hour-drinks">Read More</a>

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<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2381" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2381/original/declaration.jpg" />

<h2>Newly Discovered Copy of Declaration of Independence Will be Auctioned</h2>

On July 9, 1776, the Manhattan printer John Holt gently edited the Declaration of Independence text and then published 500 copies.

Only four of the Holt Broadsides, as the documents came to be called, were&nbsp;known to survive&nbsp;until a few months ago, when a fifth surfaced in a private collection. The authenticated document and related papers, which belong to a descendant of some of early British settlers in eastern Long Island, will be auctioned on Nov. 11 at&nbsp;Blanchard&rsquo;s Auction Service&nbsp;in Potsdam, N.Y.

--Via&nbsp;Eve&nbsp;M. Kahn, The New York Times

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/arts/design/declaration-of-independence-holt-broadside-auction.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/design&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=design&amp;region=stream&amp;module=stream_unit&amp;version=latest&amp;contentPlacement=8&amp;pgtype=sectionfront&amp;_r=0">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2378" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2378/original/brexitartnewspaper.jpg" />

<h2>Frieze draws up plan to protect art world from Brexit</h2>

Ongoing concerns about the impact of the UK&rsquo;s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) have prompted the organisers of Frieze to draw up a list of recommendations designed to &ldquo;help maintain the best possible conditions&rdquo; for the art world. In an open letter, Victoria Siddall, the director of the Frieze fairs, aired her concerns about the impact of Brexit on galleries that are based in the UK or exhibit at fairs in London. Siddall shared her proposals with the Creative Industries Federation, an arts lobbying organisation, as part of a larger discussion of how the government should respond to the needs of the cultural sector.

Representatives of Frieze have &ldquo;spoken to a range of people working in galleries&rdquo;, Siddall says, and have formulated a plan of action with four recommendations. These include maintaining the current rate of VAT (5%) on works imported into the UK; continuing the free circulation of works between the EU and the UK; and maintaining the temporary admission procedure, which ensures that works imported temporarily for events such as fairs and exhibitions are exempt from import duties and VAT.

--Via&nbsp;Gareth&nbsp;Harris, The Art Newspaper

<a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/news/frieze-draws-up-plan-to-protect-art-world-from-brexit">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

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<h2>Brazilian Artist Tarsila do Amaral Comes to New York and Chicago</h2>

In Brazil she is famous enough to be called by her first name, Tarsila. In the U.S., where contemporary Brazilian art has an increasing following, the work of Tarsila do Amaral is rarely seen and hardly known. But starting this weekend, the artist, who spent the 1920s giving European modernism a resounding Brazilian makeover, will have her first American solo show at two major American museums.

--Via J.S. Marcus, The Wall Street Journal

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazilian-artist-tarsila-do-amaral-comes-to-new-york-and-chicago-1507314040">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2380" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2380/original/christies.jpg" />

<h2>Christie&rsquo;s ends London contemporary auctions on a high note&mdash;despite Bacon flop</h2>

In stark contrast to Sotheby&rsquo;s&nbsp;sales&nbsp;the night before, and after an efficient sale of 34 lots at Phillips&rsquo;s 20th Century and Contemporary sale totalling &pound;23.9m hours prior, Christie&rsquo;s proved the depth of the international art market with double-header sales of post-war and contemporary and 20th century Italian works that saw solid results for stalwarts and deep bidding on established names new to the evening sale.

The evening&rsquo;s &pound;131.7m total, while below the presale estimates of &pound;168.4m to &pound;236.3m--which included a major Francis Bacon that failed to sell&mdash;nonetheless approached the standing record of &pound;132m for an October contemporary sale in London, quashing concerns over a flooded field. &ldquo;I think we can be very confident in the market&rdquo;, says the house&rsquo;s head of post-war and contemporary in Europe, Francis Outred.

--Via Sarah&nbsp;P. Hanson, The Art Newspaper

<a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/news/christie's-ends-london-contemporary-auctions-on-a-high-note">Read More</a>

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-rich-file-id="2382" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2382/original/la-times.jpg" />

<h2>David Geffen pledges $150 million for new LACMA building</h2>

reathing fresh life into one of the city&rsquo;s most ambitious cultural projects and making history as the largest gift on record toward the construction of an American museum, David Geffen has pledged $150 million to a new building for the&nbsp;Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Geffen&rsquo;s pledge raises LACMA&rsquo;s fundraising total to $450 million of the $650 million needed to break ground on a modernist&nbsp;Peter Zumthor&nbsp;building, arguably the most anticipated new piece of architecture in L.A. since&nbsp;Frank Gehry&rsquo;s Walt Disney Concert Hall opened in 2003.

--Via Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times

<a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-lacma-david-geffen-20171004-htmlstory.html">Read More</a>

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News from Around the Art World: October 9, 2017

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Betsy Nathan of <a href="https://www.pagodared.com/">Pagoda Red</a>.

&nbsp;

Gallery:&nbsp;Pagoda Red

Name: Betsy Nathan

Previous occupation: Media Monitoring in China

&nbsp;

Favorites from this week:

Restaurant: Ramen Takeya, Fulton Market

Shop: Robin Richman, Bucktown

Read: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Neighborhood: Lake Michigan via paddleboard

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News: Tell us about your art background. How did Pagoda Red begin?&nbsp;

Betsy Nathan:&nbsp;It&rsquo;s been 20 years and I am doing anything but what I thought I would be doing. You could say I couldn&rsquo;t help it. All roads led here. My mother, the gallerist Ann Nathan, was a voracious collector. Our house was full of naive and fine art. As a kid, I remember Roger Brown and Ed Paschke in our living room.

I studied Mandarin in Beijing for a couple of years in my twenties&mdash;this is where I first fell in love with Chinese furniture. From there I amassed a collection of furniture, paintings and objects from Asia and beyond. Pagoda Red was the natural extension. I love the soul and authenticity of what I do. It&rsquo;s been a fantastic journey bringing the spirit and cultures of the artists together.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Please describe your gallery&rsquo;s program in one sentence.

BN:&nbsp;We preserve and promote extraordinary and meaningful objects. Comfortable yet refined, inviting and unpretentious, personal and meaningful&mdash;ours are the everyday from the past and far away reflected amidst the contemporary. We are excited by the way rough and smooth, old and new come together to make places and moments rich and deep.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share a typical day in the life

BN:&nbsp;I enjoy the quiet morning. I usually wake up an hour before my husband and four boys. It gives me time to do some writing, yoga, or walk near the lake with our dog. After I get the boys settled at school I then head to the gallery.&nbsp; Sometimes, I stop by the warehouse to discuss restoration with our conservator. The gallery is nestled in a garden. Often times I organize my meetings with artists, writers, event planners and collectors outside amidst our collection of 18th c. garden stones. It&rsquo;s a great place to plan as we watch the microcosm in action&mdash;this summer it was a brood of baby skunks on the berm, robins eggs in one of the cherry trees, birds bathing in the meditation stones and city cats taking note of it all.

Before homework with my boys gets started in the evening, we like to cook vegetables from our garden at home&hellip; they are into lacrosse, chess, theatre and history. I sleep well every night.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN: Best sale you ever had?

BN:&nbsp;Not sure if it was the best, but it was thrilling to see one of our monumental scholars&#39; stones placed as a focal point in the landscape of a major collector&rsquo;s property. This was a southern&nbsp;gentleman. I remember him asking me to keep my eye out for just the right stone for him. When I found the three-ton sculpture, I began to get a bit nervous about how to install&mdash;he&nbsp;didn&#39;t hesitate...&quot;I&#39;ll be there tomorrow to pick it up.&rdquo;&nbsp; And sure enough, his very own crane arrived to pick it up the following day.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share some successes as well as challenges this year.

BN: Our foray online has been a huge step forward. It has been a great opportunity to connect with distant audiences. Learning how to deliver with the same touch (as we have locally) to distant islands in the pacific is another thing.&nbsp; We are learning one day at a time.

&nbsp;

CGN: What are some unique aspects about running an art and antiques business in general as well as in Chicago?

BN:&nbsp;There is never a dull moment. We know our clients well.&nbsp; An antique is like a work of art.&nbsp; It only gets better with time.&nbsp; As my mother always says, &ldquo;With art you are speaking to the soul. No one needs a work of art. &nbsp;It must move them, anger them, excite them or thrill them. Otherwise, forget it.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;What do you want to tell a young person considering this business?

BN:&nbsp;Don&rsquo;t think about it too hard. This is not a rational business. Take it one day at a time and surround yourself with colleagues that you love to work with. In the end it feels better to laugh and cry with people you respect and appreciate.

&nbsp;

CGN: One piece of advice you would send back to yourself when you started out?

BN:&nbsp;Simplify.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the art world?

BN:&nbsp;Exploring outside. Mostly hiking, paddling and pedaling with my boys.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

BN:&nbsp;The Dubuffet outside of the State of Illinois Center (James R. Thompson Center.)

&nbsp;

CGN: Artists you admire most.

BN:&nbsp;Today, I am thinking about the unnamed masters who created African dance masks in the early 20th century. They did what they loved. It poured out of their spirit. No training, and yet, beautiful forms. There was nothing to prove in the world that we know but, rather, creation that called out to another world. It&rsquo;s no wonder they were a primary inspiration behind the prolific expressionists and cubists recognized today.

&nbsp;

CGN: What&rsquo;s coming up next at the gallery?

BN:&nbsp;The debut of the African collection that my mother, Ann Nathan, collected for the past 25 years in the backroom of her gallery. The primitive forms juxtaposed with the fine lines of Chinese furniture and contemporary art pushes the mix I truly love.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Betsy Nathan is the owner of&nbsp;Pagoda Red&nbsp;located in Winnetka and Chicago. For more information about her&nbsp;gallery visit:<a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/pagoda-red-winnetka">&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/galleries/pagoda-red-winnetka">Pagoda Red</a><a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/10/an-interview-with-a-dealer-betsy-nathan">.</a>

&nbsp;

An Interview with a Dealer: Betsy Nathan

Just as we wind down a bit from the frenzied September start of the fall art season, we look ahead to the City&#39;s next major art fair, SOFA CHICAGO, which takes opens in a few weeks and runs from&nbsp;November 2-5 at Navy Pier.&nbsp;

Critically acclaimed and ever popular with the public, SOFA has been&nbsp;continuously running since 1994.&nbsp;What distinguishes SOFA from other top contemporary art events is its focus on three-dimensional&nbsp;artworks&nbsp;that cross the boundaries of fine art, decorative art and design.&nbsp;Exhibitors from around the country and the world offer&nbsp;contemporary art and design in all media including ceramics, wood, glass, fiber, jewelry, metal, design, painting, photography, and works on paper.

Held annually in the fall in Chicago, SOFA averages&nbsp;80 participating dealers and 35,000 attendees during the fair weekend. Average sales&nbsp;are estimated at $15-20 million per show.

With a strong educational emphasis, SOFA CHICAGO includes an acclaimed lecture series and special exhibits exploring the artworks on view and surveying new trends in the art world. A complete programming lineup may be viewed on <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/art-services/sofa-chicago">SOFA&#39;s</a> website. VIP events tend to fill up in advance.&nbsp;

Some advance artwork images are shown below.

<img alt="" data-caption="John Garrett Santa Rita Shimmer, 2017 Copper, steel, brass, paint, metal leaf, paper, wire and beads 48 x 72 x 4 in. Courtesy of Duane Reed Gallery" data-rich-file-id="2363" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2363/original/8.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Christina Bothwell Angel Landing, 2017 Cast glass, ceramic and oil paint 28 x 31 x 12 in. Courtesy of Habatat Galleries" data-rich-file-id="2359" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2359/original/4.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Jun Kaneko Untitled Head Form, 2015 Ceramic with glass mosaic on stainless steel stand 69 x 24.75 x 20 in. Courtesy of Duane Reed Gallery" data-rich-file-id="2358" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2358/original/2.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Alain Mailland On the Seashore, 2016 Hackberry acrylics colored pencils Courtesy of Kirsten Muenster Projects" data-rich-file-id="2361" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2361/original/6.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Harumi Nakashima A Disclosing Form 1607, 2016 Porcelain 25 x 15.5 x 13 in. Courtesy of Duane Reed Gallery" data-rich-file-id="2357" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2357/original/3.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Marietta Patricia Leis Disturbances in the Field Styrofoam, cardstock, oil and MDF Courtesy of Michael Warren Contemporary" data-rich-file-id="2364" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2364/original/9.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Gina Stick Luminosity Vase Porcelain, celadon glaze, gucai overglaze, 24k roman gold, 22k german gold 17.5 x 7 in. Courtesy of Studio 21 Fine Art" data-rich-file-id="2356" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2356/original/1.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Niloufar Banisadr Iranian Spring, 2017 Print on plexiglass 26 x 39.5 in. Courtesy of 55Bellechasse" data-rich-file-id="2362" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2362/original/7.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Marta Mattsson Brooch Cicada wings, resin, cubic zirkonias, lacquer, glitter and silver Courtesy of Galerie Noel Guyomarc'h" data-rich-file-id="2365" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2365/original/10.jpg" />

&nbsp;

SOFA CHICAGO runs November 2-5, 2017 at Navy Pier in Chicago.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Top image: &nbsp;Pascal Oudet,&nbsp;Natural Bowl (Group),&nbsp;Lathe turned and sandblasted oak.&nbsp;Courtesy of Kristen Muenster Projects

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SOFA CHICAGO Returns to Navy Pier November 2-5, 2017

Each week CGN interviews a local art dealer to discuss the ins and outs of running a gallery in the city of Chicago. This week we caught up with Ken Saunders of <a href="http://Andrew Bae is the owner of Andrew Bae Gallery located in River North in Chicago. For more information about his gallery visit: Andrew Bae Gallery.">Ken Saunders Gallery</a>.

Gallery:&nbsp;Ken Saunders Gallery

Name: Ken Saunders

Hometown: Washington DC

&nbsp;

Favorites from the week:

1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Restaurant: Frontera Grill

2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Read: David Sedaris, Theft by Finding

3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Visit: Top of the Gross Point Lighthouse

4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Listen: Chicano Batman

&nbsp;

Chicago Gallery News:&nbsp;Tell us about your background and how you started Ken Saunders Gallery?&nbsp;

Ken Saunders:&nbsp;I started working for Marianne Deson in 1985 and took over the gallery in 1989. In 1994 I was invited to join Bonnie Marx to create Marx-Saunders Gallery, specializing in Studio Glass.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Please describe your gallery&rsquo;s program in one sentence.

KS:&nbsp;We exhibit the most talented and innovative artists working with glass in the world.

&nbsp;

CGN: How do you spend a typical morning?

KS:&nbsp;Almost every day starts with a walk on the beach with my wife and our dogs.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Best sale you ever had?

KS:&nbsp;The first one. Out of a show curated at Smart Bar/Metro I sold a very large painting to a young couple for $1,600.

&nbsp;

CGN:&nbsp;Share with us a highlight of the summer.

KS:&nbsp;I was very pleased by turnout for the Mid-Summer Art Walk. It was a pleasure to get the galleries to work together to mount a special event.

&nbsp;

CGN: Yours is a gallery focused on the Studio Glass Movement. What are some unique aspects about running the business in general?

KS:&nbsp;Handling glass sculpture is physically demanding. Much of the work is very heavy, large and of course extremely fragile. The artists that I represent are willfully decorative which makes the work quite accessible.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite cultural pursuit outside of the gallery world?

KS:&nbsp;My best friend and I have a production company called We Got Next with an office in New York City. Our first film One Wall: Kings of Coney Island is available on I-Tunes and Amazon.

&nbsp;

CGN: Favorite work of public art in Chicago?

KS:&nbsp;William Carlson, Delicato Balancia on Clark Street at Armitage in Lincoln Park.

&nbsp;

CGN: Artists you admire most.

KS:&nbsp;Brancusi, Giacometti and T.S. Eliot

&nbsp;

CGN: What&#39;s coming up next at Ken Saunders Gallery?

KS:&nbsp;Opening the weekend of SOFA Chicago we&rsquo;ll have collaborative works from two of America&rsquo;s most gifted glass blowers- John Kiley and Dante Marioni. It is going to be a bit of a blockbuster.

&nbsp;

CGN: Last Chicago restaurant you visited.

KS:&nbsp;Mon Ami Gabi

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Ken Saunders is the owner of Ken Saunders Gallery located in River North in Chicago. For more information about his&nbsp;gallery visit:<a href="http://www.kensaundersgallery.com/"> Ken Saunders&nbsp;Gallery</a>.

An Interview with a Dealer: Ken Saunders

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

Earlier this summer when I interviewed DCASE Commissioner Mark Kelly, he told me a secret about a major public art announcement that would be revealed in the fall. Well, finally the secret is out: on Thursday Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the&nbsp;Chicago&nbsp;Department&nbsp;of&nbsp;Cultural&nbsp;Affairs&nbsp;and&nbsp;Special&nbsp;Events&nbsp;(DCASE) shared that&nbsp;internationally renowned artist and MacArthur Fellow&nbsp;Kerry James Marshall&nbsp;will create an epic, large-scale mural for the&nbsp;Chicago Cultural Center&nbsp;(78 E. Washington St.), honoring 20 women who have shaped the city&rsquo;s vibrant arts and culture landscape. Work on the mural began the same day that the announcement was made, and it is expected to continue throughout next month. The Garland Court facade has previously been blank.&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Artist Kerry James Marshall" data-rich-file-id="2353" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2353/original/kerry-20james-20marshal-20fb.jpg" />

When all is finished the 132-foot by 100-foot mural, which&nbsp;will be located outdoors and&nbsp;installed on the Cultural Center&#39;s&nbsp;west-facing Garland Court fa&ccedil;ade, between Washington and Randolph Streets,&nbsp;will be the largest artwork Kerry James Marshall&nbsp;has ever designed or created. The creation of the mural also&nbsp;coincides with the City&#39;s month-long Public Art Festival&nbsp;during Chicago&rsquo;s&nbsp;Year of Public Art.

&ldquo;Chicago is recognized across the country and around the world as an epicenter of innovative art, architecture and design,&rdquo; said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. &ldquo;Kerry James Marshall&rsquo;s new mural on&nbsp;the&nbsp;iconic&nbsp;Chicago Cultural Center will be a strong addition to Chicago&rsquo;s public art portfolio and a fitting&nbsp;commemoration of Chicago&rsquo;s Year of Public Art.&rdquo;

The Chicago Cultural Center is&nbsp;the first and most comprehensive free large-municipal cultural venue in the county.&nbsp;It is currently home to the&nbsp;Chicago Architecture Biennial, which runs through January 7, 2018.

&ldquo;When I was asked to design a mural for narrow Garland Court, it was immediately clear to me that the site had to be &lsquo;opened up&rsquo; in some way,&rdquo; said Kerry James Marshall. &ldquo;My solution was a park-like view with a bright sun and stand of trees to bring light and green space to the location while at the same time honoring&nbsp;the mission of the building as the hub of artistic activity in Chicago. My idea was to make of the trees a kind of Forest Rushmore acknowledging the contribution of 20 women who&rsquo;ve worked to shape the cultural landscape of the city, past and present.&rdquo;

<img alt="" data-caption="The current facade of the Chicago Cultural Center. What was once most likely overlooked will soon be sought out. " data-rich-file-id="2354" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2354/original/chicago-cultural-center-garland-court.jpg" />

The mural is funded by&nbsp;Murals of Acceptance, whose goal is to bring art to all people in a free public setting.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Kerry James Marshall is&nbsp;one of our nation&rsquo;s most acclaimed and important artists&mdash;and this mural for &ldquo;The People&rsquo;s Palace&rdquo; is a true gift to the people of Chicago,&rdquo; said DCASE Commissioner Mark Kelly. &ldquo;The City of Chicago was thrilled to celebrate Kerry at the Fifth Star Honors this summer &ndash; and two of the women represented in his mural are past Fifth Star honorees: Lois Weisberg and Sandra Cisneros.&rdquo;

The 20 women represented in Kerry James Marshall&rsquo;s mural are a who&rsquo;s who of Chicago&rsquo;s arts and culture community:

Suzanne Ghez, Director and Chief Curator for nearly 40 years, The Renaissance Society 
Barbara Gaines, Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago Shakespeare Theater 
Jacqueline Russell, Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago Children&rsquo;s Theatre 
Ruth Page, Dancer, Choreographer and Founder, Ruth Page Center for the Arts 
Lois Weisberg, Longest-serving Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs 
Maggie Daley, Longest-serving First Lady of the City of Chicago 
Jackie Taylor, Founder and CEO, Black Ensemble Theater 
Monica Haslip, Founder and Executive Director, Little Black Pearl 
Abena Joan Brown, Founder, eta Creative Arts Foundation 
Margaret Burroughs, Founder, DuSable Museum of African American History 
Harriet Monroe, Founder, Poetry Magazine 
Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Co-founder, Goodman Theatre / Dearborn Homes Youth Drama Workshop 
Sandra Delgado, Founding Ensemble Member, Collaboraction 
Jane Saks, Founding Director of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute and Project&amp; 
Barbara Jones-Hogu, Founding Member, AfriCobra 
Gwendolyn Brooks, Literary Icon 
Sandra Cisneros, Literary Icon 
Achy Obejas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist 
Oprah Winfrey, Cultural Icon 
Joan Gray, Dancer and Longtime President of Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago

Kerry James Marshall&nbsp;is an artist and MacArthur Fellow. A deeply accomplished artist, Marshall&nbsp;uses many types of mediums, including collage, drawings, murals and even comic books. His work is known for referencing African American culture and history, including the Civil Rights era and the Black Power movement.&nbsp;Painting in a Realist style, he depicts dark figures that celebrate black beauty and confront general racial stereotypes within contemporary American society.&nbsp;He has received solo exhibitions throughout Europe and North America and his work has been included in such prestigious international exhibitions as the 1997 Whitney Biennial, the 2003 Venice Biennial, the 2009 Gwangju Biennial, two Documentas (1997 and 2007) and the 1999 Carnegie International.&nbsp;Debuting at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in April 2016, Marshall&rsquo;s retrospective&nbsp;Mastry&nbsp;spanned his 35-year career and included nearly 80 original pieces. On August 28, 2017, the City of Chicago presented Kerry James Marshall with the Fifth Star Honor Award for his many contributions to our city&rsquo;s cultural landscape.

The design and vision&nbsp;created by Marshall will be executed&nbsp;by Chicago mural artist Jeff Zimmermann and his team from Jazim, Inc.

In addition to the work on Kerry James Marshall&rsquo;s mural at the Chicago Cultural Center, the City of Chicago will present a month-long Public Art Festival throughout October featuring&nbsp;a series of neighborhood events highlighting the city&rsquo;s public art collection located throughout the city. Programs will celebrate the completion of several new artworks as part of the 50x50 Neighborhood Arts Project, a citywide initiative that commissioned dozens of local artists to create new sculptures, murals and other public artworks in Chicago&rsquo;s 50 wards,representing a $1.5 million investment in artist-led community projects. In June, the City of Chicago announced&nbsp;the selected local artists and the participating communities. Many of these works are in the early stages of production and will be dedicated during the festival.

The month-long&nbsp;Public Art Festival&nbsp;in October will culminate with a Public Art Symposium on October 26 and 27 at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 East Washington St.). The symposium will convene artists, scholars, community organizers and public agents to explore the intersecting values of their work in public art. The symposium coincides with the release of Chicago&rsquo;s first Public Art Plan, a set of recommendations that will help shape the future of public art in Chicago.

The complete press release is available <a href="https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/provdrs/public_art_program/news/2017/september/kjm.html">here</a>.&nbsp;

The announcement of a mural by artist Kerry James Marshall at the Chicago Cultural Center

Kerry James Marshall Monumental Mural Announced for the Chicago Cultural Center

CGN's weekly roundup of local, national and international art world news.


News from Around the Art World: September 25, 2017

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

If you attended EXPO CHICAGO or the opening of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial&nbsp;last&nbsp;week&nbsp;you knew that things were busy. EXPO and the City of Chicago both&nbsp;announced just how busy things were &ndash;&nbsp;8,500 people on opening night for EXPO&#39;s Vernissage, and 40,000 people over the course of the fair &ndash;&nbsp;and the news is positive on all fronts. Early sales wrap-ups from participating galleries have been healthy and encouraging, and the overall attendance numbers set records.&nbsp;

&ldquo;This is the first year that L&eacute;vy Gorvy participated in EXPO CHICAGO and we were thrilled by the reception that we received from collectors, curators and a very enthusiastic public. Chicago has a personal significance for me, and a phenomenal history as a pioneering city for art, architecture and collecting. We were very pleased to see old friends and to enjoy the revitalized energy of this fair. In particular, we were happy that works by Pat Steir, Carol Rama, Senga Nengudi and Dan Colen found new homes in the Midwest.&rdquo; &mdash; Brett Gorvy | L&eacute;vy Gorvy

&ldquo;Participating in EXPO CHICAGO for the first time, we wanted to show a dynamic selection of works. We were delighted with the level of engagement with the art from private collectors, as well as from representatives of major institutions.&rdquo;&nbsp;&mdash; Millicent Wilner | Gagosian&nbsp;

&ldquo;EXPO CHICAGO brings a wonderful audience of patrons and museum groups every September. Over the years, this has allowed us to debut major exhibitions, in addition to an ambitious presentation at the fair. We were thrilled to prominently feature work by artists in both the booth space as well as a part of IN/SITU. We also featured modernist and blue-chip contemporary work for the first time and are beyond happy to place these works in prominent collections.&rdquo; &ndash; Kavi Gupta | Kavi Gupta

&quot;The fair had and strong international representation of galleries this year and we continue to do good business with both known and new regional collectors. If a consensus can be achieved, and more top galleries join, EXPO CHICAGO is on it&#39;s way to being the dominant date and meeting point for American collectors West of the East Coast.&quot;&nbsp;&mdash;Christopher D&rsquo;Amelio | David Zwirner

<img alt="" data-caption="Visitors to EXPO Chicago 2017" data-rich-file-id="2349" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2349/original/img-3160.jpg" />

The opening of EXPO&nbsp;CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art,&nbsp;and the simultaneous launch of the second edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial were also very good for the City of Chicago, since the city&nbsp;welcomed more than 100,000 visitors from around the world last week,&nbsp;a figure&nbsp;reported by Mayor Emanuel himself,&nbsp;&ldquo;Renowned exhibitions at both the Chicago Architecture Biennial and EXPO CHICAGO bolstered Chicago&rsquo;s reputation as the vanguard of architectural, art and design innovation on the national and international stage and underscores the city&rsquo;s important convening power,&rdquo; said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. &ldquo;I want to thank all of the architects, organizers, and residents of Chicago who made this week such a tremendous cultural, educational and economic success for our city.&rdquo;&nbsp;

EXPO&nbsp;presented 135 leading international galleries from 25 countries and 58 cities. Additional special projects in collaboration with both CAB and EXPO CHICAGO took place at Navy Pier with Nick Cave&rsquo;s&nbsp;Here Hear Chicago&nbsp;performances as well as&nbsp;at the DuSable Museum of African American History&rsquo;s Roundhouse for the Palais de Tokyo&rsquo;s first-ever off-site exhibition in the United States, in partnership with the Institut fran&ccedil;ais.&nbsp;

The Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) expanded to include over 140 practitioners from 20 countries at exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center hub, as well as at six neighborhood sites across the city. The estimated attendance at CAB was over 30,000 at opening festivities.&nbsp;The&nbsp;Biennial runs through January 7, 2018, and is free and open to the general public at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. EXPO returns to Navy Pier September 27-30, 2018.

It&#39;s hard to believe EXPO CHICAGO 2017&nbsp;is already over, but the 2018 dates have been set and we will look forward to once again seeing what&#39;s next for the fair as well as the contemporary art world. In the meantime, there is still so much to see around the city that is part of the Architecture Biennial as well as the city&#39;s programming for the Year of Public Art.&nbsp;Congratulations to EXPO, the MCA, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the City of Chicago&nbsp;and all who participated during the weekend! &nbsp;&ndash; GV

&nbsp;

EXPO CHICAGO&#39;s&nbsp;press release regarding opening night&nbsp;is below:

<h3>SIXTH ANNUAL OPENING PREVIEW OF EXPO CHICAGO AND&nbsp;THE MCA&rsquo;S VERNISSAGE WELCOMES MORE THAN 8,500 PEOPLE AT NAVY PIER&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
The Opening Night benefit for EXPO CHICAGO, Hosted by the MCA&nbsp;Women&rsquo;s Board, Raises $300,000</h3>

(Chicago, IL)&nbsp;EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, opened its sixth edition to more than 8,500 people during&nbsp;Vernissage, the opening night event benefiting the&nbsp;Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago. A vast crowd of the city&rsquo;s business, civic and cultural leaders, as well as artists, collectors and art enthusiasts filled Navy Pier&rsquo;s Festival Hall Wednesday, September 13 as they were treated to a special preview of more than 135 of the world&rsquo;s leading galleries from 25 countries and 58 cities.&nbsp;

Notable guests included&nbsp;Lena Baume,&nbsp;Allison Berg,&nbsp;Bruce&nbsp;and&nbsp;Barbara Berger,&nbsp;Marlene Breslow&nbsp;and&nbsp;Berle Blitstein,&nbsp;Fred Bidwell,&nbsp;Neil Bluhm,&nbsp;Barbara Bluhm-Kaul&nbsp;and&nbsp;Don&nbsp;Kaul,&nbsp;Pierre Boulais,&nbsp;Gwen Callans&nbsp;and&nbsp;Biff Ruttenberg,&nbsp;Larry&nbsp;and&nbsp;Marilyn Fields,&nbsp;Caryn&nbsp;and&nbsp;King&nbsp;John&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sharon Hoffman,&nbsp;Bill Gautreaux,&nbsp;Helyn Goldenberg&nbsp;and&nbsp;Michael Alper,&nbsp;Rod Lubeznik&nbsp;and&nbsp;Susan Goodman,&nbsp;James Gordon,&nbsp;Paul&nbsp;and&nbsp;Linda Gotskind,&nbsp;Ken Griffin,&nbsp;Jack&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sandra Guthman,&nbsp;Anne&nbsp;Kaplan,&nbsp;Susie Karkomi&nbsp;and&nbsp;Marvin Leavitt,&nbsp;Liz&nbsp;Lefkofsky,&nbsp;Nancy Lerner&nbsp;and&nbsp;David Frej,&nbsp;Jennifer&nbsp;Litowitz&nbsp;,&nbsp;Susan Manilow,&nbsp;Eric McKissack,&nbsp;Gary Metzner,&nbsp;Bob Munch,&nbsp;Lewis&nbsp;and&nbsp;Susan Nerman,&nbsp;Claire&nbsp;and&nbsp;Mike O&#39;Grady,&nbsp;Randall&nbsp;and&nbsp;Shelia Ott,&nbsp;MK Pritzker,&nbsp;Alan&nbsp;and&nbsp;Rebecca Ross,&nbsp;Cathy Ross&nbsp;and&nbsp;Chris Liguori,&nbsp;Lyn Segal,&nbsp;Amir Shariat,&nbsp;Irving Stenn,&nbsp;Kristin Binder Stevens&nbsp;and&nbsp;Stan Stevens,&nbsp;Carl&nbsp;and&nbsp;Marilyn Thoma,&nbsp;Lucas Walton, and&nbsp;Helen Zell, among others. 
&nbsp; 
This unique celebration, co-chaired by MCA Women&rsquo;s Board members&nbsp;Tonya Geesman,&nbsp;Christine Poggianti&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ellen Wallace, began with a patron reception at 5:00 pm in the VIP Collector&rsquo;s Lounge, presented by Northern Trust, featuring food by some of Chicago&rsquo;s top restaurants and food providers including: 20E, Talbott Hotel, BellyQ, Chicago Raw, Marisol, Big Star, Riva Restaurant, Tanta, The Windsor, Yusho, Eli&rsquo;s Cheesecake and Skinny Pop and Nude Dude Food. Featured beverage sponsors include Lagunitas and Terrazas de los Andes. 
&nbsp; 
At 6 pm President | Director of EXPO CHICAGO&nbsp;Tony Karman&nbsp;took a humbling moment to thank the crowd for their tremendous support for the fair&rsquo;s sixth year. He then called on MCA Chicago&rsquo;s Pritzker Director&nbsp;Madeleine Grynsztejn&nbsp;to speak to the incredible partnership between the MCA and EXPO CHICAGO. &nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
&ldquo;We have been collaborating with the art fair since the inception of Vernissage and we are especially proud of that partnership this year because we are celebrating the 50th&nbsp;anniversary of the MCA Women&rsquo;s Board. Thank you to the Women&rsquo;s Board and all of you for making the MCA the preeminent contemporary art museum in Chicago and beyond for 50 years.&rdquo; She added, &ldquo;Collaborations like this are so important, and I am proud to debut another collaboration between the MCA, world-renowned artist Kerry James Marshall and fashion brand MZ Wallace. Together, we debut a gorgeous bag based on a painting by Kerry James Marshall in our permanent collection, and all proceeds go directly to our education programs.&rdquo; 
&nbsp; 
Northern Trust Wealth Management Central Region President&nbsp;Mac MacLellan&nbsp;then took the stage stating, &ldquo;We are thrilled with the growth of the art fair and the major impact it has had on our entire city. Northern Trust remains the only financial services firm based in the U.S. to sponsor a modern and contemporary art exhibition of this scale and size, showing our firms commitment to the art community.&rdquo; He continued, &ldquo;The entire art world will have its eye on Chicago the next couple of days and that is entirely because of the unique collaborations that EXPO CHICAGO has made possible. Collaboration between the City of Chicago, Navy Pier, Corporate Sponsors, arts organizations, artists and galleries&mdash;and in this day in age, when we have so much dissonance between so many despaired groups, it&rsquo;s nice to see collaboration come together and be successful. EXPO CHICAGO is a great example not only for the City of Chicago but for the rest of the country.&rdquo; 
&nbsp; 
MacLellan then introduced Navy Pier&rsquo;s Chief Program and Civic Engagement officer&nbsp;Michelle T. Boone, who welcomed everyone to Navy Pier stating, &ldquo;Tony and his vision for EXPO CHICAGO has really paved the way for establishing Navy Pier as one of the most exciting cultural districts in the city of Chicago,&nbsp;and I am just thrilled and honored to continue this tradition and partnership.&rdquo; She reiterated MacLellan&rsquo;s sentiments by adding, &ldquo;This is a tremendous demonstration of the power of partnerships and collaborations between private, public and non-private sectors pulling together to make this the most exciting arts week not only in Chicago but in the nation.&rdquo; 
&nbsp; 
Chairman of the Chicago Architecture Biennial&nbsp;Jack Guthman&nbsp;also took a moment to thank Tony Karman for his vision. &ldquo;I told the Mayor we had to align the Biennial with EXPO CHICAGO because no one promotes Chicago the way Tony Karman promotes Chicago. I wanted the biennial, my little ship, to follow in his wake, and the Mayor got it right away.&rdquo; 
&nbsp; 
The City of Chicago Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and Special Events&nbsp;Mark Kelly&nbsp;concluded the remarks, perfectly encapsulating the unique collaborations of the night and throughout the city. &ldquo;This year is the 50th&nbsp;anniversary of the MCA and the sixth year of EXPO CHICAGO. 50 is the most perfect number in numerology, and six is the most harmonious of the single digit numbers so what we have is major good karma here today. Congratulations to the MCA and to EXPO CHICAGO. On behalf of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I want to thank Tony Karman and his staff for lighting a fuse, making Chicago on fire with the visual arts. This is a civic event that reaches out into the entire city including artists, museums, galleries, cultural organizations and more. We are not only the center of visual arts in the country but in the world. When you take EXPO CHICAGO, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the upcoming Art Design Chicago, the Year of Public Art and all the great work going on in the city, right here and now, this is the epicenter of great visual arts in the world.&rdquo; 
&nbsp; 
A bottle of&nbsp;Ruinart Champagne&nbsp;was popped and all gathered together for a celebratory toast before making their way onto the show floor. &nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
Guests mingled throughout the show floor until&nbsp;Nick Cave&rsquo;s&nbsp;Up Right Chicago&nbsp;commenced on the show floor, featuring a processional of dancers in soundsuits making their way through Festival Hall. The performance, a part of&nbsp;Here Hear Chicago&nbsp;and a unique collaboration between Cave and architect&nbsp;Jeanne Gang, continued in the Aon Ballroom welcoming guests of Vernissage in addition to the general public. 
 
EXPO CHICAGO 2018 will return September 27&ndash;30. For more information on EXPO CHICAGO and&nbsp;EXPO ART WEEK&nbsp;visit&nbsp;<a href="http://expochicago.com">expochicago.com</a> 
&nbsp;

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A wrap-up of EXPO chicago attendance and the Chicago Architecture Biennial opening

Impressive Numbers From Opening of EXPO CHICAGO 2017 and 2nd Chicago Architecture Biennial

We received the following press announcement from the MCA regarding the smashing success of Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg.&nbsp;The exhibition and artwork by Murakami were featured on the <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/5/publisher-s-letter-summer-s-fresh-take-on-art">summer 2017 issue</a> of Chicago Gallery News. The show also inspired our summer post about <a href="https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2017/6/who-s-ever-heard-of-a-pink-octopus-enjoy-art-with-your-family-this-summer">seeing art as a family</a>.&nbsp;

The news was also a timely reminder that the show closes this coming Sunday, September 24. Don&#39;t wait to get timed-entrance tickets before it&#39;s too late.

Congratulations MCA! &ndash; GV

<img alt="" data-caption="The Summer 2017 CGN featured Takashi Murakami's &quot;ZuZaZaZaZaZa&quot;, 1994." data-rich-file-id="2345" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2345/original/cgn-cover-summer2017.jpg" />

&nbsp;

<img alt="" data-caption="Visitors in Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg. Photo: Nathan Keay." data-rich-file-id="2348" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2348/original/murakamicrowds.jpg" />

<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

September 20, 2017

<h3>NEWS ALERT | Murakami Breaks Attendance Record Today</h3>

The&nbsp;Takashi Murakami&nbsp;exhibition officially broke the David Bowie attendance record of 193,000, making it the&nbsp;all-time highest attended exhibition&nbsp;in the MCA&#39;s 50-year history. Visitors&nbsp;still have five days to see the exhibition, it runs through Sunday, September 24. 
&nbsp; 
Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg&nbsp;features the art and culture icon&#39;s immersive paintings, including several never-before-seen works. Murakami is widely known for both his fine art and commercial output -- including collaborations with pop icons such as Kanye West and fashion house Louis Vuitton -- and his ability to straddle high and low, ancient and modern, eastern and western, commercial and fine art. The exhibition is curated by MCA Chief Curator Michael Darling, who said in regards to setting a new attendance record for the museum, &quot;The audiences for this show have been amazing, incredibly youthful and diverse with an enthusiastic thirst for all that Murakami produces.&quot; 
&nbsp; 
Tickets are still available to see the exhibition, but visitors will need timed tickets on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Saturday, in addition to regular museum hours, the exhibition will be open from 7 - 11 pm during the museum&#39;s late-night Prime Time event (21+, special ticket required). Tickets are at&nbsp;<a href="http://mcachicago.org">mcachicago.org</a>

<img alt="" data-caption="Installation view, Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats its Own Leg, MCA Chicago, June 6 – September 24, 2017. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago." data-rich-file-id="2347" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2347/original/murakami-20170601-119.jpg" />

<img alt="" data-caption="Takashi Murakami, Dragon In Clouds—Indigo Blue, 2010. Acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 143 x 708 5/8 in. (363 x 1,800 cm). Collection of Larry Gagosian. © 2010 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Gavin Ashworth." data-rich-file-id="2346" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/chigal/rich/rich_files/rich_files/2346/original/mca-takashi-murakamin.jpg" />

Top Image:&nbsp;Takashi Murakami,&nbsp;Photo: Maria Ponce Berre, &copy; MCA Chicago.

The MCA's Takashi Murakami exhibition smashes attendance records 