IT’S EXPO WEEK, HERE’S WHAT TO SEE AND DO
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NICK CAVE TO HEADLINE FLOURISH, PARTY WITH A PURPOSE, HONORING 2025 FELLOWS
Join Flourish Art Accelerator for a party with a purpose as they honor the 2025 Flourish Fellows and celebrate the impact of their contributions to shaping the future of contemporary art. The event will be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) on Friday, April 25. 2025 Fellows are Dwight White, Cristian Roldan, Shaurya Kumar and Brenda Torres Figueroa. This unique event will be a vibrant celebration of creativity, inspiration, and community.
The annual fundraiser is designed to connect EXPO Creatives, local leaders in the visual arts community, and collectors, fostering meaningful relationships that drive the arts forward. Funds raised will support the organization’s bi-annual fundraising goal of $150,000, providing essential grants and programming for local artists and curators.
Tickets are still available. Click here.
DR. KELLI MORGAN TO SPEAK AT EXPO CHICAGO + ICI’S CURATORIAL FORUM 2025
Dr. Kelli Morgan, founding Executive Director & CEO of These Museum Streets and Black Artists Archive (BAA), will be speaking at the 2025 Curatorial Forum at EXPO CHICAGO, presented in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI). Now in its second year, the public curatorial conference returns with a powerful theme: Building a Cathedral — exploring long-term, intergenerational approaches to cultural work.
Dr. Morgan will participate in the two-day forum’s panel discussion, “Foundation. “The panel will focus on alternative and expanded modes of practice in the arts and ask how cultural institutions can construct lasting frameworks that serve present and future generations. It will be held on Thursday, April 24th from 11:30 a.m. — 1:00 p.m.
Dr. Morgan will be joined on the panel by Albert Heta (artist, designer, Ph.D. candidate, and co-founder of Stacion — Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina) and Dr. Romi Crawford (professor, writer, curator, and Founder of The New Art School Modality).
Morgan penned the Point of View piece for Issue V of Pigment Magazine, titled Black Art Needs Us More Than Institutions. E Chicago, IL 606011
April 25th at 7:00 pm — 10:00 pm
FESTAC ’77 HIGHLIGHTED DURING EXPO’S CONTRAST SERIES
EXPO’s CONTRAST brings together eight contemporary galleries, including Chicago’s Richard Gray Gallery, which will present So Be It! Asé! Photographic Echoes of FESTAC ’77. The work brings together photographs by members of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement: Roy Lewis, Bob Crawford and K. Kofi Moyo. The presentation is curated by Chicago-based art historian Romi Crawford and looks back at the U.S. delegation to the 1977 World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria. CONTRAST is a new section of galleries and artist presentations for the 2025 edition of EXPO CHICAGO. The inaugural section is curated by Lauren Haynes, Head Curator, Governors Island Arts and Vice President for Arts and Culture at the Trust for Governors Island. Booth 204.
GRIFFIN MSI BLACK CREATIVITY ARTISTS FEATURED AT EXPO
The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s Black Creativity Juried Exhibition will present a dynamic group presentation at EXPO featuring artists Elijah Barnes, D. Lammie Hanson, Trenton Baylor, Angie Redmond, Marlon Tobia, Anna Reed and Anthony Buford.
BROOKLYN BASED RICHARD BEAVERS GALLERY HOSTS SLATE OF EXPO EVENTS
Brooklyn based, Richard Beavers Gallery, will again be participating in EXPO Chicago — Booth 118. The gallery will also host a series of events during the week.
Wednesday April 23, 2025
Richard Beavers Gallery Family Photo Day at Navy Pier
12 Noon — 6pm
People’s Energy Welcome Pavilion @ Navy Pier
600 E. Grand Ave., Chicago IL
@richardbeaversgallery
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Richard Beavers Gallery and Tonya Weddemire Gallery
Faces of Black Brilliance
7:30pm — 9:30pm
The Bureau Bar & Restaurant
2115 S. State Street Chicago, IL
@richardbeaversgallery
Friday, April 25 — Saturday, April 26
Richard Beavers Gallery
Curated Booth Tours — Noon — 2pm
Expo Chicago Contemporary Art Fair
Navy Pier, Chicago IL
SOUTHERN GUILD RETURNS TO EXPO CHICAGO
As part of an active and expanding fair program and a commitment to ensuring deeper representation of African perspectives in global art contexts, Southern Guild returns to EXPO CHICAGO for the third consecutive year..
At EXPO CHICAGO, new work by leading contemporary artists from across the African continent, including Zanele Muholi (South Africa), Zizipho Poswa (South Africa), Kamyar Bineshtarigh(South Africa/Iran), Mmangaliso Nzuza (South Africa), Manyaku Mashilo (South Africa), Ayotunde Ojo (Nigeria), Roméo Mivekannin (Ivory Coast/Benin/France), Bonolo Kavula (South Africa), Ange Dakouo (Ivory Coast/Mali) and Lulama Wolf (South Africa) will be presented.
Spanning both traditional and non-traditional media, the featured works emerge from artistic practices that speak back to Western modes of art-making by articulating narratives of resistance and inclusive representation. Working in abstract modes, Bineshtarigh, Kavula and Dakouo invoke the rhythmic power of labor-intensive processes — mark-making, threading, weaving and wrapping — to reclaim memory, delve into the politics of language, and devise their own material approaches. Artists Muholi, Poswa, Nzuza, Ojo, Wolf and Mivekannin reclaim agency through representation of themselves and their communities, giving vivid figurative form to less visible spaces, symbols and subjects.
CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY PRESENTS NEW WORK BY LEADING CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
FROM ACROSS THE AFRICAN CONTINENT
Claire Oliver Gallery (Booth 232) announces its return to EXPO Chicago for the tenth year with Changemakers, a presentation of three generations of important textile works by Black textile artists Carolyn Mazloomi, Sharon Kerry-Harlan, and Gio Swaby. Changemakers charts a historic, material, and matrilineal legacy of textile art across three generations, a parallel to how the medium itself is grounded in the craft and artistic lineage of Black women. Featuring new, life-scale works by Mazloomi, Kerry-Harlan, and Swaby, the gallery will showcase three unique modalities of figuration and representation through textiles.
SCHOOL OF DESIGN TALKS: IMPROVISATIONAL ALCHEMY WITH LADIPO FAMODU
Multidisciplinary artist Ladipo Famodu will be a featured speaker for DePaul’s School of Design, Design Talks series. This series invites leading designers who have created innovative responses to the personal, local, and global challenges of the 21st century. Famodu shares fieldnotes from his practice. Drawing upon chemistry, capoeira, architecture, science fiction, jewelry design, Black Studies, and more, this nonlinear talk welcomes the audience to approach uncertainty with curiosity instead of fear.
Famodu was one of Pigment International’s featured artists during this month’s The Other Art Fair.
Thursday April 24, 6PM
Daley Building, Communications Theater LL102
14 E. Jackson, Lower Level
(Image in Drive)
EXPO CHICAGO will celebrate its fourth annual Directors Summit, April 24–26, 2025. The initiative has previously gathered an emerging generation of art museum leaders from across the country. For the first time in 2025, the program will include distinguished leaders from across the globe. Featured during this year’s event will be Monetta White, Executive Director and CEO The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD).
White, a San Francisco native, has dedicated her career to preserving African American culture and advocating for the community. With over 20 years of experience in civic engagement, and entrepreneurship, she has collaborated with numerous non-profits, donors, and corporations.
Under her leadership, the museum has played a pioneering role in showcasing renowned Black artists and curators locally and internationally. Additionally, she forged a partnership with SFMOMA to establish a joint curatorial position aimed at nurturing the next generation of BIPOC art leaders.
Guided by her expertise, the museum has achieved remarkable success, including record-setting donor campaigns and art auctions, doubling its budget, expanding its global reach and digital audience, and creating new opportunities for Black curators and artists
EXPO Dialogues
Thursday, April 24
3:30–4:30pm
IN DIALOGUE: AMANDA WILLIAMS AND JAMILLAH JAMES*
PANELISTS | Jamillah James (Manilow Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago) and Amanda Williams (Artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery).
Join Jamillah James and Amanda Williams for a compelling discussion of Williams’s conceptual artistic practice. Known for her wide-ranging, interdisciplinary approach, Williams explores the intersections of color, architecture, and social space, critically examining the narratives embedded in urban landscapes.
6:30–7:30pm
CREATIVE VOICES: FASHION, ART, AND CULTURAL IMPACT**
PANELISTS | Derrick Adams (Artist, Rhona Hoffman Gallery) and Hebru Brantley (Artist). Moderated by Michael Darling (Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer, Museum Exchange).
Renowned artists Derrick Adams and Hebru Brantley — both of whom have site-specific works featured in THE COLLECTION atFashion Outlets of Chicago — come together for a conversation examining the dynamic intersections of fashion, art, and culture. This panel explores how creative practices shape public spaces and trends in the industry. Moderated by Michael Darling, the discussion highlights the ways in which art and fashion transform our understanding of community, commerce, and creative expression. Presented in partnership with THE COLLECTION: Where Art Meets Fashion.
Friday, April 25
3:15–4:00pm
SCREENING: Art21 AND ARTIST ACTIVISTS
Featuring artists Nick Cave (Stephanie and Bill Sick Professor of Fashion Body and Garment, SAIC), Salah Elmur, Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo aka Puppies Puppies (BA 2010, SAIC), Aliza Nisenbaum (BFA 2001, MFA 2005, SAIC), and Catherine Opie.
Art21 captured numerous artist activist initiatives over the last twenty years. Scaling ambitions beyond the gallery space, the artists in this screening hour use their work as a way to protest the conditions of society.
Sunday, April 27
3:30–4:30pm
CITY IN A GARDEN
PANELISTS | Edie Fake (Artist), Doug Ischar (Artist), and Patric McCoy (Artist). Moderated by Jack Schneider (Assistant Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago) (BFA 2014, SAIC).
City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago is an upcoming intergenerational group exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago highlighting the pivotal, yet often under acknowledged, role Chicago has played in the story of queer art and activism. Through their work considering historic queer sites across the city, the panelists reflect on Chicago’s unique contributions to queer activist histories.
MUST VISIT GALLERIES AT EXPO
Gallery MOMO, Johannesburg
EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, Franschhoek
GRAY, Chicago, New York *
Bill Hodges Gallery, New York
Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, San Francisco *
Johnson Lowe Gallery, Atlanta
Tanya Weddemire Gallery
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