/Dialogues: Summer Series 2014

EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, announces the summer series for /Dialogues in anticipation of the third edition of the fair, September 18–21, 2014. Presented with support by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, /Dialogues offers year-round panel discussions, conversations, and provocative artistic discourse with leading artists, curators, designers, and arts professionals on the current issues that engage them. A series of five /Dialogues panel discussions are set to take place in the West Loop gallery district the weekend of June 7–8.

Presented by Locust Projects, a not for profit exhibition space based out of Miami, and their program Locust Roundtables and THE SEEN, Chicago’s International Online Journal of Contemporary & Modern Art, the panels are aligned to take place during the AICAD (Association of Independent College Art Directors) Conference, joining the abundance of art professionals and alumni who will be present from 43 of the leading art & design schools from across the United States and Canada.

Locust Roundtables

Saturday, June 7

5:00–6:30pm | John Opera
Notes on Surface: Photography/Painting

John Opera will lead an open discussion on surface as it pertains to contemporary photography and painting, where surface can be treated as a point of transparency. Applying to painting the methodologies of systematic value control that one would use in the dark room, such as dodging and burning, the conversation will consider the potential to access the space behind or below a surface, real or imagined. In this context, Opera will discuss his own work and the concerns that have fed his development over the past five years, as well as the work of other contemporaries and painters that intuitively have investigated surface since the mid 20th century, such as Morris Louis.

6:30pm–8:00pm | Chicago Artist Writers
Peer Review

Chicago Artist Writers (Sofia Leiby and Jason Lazarus) in collaboration with artist Brandon Alvendia present an art writing workshop that instigates a collectively authored review of an exhibition on view in the immediate surroundings of the 845 W. Washington building. The text will be published at the conclusion of the workshop.Chicago Artist Writers is a platform that asks artists and art workers to write traditional and experimental criticism that serves non-profit, temporary, and alternative arts programming in Chicago. Brandon Alvendia is a Chicago-based conceptual artist, curator, writer, publisher, and educator. His interdisciplinary practice playfully engages spatial and social architectures to envision temporary utopias.

Sunday, June 8

12:00pm–1:30pm | Abraham Ritchie
Beyond #Art: Using Social Media to Communicate Chicago’s Art Offerings

During any day of the year there is a staggering amount of art-related events going on in the city of Chicago, and yet these events remain disparately distributed and unevenly communicated online. The objective of this panel will be to gather together the individuals who produce content for the social media channels of various art institutions of differing scales to share how and why each uses their respective channels – with an emphasis on Twitter as a platform. Participants include representatives from Chicago’s art museums, university art museums, art focused non-profits, art listing organizations, and potentially Twitter itself. This roundtable will take the form, at times, of a workshop, panel discussion, interview, and question-and-answer session. It is intended to be an open session aimed at creating a long-term online campaign that is open to use by any Chicago art organization.

1:30pm–3:00pm | Ross Jordan
Beer Summit: Envisioning Artistic Engagement With the Archive

Museum displays in presidential libraries are notorious for obfuscating the historical truths found in their archives. Famously, the displays in Ronald Reagan’s presidential library did not mention the Iran-Contra scandal even as it held the documents about those events. The mediated nature of archives has made them an important subject in contemporary art. Artists like Fred Wilson, James Lunam, and Walid Raad have created archive displays that offer uncomfortable histories and ambiguous narratives that reshape public imagination about archival subjects. With bids under development in New York, Hawaii, and Chicago for Obama’s presidential library, how do recent artistic interventions into archives help us envision a body of objects and documents – that are also public resources – for transformation?