21c Chicago

Pop Stars! - Guided Tour with Juli Lowe, 21c Museum Manager
2022-03-30 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Curious about contemporary art? Learn about 21c Chicago’s current exhibition, Pop Stars!, and the artists behind all of the works on a guided tour from 21c’s Museum Manager, Juli Lowe.
Meet us in the lobby to explore. Tours are free and open to the public.

Pop Stars! - Guided Docent Tour with Juli Lowe, 21c Museum Manager
2022-03-26 10:00 - 11:00 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Curious about contemporary art? Learn about 21c Chicago’s current exhibition, Pop Stars!, and the artists behind all of the works on a guided tour from 21c’s Museum Manager,
Juli Lowe.
Meet us in the lobby at 5 pm to explore. Tours are free and open to the public.

Pop Stars! - Guided Tour with Alice Gray Stites, 21c Museum Director and Chief Curator
2022-03-25 10:00 - 11:00 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Curious about contemporary art? Learn about 21c Chicago’s current exhibition, Pop Stars!, and the artists behind all of the works on a guided tour from 21c’s Museum Director and Chief Curator,
Alice Gray Stites.
Meet us in the lobby at 10am to explore. Tours are free and open to the public.

Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art - New On-Site Exhibition Opening Event
2022-03-24 18:00 - 20:00 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Date: Thursday, March 24th, 2022
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Where: 21c Chicago, Main Gallery
How to Attend: Free event
Join us for an opening reception for 21c Museum Hotel Chicago’s newest on-site exhibition, “Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art.”
21c Museum Director and Chief Curator Alice Gray Stites with introduce the exhibition and have a conversation with featured artist Brendan Fernandes.
The reception begins at 6:00 p.m. with remarks scheduled at 6:30 p.m.
Guests will be treated to food tastings from Lure Fishbar along with house wine.
The multi-media exhibition illuminates the intersection of celebrity, commerce, technology and the media, including notable works by Nick Cave, Titus Kaphar, Hank Willis Thomas, Kehinde Wiley and Brendan Fernandes, among others. “Pop Stars!” features over 90 works of art by 55 artists from around the world.
[Brian Paumier, “Act of Faith,” 2014, unique cuadros and archival pigment prints on panel with resin. Photo courtesy of 21c Museum Hotels.]

Curator Conversations - September 28
2021-09-28 18:00 - 19:00 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Date: Tuesday, September 28
Time: 6 pm CST (Doors open at 5:30)
Where: 21c Chicago, Main Gallery
How: Free event, RSVP at our Eventbrite link to get reminders for the event
Our next Curator Conversations at 21c Chicago will feature Olivia Junell with local artist A.Martinez!
Curator Conversations is a bimonthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. We’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
Light refreshments will be provided and guests are welcome to stay after the talk and enjoy our current exhibition, This We Believe.
This event will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page.
About our Speakers:
Olivia Junell is Director of Development & Outreach at Experimental Sound Studio. She has over 15 years of experience working in development at small to mid-sized arts non-profits, where she has gained extensive, diverse experience in fundraising, project management, project development, budgeting, production, strategic planning, and marketing. Along the way, both independently and in the context of organization-based projects, she has worked with dozens of artists to secure funding for their visions.
A native Texan, Olivia moved to Chicago in 2013 to earn a dual Masters in Arts Administration and Public Policy and Modern Art History and Critical Writing at the School of the Art Institute Chicago (2016). She has held various roles at a number of contemporary arts and music organizations including significant development and leadership roles at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Chicago), the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, High Concept Labs (Chicago), and Women & Their Work (Austin), among others.
Olivia serves on the board of Honey Pot Performance, where she is also Chair of the Development Committee. She is also the Program Director for Back Alley Jazz, a project of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival and South Shore Works.
A.Martinez is a poet, visual artist, mother, and community and arts organizer living in Chicago. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Writing Program, and has been published in LVNG Magazine, Contratiempo, Poiesis, and will release a limited edition artist book of poetry and drawings, Turn, in 2022. Her work explores identity, memory, spirituality, and the body.
In addition to her creative practice, A.Martinez produces community and cultural events. She most notably helps produce Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival and is production and development coordinator for Grammy-nominated, Spektral Quartet. She also curates her own independent events that center on and for mothers of color in the arts, and is an organizer and member of the Wild Yams cohort of black artist mothers. A.Martinez is a proud recipient of the 2019 3Arts Make a Wave Award.
You can find out more about her work and projects at https://www.alyssahydemartinez.com/

Curator Conversations - July 20
2021-07-20 18:00 - 19:00 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, 55 E Ontario, Chicago, IL, 60611
Date: Tuesday, July 20
Time: 6 pm
Where: 21c Chicago, Main Gallery
How: Free event, RSVP at our Eventbrite link to get reminders for the event
July’s Curator Conversations at 21c Chicago will feature local artist Emma McKee! She’ll be in conversation with our Museum Manager, Adia Sykes.
Curator Conversations is a free monthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. Each month we’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
Guests are welcome to stay after the talk and enjoy our current exhibition, This We Believe.
About our Speakers:
Emma Mckee isn’t your average cross stitcher. Born in Kansas City, she was first introduced to the medium through her mother, a British opera singer who frequently attempted to teach Emma how to stitch during her childhood. Yet she always refused to learn, finding the British craft too antiquated — that is, until she found a way to make cross stitching work for her.
In 2014, Emma stitched her first piece: An adaptation of Will Prince’s artwork for Chance the Rapper’s song “Hey Ma.” She followed that with a jacket that Chance wore on the cover of Billboard magazine. Her portfolio expanded from there, as she firmly planted herself within Chicago’s rap community, as the scene’s preeminent — and only — hip-hop cross stitcher, earning the name Stitch Gawd.
Since 2014, she’s created countless pieces for musicians and artists both in and outside Chicago. In 2017 she started exploring large scale non traditional cross stitch with an install for Adidas’ Originals windows. She continues to explore large scale cross stitch most recently with a 9 foot portrait of Chairman Fred Hampton- Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Adia Sykes is the Museum Manager for 21c Chicago, where she organizes a wide range of arts programming, often in collaboration with other cultural and civic organizations, all open and free to the public. Through her independent curatorial practice, Sykes has realized projects in Chicago and abroad with organizations such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Woman Made Gallery, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Comfort Station, ACRE Projects, and Centro Opificio Siri in Italy.

Curator Conversations - June 24
2021-06-24 18:00 - 19:00 | IL
Date: Thursday, June 24
Time: 6 pm
Where: Zoom
How: Free event, just register on Eventbrite link to get login information
June’s Curator Conversations at 21c Chicago will feature Vincent Uribe and Hope Wang! Curator Conversations is a monthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. Each month we’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
Join us on Zoom, June 24th at 6pm CST to hear about these artists’ work and what’s going on in the Chicago art scene. Check out the artist’s work below!
Check Out Their Work:
Hope Wang is a Chicago-based artist, arts facilitator, and poet. Contending with sloppy traces of human activity around sites of industrial labour and transit, her work explores the fallibility of memory and contemporary conditions of alienation. She also hosts and operates LMRM, a floor loom rental resource for Chicago fiber artists. Wang received her BFA (2018) from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a 2021 recipient of the gener8tor Art Accelerator Program Grant. She has attended the Digital Weaving Lab Residency at Praxis Fiber Workshop; The Weaving Mill WARP Residency; and Spudnik Press Cooperative Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited at Ignition Project Space (Chicago, IL); Gallery No One (Chicago, IL); Chicago Art Department (Chicago, IL); Sullivan Galleries (Chicago, IL); and Zhou B Art Center (Chicago, IL), among others.
https://www.hopewang.com/
Vincent Uribe is an artist and creative community builder based in Chicago, IL. A Los Angeles native, Vincent is a dual-degree graduate from the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. He is the Founding Director of LVL3, an artist-run exhibition space and online publication launched in 2010. Through LVL3, Vincent has organized hundreds of exhibitions featuring exceptional emerging and mid-career artists both nationally and internationally, including in Miami, New York, and Mexico City. In 2013, Vincent joined the team at Arts of Life to help expand opportunities for artists with disabilities. Through the Artist Enterprise Program, he launched Arts of Life’s in-studio Circle Contemporary galleries and expanded Arts of Life’s public exhibitions locally in Chicago and on a national scale. His work includes shows with the Chicago Cultural Center, Art on theMART, INTUIT Center for Outsider Art, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art among many others. Vincent serves as a founding board member for Equity Arts. He has participated in numerous talks dedicated to artists’ professional development. His work has been featured in publications such as The Chicago Tribune and New City.
https://lvl3official.com/

Curator Conversations - May 25
2021-05-25 18:00 - 19:00 | IL
Date: Tuesday, May 25
Time: 6 pm
Where: Zoom
How: Free event, just register on Eventbrite link to get login information
21c Museum Hotel Chicago is honored to collaborate with DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) on this month’s Curator Conversation. DPAM’s Assistant Curator, Ionit Behar will be in conversation with artist José Lerma who currently has work on view in DPAM’s exhibition LatinXAmerican which features 38 Latinx artists from the Chicagoland area and beyond.
Curator Conversations at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago is a monthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. Each month those pairing switch up to give viewers a look into the rich arts community in the city.
Join DePaul Art Museum and 21c Museum Hotel Chicago for this free program on Tuesday, May 25th at 6pm CST.
Check Out Their Work:
Ionit Behar is Assistant Curator at DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago and teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to joining DPAM, she was the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, a Research Assistant for the exhibition “Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium” at the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Graduate Curatorial Assistant at Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has appeared in exhibition catalogues and art journals such FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, The Chicago Reader, THE SEEN, and The Exhibitionist. Born in Israel and raised in Uruguay, Behar is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her dissertation is titled “Intimate Space and the Public Sphere: Margarita Paksa in Argentina’s Military Dictatorship.”
Born in Mexico in 1981, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas is a Chicago-based artist who received an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2013 and his BFA, Summa Cum Laude, from the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico in 2003. Lara has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art, Kruger Gallery in Marfa, Texas, and Test Site Projects in Las Vegas, among others. He has been in such residencies as the Vermont Studio Center, ACRE, Ragdale, Mana Miami, Rogers Art Loft, and Cross Currents: Cultural Exchange. Lara has received many awards including an Emerging Artist Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
https://www.rodrigo-lara.com/
Instagram: rodrigo_lara_81

Curator Conversations - April 14th
2021-04-14 18:00 - 19:00 | IL
Date: Wednesday, April 14th
Time: 6 pm
Where: Zoom
How: Free event, just register on Eventbrite link to get login information
Curator Conversations at 21c Chicago is back in April with Cortney Lederer and Yasmin Spiro! Curator Conversations is a monthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice with ties to the Chicago arts community. Each month we’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
This event is FREE but please sign-up on our Eventbrite link to get the Zoom login information. This is sure to be an exciting conversation you won’t want to miss!
Check Out Their Work:
Cortney Lederer is an art consultant, curator, and educator with 20 years of experience managing an array of artistic programming for organizations and businesses. From 2011–14 she served as the director of exhibitions and residencies at Chicago Artists Coalition. In 2014, Lederer launched CNL Projects to provide artists and organizations with a platform to creatively produce impactful art experiences. CNL’s work is deeply centered on her unique, collaborative approach to working with artists, clients, businesses and organizations to advocate for the value of art and culture in our daily lives. As a respond to the pandemic, CNL launched ART- IN-PLACE May 2020, where 400 artists from around the world activated their homes with works of art to share with their neighbors and through a virtual platform. This collective action provided artists and community members with a sense of hope and connectivity through the experience of public art. Cortney is faculty in the Arts Administration and Policy department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and provides professional development workshops and individual consultation to artists. Most recently, she curated two site-specific installations at the Willis Tower by artists Olafur Eliasson and Jacob Hashimoto.
www.cnlprojects.org/
IG: @cnlprojects
Yasmin Spiro was born and grew up in in Kingston, Jamaica and currently lives and works in Chicago. Spiro’s work is multi-disciplinary, primarily based in sculpture and immersive installations, with video, drawing and performance – exploring issues of cultural identity and socio-economic issues within the framework of urban development and social politics – often through the lens of Caribbean culture.
Spiro’s work explores concepts related to architecture and urbanism, socio-economics, futuristic cities, and craft and culture. Research is often layered with personal narratives connected to both the landscape and culture of Jamaica. Much of the work is textile based connecting directly to personal history and reconstructed memories. The work also utilizes casting – plaster, ceramic, and cement – creating architectural elements that reference futurism and femininity in our built environments. Her studio practice pulls in various aspects of personal and cultural history to build stories within the work – layered with conceptual research, and material experimentation.
Spiro’s work has been shown at galleries in the US and Caribbean and she was a founding member of the tART women’s collective in NY (F2004). Her work has been covered in NewCity, Art News, Washington Times, Miami Herald and others. She attended Pratt Institute for her BFA, and MFA studies. She has held residences at the Kohler Arts and Industry program in Wisconsin, Vermont Studio Center, Chicago Artist Coalition and an upcoming residency as a Dora Maar Brown Foundation Fellow in Menerbes, France.
www.yasminspiro.com/
IG: @yspiro

Curator Conversations - March 19th
2021-03-19 18:00 - 19:00 | IL
Date: Friday, March 19th
Time: 6 pm
Where: Zoom
How: Free event, just register on Eventbrite link to get login information
Curator Conversations at 21c Chicago is back with Ciera McKissick and Erin LeAnn Mitchell! Curator Conversations is a monthly series that asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice also from the Chicago arts community. Each month we’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
This event is FREE but please sign-up on our Eventbrite link to get the Zoom login information. This is sure to be an exciting conversation you won’t want to miss!
Check Out Their Work:
Erin LeAnn Mitchell is a Birmingham, Alabama native who attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2011. Mitchell’s interest in teaching and continued passion in the arts led her to Columbia College Chicago, where she graduated with a Master of Arts in Art Education in 2016. Upon returning to Birmingham, Mitchell’s work has been featured on the nationally syndicated television show, Empire, presented her work in honor of Dr. Angela Y. Davis, and is currently featured in the exhibition, “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, at the Birmingham Museum of Art.
https://www.erinleannworks.com/
Ciera Mckissick is an independent writer, curator, cultural producer, and the founder of AMFM. She is also the coordinator of Public Programs at the Hyde Park Art Center, and Communications Associate at Ox-Bow School of Art. She created AMFM, originally a web magazine, as an independent study project in 2009 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied Journalism and Mass Communications. Her work since then often involves collaboration through supporting Black and brown artists, local arts organizations, and seeks to stimulate community engagement that’s driven by inclusivity, accessibility, intention, and care. Projects and events have been featured in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, The Chicago Sun Times, Southside Weekly, Afropunk, and DapperQ, The Milwaukee Business Journal, and Milwaukee Neighborhood News.
http://www.amfm.life/

Curator Conversations
2021-02-04 18:00 - 19:00 | Zoom
Date: Thursday, February 4th
Time: 6 pm
Where: Zoom
How: Free event, just register on Eventbrite link to get login information
21c Chicago is thrilled to kick off our Curator Conversations series with Jefferson Godard, Jean Alexander Frater, and Derrick Woods-Morrow! Curator Conversations asks a local art curator to chat with an artist of their choice also from the Chicago arts community. Each month we’ll switch up those pairings to give you a look into the rich arts community that we have here in the city.
This event is FREE but please sign-up on our Eventbrite link to get the Zoom login information. This is sure to be an exciting conversation you won’t want to miss!

Check Out Their Work:
Jefferson Godard is a video art curator, gallerist, educator, and trained architect. In 2012, Godard founded Aspect/Ratio Projects, a contemporary art gallery focused on video art. The gallery is currently located in the West Town neighborhood of Chicago and represents both emerging and mid-career internationally based artists. In addition to the gallery, he has curated video art based exhibitions and screenings at spaces including: The Chicago Architecture Biennial, Gallery 400 at UIC Chicago, Nice and Fit Gallery Berlin, Souvenirs from Earth channel in France, Shane Campbell Gallery Chicago, and The Mission Chicago. As a trained architect, Godard has worked on several high-rise residential projects in his hometown of Miami, Florida as well as an award-winning urban park competition Bahndeckel in Munich, Germany. In addition to his curatorial and gallery endeavors, Godard has lectured or participated on panels at Northwestern University, MCA Chicago, Moving image Art Fair New York, Chicago Artists Coalition, Art Cologne, and chaired a panel discussion at the College Arts Association Conference.
http://www.aspectratioprojects.com/about–contact.html
IG: @jeffersongodard and @aspectratioprojectsgallery
Jean Alexander Frater experiments with the materials inherent to painting and then integrates other histories, traditions and language into this form. Alexander Frater is represented by Aspect/Ratio Gallery in Chicago. She was a 2017-2018 Chicago Artists Coalition BOLT resident, received an MFA from School of Art the Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Philosophy, from the University of Dayton, Ohio. Her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Wexner Center for Arts, Columbus; El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe; Images Festival, Toronto; Possible Project Space, Brooklyn; Ben-Gurion airport, Tel Aviv; Kulturhuset, Stockholm, THE MISSION Gallery, Chicago; Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn and Guest Spot @ The Reinstitute, Baltimore.
https://alexanderfrater.com/home.html
IG: @jeanalexanderfrater
Derrick Woods-Morrow‘s (b.1990) work is a meditation on deviation and disruption, on language and representation – on growing up in the American South. Currently based in Chicago and originally from Greensboro, North Carolina his artistic practice explores black sexual freedoms and the complicated histories concerning access to these freedoms.
As he navigates historical archives, he searches for moments, or ‘glitches’ that show alternative queer futures, existing, emboldened, and exacting – Freedom. Together, with other Queer Folx, he creates photographs, moving images, performance, installations and sculptures that recognize histories they were written out of and future places they wish to occupy.
Woods-Morrow’s work questions the very validity of the personal archive, of memory (ever fleeting), and of being ever-present with oneself. He is questioning the performance of the self untethered from expectation, both in his art, and his life – a new ideal of intimacy, where darkness liberates us, and blackness is inherently queer.
A recipient of the 2018 Artadia Award, Derrick Woods-Morrow received his MFA in Photography from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, and was most recently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Photography and Teaching Artist at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is an alum of the Fire Island Artist Residency & Chicago’s Bolt Residency. He has screened films at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center & Chicago Arts Incubator. His work has exhibited in collaboration with Paul Sepuya in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; at YNCI V: Detroit Art Week Expo (curated by Darryl Terrell); in Photography Now at The Center for Photography at Woodstock; and Down Time: On the Art of Retreat at the Smart Museum Chicago (curated by Leslie Wilson and Berit Ness). In Winter of 2019, a new film, much handled things are always soft (2019) will debuted in collaboration with the VISUAL AIDS 30th Annual Day With(out) ART programming at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art LA, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, The New Museum & over a hundred institutions worldwide.
http://www.derrickwoodsmorrow.com/
IG: @moresweetbeef
