EXPO CHICAGO Announces 2024 Program Curators

EXPO CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, today announced program curators for the 11th edition (April 11–14, 2024) returning to Navy Pier's Festival Hall. EXPO CHICAGO's program dedicated to large-scale sculpture, video, film, and site-specific works throughout Festival Hall, IN/SITU, will be curated by Amara Antilla, Senior Curator at Large at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati. Activating interstitial areas throughout the historic Navy Pier and beyond, Antilla's selected artists will expand upon IN/SITU's legacy of fostering ambitious projects that typically aren't possible within the context of a fair.

Rosario Güiraldes, Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will curate the 2024 EXPOSURE section, which highlights solo and two-artist presentations from galleries 10 years and younger. This year's presentation will focus on heralding emerging artists and exhibition programs, overseen by Güiraldes with counsel from the Selection Committee and exposition's President and Director Tony Karman. The program curators work in tandem with Kate Sierzputowski, formerly EXPO CHICAGO's Director of Programming and recently appointed Artistic Director, to realize the respective programs.

“EXPO CHICAGO is an international art fair deeply rooted in the cultural ecosystem of Chicago and the broader Midwest region, and this year we are thrilled to have for the first time two section curators that represent institutions from our region, while also bringing incredible international expertise and perspective to our programs,” said Sierzputowski. “We are committed to platforming local-global idea exchange throughout the exposition, and the frameworks these two powerhouse curators bring to each program further strengthens this vision.”

Antilla brings to EXPO CHICAGO a breadth of perspectives on the region's role and global impact on contemporary artistic production. She recently curated and co-curated the group exhibitions Wild Frictions: The Politics and Poetics of Interruption (2021); the first major multi-museum survey of artists living and working in the Midwest, The Regional (2022), and Breaking Water (2022), and her projects have traveled to or been featured at venues such as the Dhaka Art Summit; ICA San Diego; JOAN, Los Angeles; Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin; and The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City. Previously, Antilla served as a curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where she worked on numerous exhibitions and expanded the permanent collection through acquisitions.

“EXPO CHICAGO's IN/SITU program is an exciting opportunity to push beyond traditional forms of display and collaborate with artists to realize ambitious, site-specific installations,” said Antilla. “I look forward to working with EXPO CHICAGO to bring these visionary projects to the fore and further amplify the fair's rigorous program as a convener of international, national, and regional voices.”

As curator of EXPO CHICAGO's EXPOSURE section, Güiraldes brings curatorial expertise in artistic production in the global south alongside her depth of knowledge in the region. In her role at the Walker Art Center, Güiraldes develops artist-centered projects, supports collection growth, and creates new opportunities for community engagement. Prior to joining the Walker Art Center, Güiraldes held the position of Associate Curator at The Drawing Center. Her recent projects include monographic exhibitions of the work of Xiyadie (2023), Fernanda Laguna (2022), Ebecho Muslimova (2021), and Guo Fengyi (2020), as well as the expansive drawing survey Drawing in the Continuous Present (2022).

“I am thrilled to join EXPO CHICAGO as the 2024 EXPOSURE section curator, and I look forward to helping increase visibility and facilitate exchange for emerging local and global artists within the context of Chicago's rich cultural landscape,” said Güiraldes. “Throughout my career, I have focused on contemporary art of the global south, and now that I'm also based in the Midwest, I'm excited for the opportunity to bring that expansive worldview to the EXPOSURE program, while at the same time foregrounding the vibrant artistic communities from the Greater Midwest.”  

Amara Antilla is a curator based between Cincinnati and Washington DC with over ten years of experience conceiving of and developing exhibitions with a focus on international contemporary art. She is currently Senior Curator at Large at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, where she has organized solo exhibitions and new commissions by artists including Tania Candiani (2020), Kahlil Robert Irving (2020), Steffani Jemison (2021), Marwa Arsanios (2021), Hellen Ascoli (2021), Rit Premnath (2021), Nora Turato (2021), Paul Maheke (2022), Carmen Winant (2022) and Tai Shani (forthcoming, fall 2023). Among the group exhibitions that she has recently curated and co-curated are Wild Frictions: The Politics and Poetics of Interruption (2021); The Regional (2022), Artist-Run Spaces (2022), and Breaking Water (2022). Antilla's projects have traveled to or been featured at venues such as the Dhaka Art Summit; ICA San Diego; JOAN, Los Angeles; Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin; The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, and Northern Spark, Minneapolis. Previously, Antilla served as a curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where she worked on numerous exhibitions and expanded the permanent collection through acquisitions. She also supported the research and exhibition program of the MAP Global Art Initiative and contributed to organizing various contemporary exhibitions and performances with artists including Simone Leigh, Alfredo Jaar, and Amalia Pica. She is the recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship and the Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Research Award (both 2022). She studied art history at Tufts University, Medford, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Rosario Güiraldes is Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Originally from Buenos Aires, Güiraldes has more than a decade of experience working as a curator at institutions across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, focusing in particular on contemporary art of the global south. She most recently held the position of Associate Curator at The Drawing Center, where she worked between 2017 and 2023. Among her recent projects are monographic exhibitions of the work of Xiyadie (2023), Fernanda Laguna (2022), Ebecho Muslimova (2021), and Guo Fengyi (2020), as well as the expansive drawing survey Drawing in the Continuous Present (2022). In addition to the projects noted above, she co-curated the large thematic exhibitions 100 Drawings from Now (2020); The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists (2019); and monographic exhibitions of the work of Guo Fengyi (2020) and Eduardo Navarro (2018). Between 2017 and 2020, Güiraldes served as co-curator of The Drawing Center's Open Sessions, a two-year program for 30 early-career artists focused on exploring the nature of drawing through thematic group exhibitions, public programs, and monthly convenings. Previously, she curated the large-scale survey Forensic Architecture: Towards an Investigative Aesthetics (2017–2018), which was presented at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) and the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), Mexico City, and earned the interdisciplinary collective Forensic Architecture a Turner Prize nomination. Güiraldes holds a master's degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and a bachelor's degree from the University of Buenos Aires. She frequently lectures in universities and institutions, and is currently a Critic in the Department of Painting and Printmaking at Yale School of Art.

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