EXPO CHICAGO Announces Directors Summit Keynote And Participants

EXPO CHICAGO, the international exposition of contemporary and modern art, today announced the participants and programming for the second annual Directors Summit, presented as part of the 10th anniversary edition of the fair taking place April 13-16, 2023.

The second iteration of the Summit will gather emerging art museum leaders from across the country for a three-day series of conversations on the future of museum leadership and institutional reinvention. Shaped in partnership with museum consultant Jill Snyder, the Directors Summit is centered on two public roundtable discussions that will examine how to forge equitable and sustainable movement forward for art museums and institutions, as well as a keynote lecture by Paul R. Provost, founding CEO of Art Bridges Foundation, at the University Club of Chicago on Saturday, April 15th at 10 a.m.

"We are deeply proud of the annual Curatorial Initiatives programming that has solidified EXPO CHICAGO as one of the foremost conveners of international curators in the country," said Tony Karman, president and director. "We launched the Directors Summit last year to expand these efforts to include global museum directors during the exposition, and we are delighted to continue building upon our successful inaugural year by welcoming a new cohort of participants to Chicago, underscoring our commitment to provide an annual platform to share ideas from today's emerging institutional leaders."

"I look forward to joining my talented peers in a robust conversation on the future of museum leadership and institutional reinvention," said Paul R. Provost, founding CEO of Art Bridges Foundation. "Initiatives such as EXPO CHICAGO's Director's Summit are critical to bringing about sustained changes in our field and providing an open discourse around the issues museums face today."

The public roundtable discussions are slated to take place on the /Dialogues stage at EXPO CHICAGO in Navy Pier's Festival Hall at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 14 and 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 15. Responding to lessons from the pandemic, reverberations from social uprisings, and the shifts in values and ideals of a younger generation, participating museum leaders will speak to their investment to build more inclusive institutions. The roundtable discussions will explore how new institutional systems lead to enduring structural changes and promote inclusivity. In a lively conversation, the cohort of leaders will share their lived experiences, experiments, and new pathways forward.

"The 2023 Directors Summit will build upon the dynamic exchange among emerging museum leaders that launched last year's highly successful inaugural summit. By openly sharing ideas and initiatives, these directors offered refreshing transparency into pressing and urgent leadership challenges. Even more critical is the trust they gained by displaying courage, passion, and humility in advancing equitable and inclusive outcomes for the museum field," said Jill Snyder. "This year's cohort, once again representing a highly diverse group that hails from different geographies, collecting and non-collecting institutions, and university based and public institutions, promises to deliver equally stimulating and inspiring narratives and an exciting lens into future directions for the field."

Participating directors include:

• Nora Abrams, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO)
• Daisy Desrosiers, Gund Gallery at Kenyon College (Gambier, OH)
• Anne Ellegood, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
• Courtney J. Martin, Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, CT)
• Veronica Roberts, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
• Klaudio Rodriguez, Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, NY)
• Virginia Shearer, Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota, FL)

The Directors Summit will take place alongside the exposition's leading Curatorial Initiatives programs-the Curatorial Forum, the foremost convening of curators in the United States, presented in partnership with Independent Curators International (ICI); and the Curatorial Exchange, which partners with cultural and governmental organizations to fund curators' travel and idea exchange from around the world. Together these programs bring more than 65 curators from around the world to Chicago, supporting the larger mission of EXPO CHICAGO to foster the critical international creative dialogues taking place in the Midwest today.

The Directors Summit is supported by Sotheby's, in addition to Risk Strategies and the University Club of Chicago.

For additional information and an up-to-date list of programming, exhibitors, and more on the 10th anniversary edition of EXPO CHICAGO, please visit www.expochicago.com.

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