Renaud Proch and Tony Karman on One of the Largest Gatherings of Curators in the U.S.
In Partnership with Expo Chicago

EXPO CHICAGO brings exhibitors, artists, curators, and events to Chicago's Navy Pier every year, with its tenth edition taking place from 13 to 16 April. Since 2015, the international fair has partnered with ICI to host the Curatorial Forum as part of its programme, with each iteration focusing on a different theme.

The 2023 edition will take the term 'curator' back to its Latin root, meaning 'care', with discussions on ways in which notions of care permeate all aspects of the curatorial process, from community and artist engagement to accessibility and labour conditions.

Mid-career and established curators have been selected from across the United States to participate in facilitated conversations around curation, programming, institutions, and audiences. Bringing an international dimension to the Forum are the curators of EXPO's Curatorial Exchange programme.

Everybody convenes to exchange the findings and results of their closed-door conversations.

The Forum's 2023 keynote speaker is Victoria Noorthoorn, director of Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. In her keynote address, Noorthoorn will discuss her team's approach to creating what she describes as a 'museum for all'.

Aligning with the 2023 Forum's agenda is ICI's positioning of the curator as a builder of community and champion of artistic practice. ICI, whose network of collaborators extends to 70 countries, has collaborated with Chicago's institutions and curators for more than three decades—a commitment recently reinforced with the opening of a permanent Chicago office.

In this conversation, EXPO CHICAGO's director of programming Kate Sierzputowski speaks with ICI executive director Renaud Proch and EXPO CHICAGO president Tony Karman on their approach to building the largest funded curators' convention in the U.S., and the relevance of curatorial programmes across the international field.

KSTony, can you speak to the origins of EXPO CHICAGO's collaboration with ICI, and what originally encouraged you to create programming around invited curators at the fair?

TKIt was a simple thought to use the resources of EXPO CHICAGO to invite curators to come to our city and experience not only the art fair, but also our institutions, our galleries, and our artists. The first Curatorial Forum occurred in 2015, and it was an innocent decision to just invite a number of curators to attend the fair. We identified maybe 20 or 30 of them. This first iteration of the Curatorial Forum was extraordinary in that we launched it, but it had no back-end. It had no impact other than the gathering of curators, which was still very important.

Renaud Proch, who had served as the IN/SITU curator the year before, attended this inaugural edition of the Curatorial Forum. I'll never forget: as Renaud and I were walking the floor, he commented on the importance of the fair's decision to invite curators, but also reminded me that there was a lot more that could be done—should be done—in service of curatorial practice. He convinced me, and I had no doubts, that a partnership with ICI to actually create programming for curators to come to the fair and gather was critical to the future of the Forum.

It's really quite rare to have such a broad geographical representation of curators come together.

As we approach this tenth edition of the fair, I'm proud that we've brought in more than 250 curators from around the country and across the world, to not only have the opportunity to be together, but to also participate in an extraordinary symposium and discussions that I know have impacted their curatorial practice.

KSWhat are some of the goals for this year's Curatorial Forum? How did you select the specific breakout session topics, such as accessibility, community engagement, labour conditions, and new ways of working with artists?

RPEvery year, the Forum addresses a particular theme—a set of ideas that we find important in the curatorial field. First, through a keynote lecture, which establishes the importance of these ideas with the perspective of a professional—often an international museum director—who has shown that they engage with the theme at all levels of their institution. The keynote lecture is a way to start thinking about the ideas that are central to the Curatorial Forum through someone's practice.

Next, we organise closed-door discussions, focusing on the year's theme in different areas of curatorial work. For these sessions, participating curators are divided into smaller groups of eight to ten, in order to facilitate intimate conversations about their experiences with the topic at hand. The third part of the Curatorial Forum is bringing all the curators together. Everybody convenes to exchange the findings and results of their closed-door conversations.

This year, the theme is 'care'—the care that curators bring to their work, the centrality of care in their thinking and their practices. What does care mean in labour conditions in the curatorial field? What does care mean in working with artists? How is care manifested in curatorial concerns around accessibility? And so on and so forth.

KSWhat feedback have you received from curators over the last eight years about the impacts of these closed-door sessions? And how do they differ from, say, institutionally driven programmes like this?

RPI think the two things that are so particular about the Curatorial Forum and the collaboration with EXPO CHICAGO are: first, the importance of coming together with curators who really represent the diversity of the artistic and curatorial landscapes of this country. On a typical year, we have up to 40 curators from as many as 20 U.S. states. It's really quite rare to have such a broad geographical representation of curators come together.

The Curatorial Forum sets the platform for a conversation that otherwise does not happen in this country.

Secondly, these curators also represent very different types of institutions and practices. Many institution-affiliated curators come from regional museums, or major museums and major art cities in the U.S. Others come from equally important university and college galleries and museums, while still others work independently or in small art spaces. To have this range of practices come together is incredibly important and unique. The Curatorial Forum sets the platform for a conversation that otherwise does not happen in this country.

KSTony, thinking of bringing diverse practices together: why was it important for you to expand the programme to international curators in 2018? How has their participation in curatorial programming expanded EXPO CHICAGO's relationships and alignments?

TKWhen EXPO CHICAGO began conducting outreach to the various consulates in Chicago, bringing international curators and embedding them into the Curatorial Forum was an obvious next step. These visiting curators could not only infuse a new perspective into the Forum discourse, but also take full advantage of what Renaud just mentioned: this incredible, diverse geographical representation. Additionally, having curators from EXPO CHICAGO's Curatorial Exchange programme folded into the Curatorial Forum creates yet another layer of opportunity, relationship-building, discourse, and cultural exchange.

To bring both national and international curators to Chicago is to facilitate the process by which curators explore and connect to our broad cultural community. And when they do so, they begin to explore and find ways to build actual partnerships—which has a huge impact on our arts ecosystem.

KSICI just opened a permanent space in Chicago. Do you feel like this is a natural extension of ICI's interests, and how do you think this space has influenced—or will begin to influence—the local creative community as your presence remains?

RPChicago has always been an incredibly important art city. This was, in fact, the premise of my original contribution to EXPO CHICAGO in 2014 when I curated IN/SITU. I was interested in looking at artists and their connections to the city, and how the city's spirit and history influence artistic practices. I showcased artists who had studied in Chicago, or lived in Chicago, or taught in Chicago, or came back to Chicago.

For me, EXPO CHICAGO—as well as the fair's cultural initiatives—puts a magnifying glass on these relationships in an important and critical way. Everything we've built has been part of this effort to magnify what is already here, and to bring curators from around the country and around the world to witness it and bring it back to their communities.

We opened an office in Chicago in 2022, on the heels of almost a decade of deep engagement with the city. Many ICI exhibitions were presented in institutions across the city, ranging from the DuSable Museum to the School of the Art Institute Sullivan Galleries, and, next year, Northwestern University's Block Museum. We're also building on a years-long collaboration with the Joyce Foundation, and with a network of Chicago-based curators who have attended our professional development programme, the Curatorial Intensive.

Our new office is a commitment to the community of curators that we already have. It's us coming to meet them where they are, and finding ways to provide support for their practice—and for other curators who we haven't yet met. Overall, our role is to serve as a catalyst for curators in this city.

TKI'm deeply proud that EXPO CHICAGO's collaboration with ICI has burnished the reputation of EXPO CHICAGO as a place where curators know that they can attend, and where our participating dealers know that they're going to see a broad swath of curators from all over.

I'm also proud of what Renaud just mentioned—that ICI, based in New York but global in its reach, has had the opportunity to build upon the relationships that they already have here in Chicago. They've created an office and a team here that is, as Renaud said, catalysing our curators in Chicago through the lens of ICI's incredible global reach. I'm excited that the legacy of our Curatorial Forum has begat this kind of growth for ICI and, more importantly, for us to take advantage of their presence in Chicago on behalf of our artists, our galleries, and our institutions.

KSTony, how does reflecting on past years inspire you to think about the next five, eight, ten years of collaboration with ICI, and with curators coming into the city?

TKMore, more! That's been my charge from the beginning. I think it's crucial for us to tell the story about how important it is that we gather together every April. I think there are opportunities for greater involvement in numbers, but when I say 'more', it also means more engagement with the institutions here, with our galleries and our collectors.

'More' means more understanding of how essential this Curatorial Forum and our collaboration with ICI are to the growth of not only Chicago, but the world. As I look to this year and the next, I'm committed to providing the resources that allow our four-day initiative to grow and, more importantly, expand—potentially outside of Chicago in ways that Renaud and I, and our great teams, haven't decided yet.

The Curatorial Forum is a core part of what EXPO CHICAGO is. It would be impossible to divorce ourselves from our commitment to bringing curators in during the week of the fair, and to strengthening this incredible collaboration with ICI and their global impact.

KSRenaud, how has the Chicago Assembly cemented the fact that you'll be in Chicago? And how might the Forum continue to grow beyond this new programme that you've created?

RPIn the more immediate future, the Chicago Assembly is a new programme that brings Chicago curators together in the months before the April Curatorial Forum, as well as in the months immediately afterwards. Participants consider the ways in which the theme of the Forum applies directly to the curatorial community in Chicago, addressing their specific needs. This allows us to shape the conversation ahead of time—from a local perspective.

To have this range of practices come together is incredibly important and unique.

After the Curatorial Forum, there is an opportunity for the Chicago Assembly cohort of curators to reflect on how the conversations that happen with their peers nationwide can inform their work locally. In a sense, it's a way toward really maximising the local impact of this unique, nationwide convening of curators, and it's a way to truly root ourselves in this community.

I always say that EXPO CHICAGO is an institution that leads with 'yes'. Tony leads with 'yes'. This is not only what has made our collaboration over the years possible, but also what has made it as successful as it is. We started small, and every year, we assessed what we were able to do—and dreamt bigger. And every time we did more. I think the next, let's say, ten years will be an opportunity for us to continue to experiment, to continue to tweak, to continue to grow, because we know the needs of curators and their communities are evolving.

As the curatorial community and the museum field emerge from the multiple crises of 2020, curators have had to reinvent their practices and how they go about serving artists. They've had to rethink how they go about connecting art and audiences, how they uphold the values of their institutions, and what role they ultimately occupy in society. The Curatorial Forum brings people together so that we can collectively find answers to our questions. I see the next ten years as a continuation of this work. —[O]