10 Chicago Art Personalities You Should Know

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Chicago’s art scene would not be the same without Theaster Gates, and neither would Chicago itself. A city native, Gates’ diverse artistic practice has a hugely visible impact on both the community and infrastructure within which he works. Having studied urban planning and worked as the Chicago Transit Authority’s arts planner, Theaster Gates describes himself as equal parts artist and bureaucrat. His celebrated “Dorchester Project” consisted of buying up dilapidated old buildings and renovating them into cultural institutions that celebrated and supported the culture of the South Side. Regarded by many as a “civic treasure on par with Chicago’s skyline,” as the mayor once put it, Gates is a true visionary building a new cultural epicenter from the ground up.

Curator Zoë Ryan might originally be London-born, but today she is firmly Chicago-based. Some of her projects are still international, however. She recently served as the head curator of Istanbul’s Design Biennial, where she worked around the theme, “The Future Is Not What It Used To Be.” As one of the people shaping the future of design, she would know. Both a chair and curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago and an adjunct faculty member at SAIC and UIC, she’s a familiar lecturer to Chicago’s students and gallery-goers. Keep an eye out for whenever her lectures are open to the public; you’ll want to hear her predictions—they’re likely already coming true.

Douglas Druick is the Art Institute of Chicago’s 13th director. He has served for 26 years at the museum, heading, at different points, two of its 11 curatorial departments. Druick embodies the institutional and academic memory of one of Chicago’s major institutions. Yet he also has a forward-thinking vision and an appreciation for accessibility. Under his direction the museum has undergone some significant technological upgrades, like adding free Wi-Fi and smartphone tours to all galleries. Scholarly, always articulate, and immediately recognizable with his trademark tiny round eyeglasses, Druick helms one of the world’s greatest art collections with dignified aplomb.

Tanner Woodford moved to Chicago in 2012, and brought a museum with him. Coming from a career of product and interaction design, he, along with his co-director Mark Dudlik, gathered enough support to bring a small museum they originally founded in Arizona all the way to Illinois. Today it is known as the Chicago Design Museum. With an infectious optimism and an indomitable can-do spirit, Woodford, and his all-volunteer staff, work to exhibit local and international design, building a hub for the city’s graphic design community. “I believe in taking calculated risks,” Woodford writes in his personal statement on his SAIC faculty page, “and was taught to leave everything—objects, relationships and ideas—better than when they were found.”

Michelle Grabner is a uniquely thoughtful conceptual artist, working in painting, paper weaving, and video, to name a few modes of her diverse practice. Today she and her husband Brad Killam run an unusual independent artist project space in Oak Park, appropriately named The Suburban, out of a tiny yellow building formerly attached to her garage. They call it “pro-artist and anti-curator,” and give complete control over to artists to produce and exhibit anything of their choosing. Nevertheless, Grabner recently acted as an official curator herself, filling the fourth floor of the most recent Whitney Biennial with a playful and colorful swath of work that focused particularly on contemporary painters like Amy Sillman, Dan Walsh, Laura Owens, and Jacqueline Humphries.

Serving as the Steppenwolf Theater Company’s artistic director from 1995 to 2015, Martha Lavey is a cultural institution herself. An actress and academic, Lavey spent two decades growing the Theater Company and challenging its audiences, increasing the diversity of both productions and viewers. This year she will step down and her successor Anna D. Shapiro is a star in her own right, who directed the acclaimed This Is Our Youth at Steppenwolf in 2013. Though Lavey’s tenure at Steppenwolf is coming to end, her contributions remain very much a part of Chicago’s artistic life.

Named in 2013 by Chicago magazine as one of “Six Young Art Curators You Should Know,” Angela Bryant has only grown since then through her presence in Chicago’s gallery scene. As the founding director of Abryant Gallery she champions new and emerging talent at rotating locations throughout the city, in addition to acting as an independent curator for various other projects. An artist herself as well as an adjunct professor, Bryant wears many hats, bringing a unique perspective to her curatorial projects. “My art reflects who I am, whether it happens literally or figuratively,” she says.

Criss Henderson has brought Shakespeare to new audiences for the past 25 seasons of theater in Chicago. As the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Executive Director he has garnered a litany of accolades, from a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, to being named Arts Administrator of the Year at the Kennedy Center, not to mention being knighted into France’s Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Committed to keeping Shakespeare both accessible and vital, he instated the “CST for $20” deal where anyone under the age of 35 can buy tickets to outstanding productions for that low price. It’s one of the best deals in the city.

Have you ever actually seen an opera? Anthony Freud would like you to. As the General Director of the Lyric Opera, he has kept his company financially and artistically successful over the past three seasons despite a national decline in subscription base. With innovative projects under the banner of “Lyric Unlimited,” Freud has brought some decidedly un-classical music like mariachi and children’s opera off the main stage and into the streets of Chicago. Freud’s take on opera ventures far into the unexpected—though you can still find the classics like The Marriage of Figaro at the Lyric, as well.

Michelle Boone has strong pull as the city’s Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and has already introduced ambitious new programs to Chicago. 2015 has already been a busy year for public art, with the recent Lake FX Summit + Expo, a free four-day conference for artists and creative professionals, and the upcoming inaugural Chicago Architectural Biennial, which promises to “change the way you look at buildings.” A passionate arts advocate, Boone started her career in television and entertainment, and has a great sense of humor and an excellent Twitter account. “She loves art,” her Twitter bio reads. “Well, most of it.”