Chicago Invitational presented by NADA

September 20, 2019 11:00 am - 7:00 pm Chicago Athletic Association hotel

The Chicago Athletic Association has been home to innovation since its inception in 1893. Since being reimagined as a hotel today, spaces within our walls have transformed into fully immersive pop-up bars, a roller rink, concert venues and more. This September, taking over the Tank on the ground floor and the entire 4th floor, including Stagg Court and all 13 guest rooms, the hotel is thrilled to welcome the first Chicago Invitational, presented by NADA. In addition to the gallerist’s booths, the Chicago Invitational will feature complimentary daily programming open to all, including non ticket holders.

Friday, September 20th
Open to the Public 11–7pm

Admission can be purchased online for $20 Run of Show & $10 Senior / Student here, or at the fair.

The curated galleries can be viewed here.

Programming Schedule
1pm | Drawing Room Library
Tom Bianchi & David Getsy in Conversation

Tom Bianchi’s recent publication of two books of polaroids taken in the late 1970s and early 1980s provide an intimate chronicle of gay sexual and social life just before it would be radically changed by the AIDS crisis. During these same years, Bianchi was also a successful abstract artist of collages and constructions that embraced decorative excess and embedded queer signs. In recent years, Bianchi has returned to his work as a painter-sculptor with artworks that reflect on the on-going AIDS crisis and on the suppressed histories of homoeroticism.

He and art historian David Getsy will discuss how, across this history shadowed by the AIDS crisis, Bianchi has used both abstraction and photography to witness the life of desire and to fight against its invisibility.
Presented with NEW DISCRETIONS, New York.

3pm | Drawing Room Library
Deana Haggag & Ebony G. Patterson in Conversation

Join Deana Haggag, President & CEO of United States Artists (USA), and Ebony G. Patterson, 2018 USA Fellow in Visual Art, for an intimate discussion about practice and process. USA is a national arts funding organization based in Chicago that raises money and redistributes it in the form of unrestricted awards to this country’s most compelling artists and cultural practitioners. Since 2006, the USA Fellowship has awarded more than 500 individuals with over $25 million of direct support. Presented with United States Artists.

The inaugural edition of the Chicago Invitational further exemplifies NADA’s expanded commitment to year-round programming and producing alternatives for galleries to exhibit artwork in a new setting.

The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) is the definitive non-profit arts organization dedicated to the cultivation, support, and advancement of new voices in contemporary art.