Collector Denise Gardner will be in conversation with James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The talk will be moderated by Charlotte Burns, Executive Editor, In Other Words, produced by Art Agency, Partners.
Doors open at 11.00 am, Talk starts at 11.15 am
Denise Gardner is an avid art patron in Chicago, particularly in the area of promoting and collecting art by artists of African descent. Denise is a Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Art Institute of Chicago. She supports acquisitions there through her participation on the Committee for Modern and Contemporary Art, and throughout the museum’s departments, she works to facilitate programming with artists of African descent and supporting their work. She is a founding member of the Leadership Advisory Committee (LAC), the museum’s African-American advisory group. While its Chair, she created the Legends & Legacy Award, which honors renowned living artists of color. Also during her chairmanship, she helped the museum generate over-capacity audiences for a myriad of programs and exhibitions. Denise also serves on the museum’s Nominating Committee, Woman’s Board and Sustaining Fellows Program Committee.
James Rondeau (b. 1969) is the President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to this position, Rondeau led two of the eleven curatorial departments at the museum as the Dittmer Chair and Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art from 2004–2015, as well as Chair and Curator of Photography from 2008–2009. Rondeau has organized over 30 solo exhibitions with artists such as Shirin Neshat (1999), Thomas Hirschhorn (2000), Olafur Eliasson (2000), Stan Douglas (2000), Rineke Dijkstra (2001), Gaylen Gerber+Stephen Prina (2002), Arnold Odermatt (2002), Marlene Dumas (2003), Yoshihiro Suda (2003), Mark Manders (2003), Margherita Manzelli (2004), Roni Horn (2004), Anri Sala (2004), Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (2005), Michael Asher (2005), Cecilia Edefalk (2006), Maureen Gallace (2006), Mel Bochner (2006), James Bishop (2008), and Vincent Fecteau (2008).
Charlotte Burns is the executive editor of In Other Words, a weekly newsletter and podcast produced by Art Agency, Partners. She was previously the US news and market editor for The Art Newspaper, as well as a regular correspondent for publications such as the Guardian and Monocle. Previously, she worked with the London dealer Anthony d’Offay on special projects. For several years, she was a consultant at the cultural communications agency, Bolton & Quinn. She also worked at Hauser & Wirth in London. Burns received a Masters degree (with Merit) from the Courtauld Institute in Art and Cultural Politics in Germany, 1890-1945, as well as a first-class B.A. honors degree in English and History of Art from Birmingham University. She moved to New York in 2010.