Filed under: Art Fairs, Art World, Chicago, Features, Q&A | Tags: Art Basel, Art Chicago, DCKT, Evan J. Garza, Kavi Gupta, Ken Tyburski, NEXT, Paul Morris, The Armory Show
Photo credit: Timothy Tompkins, Explosion_v3, 2010.
It seemed as if the entirety of the American art world descended upon Chicago at the end of April last year, and with good reason. Now heading into its fourth edition, 2011 will mark the first year that NEXT, the Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art, will sit side-by-side with the stalwart Art Chicago on the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart, April 29 – May 2. Growing larger and to more and more critical acclaim in the last few years, the Spring fairs in Chicago received a staggering 50,000 visitors in 2010, and that figure is almost certain to get blown out of the water this year.
NEXT really seemed to be the hot ticket last year, featuring young, hot (even unheard of) galleries, exciting new work, and panels at Talk Shop + CONVERGE Contemporary Curators Forum, right smack in the center of the fair. However, with both NEXT and Art Chicago exhibiting alongside one another this weekend, the opportunity exists for each fair to stand out more than ever before.
So, what does the new layout mean for viewers? To find out, we spoke with NEXT‘s Curatorial Director, Ken Tyburski, who puts the “KT” in DCKT when he’s not designing art fairs with Curatorial Advisor and NEXT co-founder, Kavi Gupta. Our conversation after the jump.
—Evan J. Garza, Editor-at-Large
