News

2018 SUB-MISSION Selection Committee Announced

Jul 11, 2017

THE MISSION is excited to announce THE SUB-MISSION 2018 Selection Committee. The Selection Committee represents a wide range of Chicago-based curators, artists, writers, critics, and collectors who are invited by THE MISSION to lend their expertise in selecting the most thought-provoking, innovative proposals for THE SUB-MISSION.

Located below the main gallery, THE SUB-MISSION is an alternative installation project space dedicated to the development of artists living and working in Chicago. THE SUB-MISSION was created to foster the investigation of new ideas and artistic processes and to facilitate an exchange between artists and the artistic community.

JASON PICKLEMAN is a Chicago-based graphic designer, artist, and connoisseur of all things visual and aural. His studio (the JNL graphic design) has created logos and commercial ephemera for the Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Renaissance Society, Expo Chicago, and The Hyde Park Art Center; The Wit Hotel, the Blackstone Hotel; and restaurants such as Blackbird, avec, Publican, Big Star, Violet Hour, and Nico. Additionally, the studio was responsible for the re-branding of Millennium Park. Pickleman was included in the 2007 exhibition Young Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago, and his work has subsequently been placed into the museum’s permanent collection. Most recently, Pickleman created Lawrence & Clark, a collection-based gallery showcasing work that Pickleman owns—the majority of which he purchased in Chicago over more than thirty years of living and working here.

JULIE RODRIGUES WIDHOLM is Director and Chief Curator of DePaul Art Museum where she leads the strategic and artistic vision to promote equity and interdisciplinary education in the arts, while positioning Chicago as a global art city. Prior to taking this position in September 2015, she was Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. There she curated major solo exhibitions of work by Rashid Johnson, Amalia Pica, Cauleen Smith, Kathryn Andrews, Amanda Ross-Ho, and co-curated Doris Salcedo’s touring retrospective, along with several thematic exhibitions including Escultura Social: A New Generation of Art in Mexico City an Unbound: Contemporary Art after Frida Kahlo. She has also been a strong advocate for emerging Chicago-based artists. Rodrigues Widholm has served as a juror and panelist for organizations including the Headlands Center for the Arts, Mcknight Foundation, Artadia, Creative Capital, and the Peggy Nohl Fellowship, among others. She has been a visiting critic at national universities, a graduate advisor, given numerous public talks, and has written extensively on contemporary art. In 2015, she was named one of Chicago’s ART50 Visual Vanguard by New City. During the 2016-2017 academic year, she was a Senior Fellow in the Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice at the School of the Art Institute Chicago.

JOSÉ LERMA is a painter and installation artist living and working in Chicago, IL. He was born in Seville, Spain and grew up in Puerto Rico. He has exhibited solo exhibitions at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City, Galerie Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City, Gallery Loock in Berlin, Galeria Marta Cervera in Madrid, Arario Gallery in Seoul, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, Van Horn Gallery in Dusseldorf, and Brand New Gallery in Milan, Italy. He has taken part in group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Lehman Maupin Gallery in New York City, Institute Valecia d’art Modern, CAAM in Spain, Inova, Deste Fountation for Contemporary art in Athens, Greece, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Ex-Teresa in Mexico City, Misako & Rosen in Tokyo, and Loyal in Stockholm. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Art Forum, Flash Art, Art in America, The New Yorker, Modern Painters, Time Out, and Vice among many other publications. His work is included in numerous collections including: Saatchi Collection, London, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Milwaukee Art Museum, Arario Collection, Seoul, Aby Rosen, New York, Dakkis Joannou, Athens, (Deste Foundation) Fidelity Investments Collection, The Rachoffsky Collection, Colección VAC, Valencia, Sharpff Collection and Phillara Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany, and Alberto De la Cruz Collection. He attended the CORE program in Houston, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Lerma received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin Madison and his BA from Tulane University. He is currently part of the Painting faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

CLAUDINE ISÉ is the Director of the Freeark Art Gallery + Sculpture Garden at the Riverside Arts Center. She is also a visiting clinical associate professor at University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Art and Art History’s Museum and Exhibition Studies (MUSE) Program and a lecturer in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Painting & Drawing department. Isé also runs Goldfinch, a contemporary project space located in East Garfield Park. Her previous curatorial positions include Assistant Curator at the Hammer Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH, and Executive Director of Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. She has written art criticisms for numerous publications including the Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, Art21, Artforum.com, Art Papers, and Bad at Sports.