Fall 2022 visiting artists lectures

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) presents a new season of the Visiting Artists Program—a public forum that features today’s most influential practitioners and thinkers.

Formalized in 1951 with the establishment of an endowed fund by Flora Mayer Witkowsky, the Visiting Artists Program has featured over 1,000 international artists, designers, and scholars representing more than 70 countries. All events are free and open to the public. Learn more.

Walter Hood: Bill and Stephanie Sick Distinguished Visiting Professor
September 20, 6–7:30pm CT
Visit here to join via Zoom.

Walter Hood (MFA 2013) is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California, a cultural practice that works across art, fabrication, design, landscape, research, and urbanism. He creates urban spaces that resonate with and enrich the lives of current residents while also honoring communal histories. Established in 2006 by a generous gift from Bill and Stephanie Sick, this distinguished visiting professorship enables internationally renowned artists and designers to visit and teach at SAIC.

Wu Tsang: Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series
September 27, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.

Wu Tsang (BFA 2004) is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist. Their work crosses genres and disciplines, from narrative and documentary films to live performance and video installations. Tsang works in residence at Schauspielhaus Zurich, as a director of theater with the collective Moved by the Motion. Presented in partnership with SAIC Alumni Engagement.

Tsai Ming-Liang
October 3, 6–7:30pm CT
Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St.

Tsai Ming-Liang is one of the most prominent film directors of the new cinema movement in Taiwan. He is known for long shots, elliptical narratives, painterly approaches to light and color, and poignant portrayals of urban and sexual alienation. This program is co-presented with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC’s Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation’s Conversations at the Edge series. 

Holland Cotter
October 18, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave.

Holland Cotter is co-chief art critic and a senior writer at the New York Times. He has received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art from the College Art Association, and the inaugural award for Excellence in Criticism from the International Association of Art Critics. Cotter is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Nicole R. Fleetwood in Conversation with Maria Gaspar
Artmaking and Incarceration
November 7, 6–7:30pm CT
The Art Institute of Chicago, Fullerton Hall, 111 S. Michigan Ave. 

Nicole R. Fleetwood is a writer, curator, art critic, and author of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Harvard University Press, 2020). Maria Gaspar is an interdisciplinary artist negotiating the politics of location through installation, sculpture, sound, and performance. Presented in partnership with the Chicago Humanities Festival and the Terra Foundation series on American Art.

About the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
For more than 150 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars. Located in downtown Chicago with a fine arts graduate program consistently ranking among the top programs in the nation by US News and World Report, SAIC provides an interdisciplinary approach to art and design as well as world-class resources, including the Art Institute of Chicago museum, on-campus galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities. SAIC’s undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate students have the freedom to take risks and create the bold ideas that transform Chicago and the world—as seen through notable alumni and faculty such as Michelle Grabner, David Sedaris, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Hunt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cynthia Rowley, Nick Cave, Jeff Koons, and LeRoy Neiman.