CURATOR'S TOUR - ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
with Antawan Byrd
Tour the exhibition, Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer to My Own Body with exhibition curator Antawan Byrd. For more than a decade, Mimi Cherono Ng’ok has worked to understand how natural environments, botanical cultures, and human subjects coexist and evolve together. Working with an analog camera, she travels extensively across the tropical climates of the Global South constructing a visual archive of images that document her daily experiences and aid her in processing emotions and memories.
This tour is limited to 25 people, please RSVP to reserve your spot. Masks are required.
The group will meet at the museum’s Modern Wing entrance at 159 East Monroe Street.
Antawan Byrd is associate curator, Photography and Media, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since joining the museum in 2017, he has contributed to the exhibition Volta Photo: Starring Sanlé Sory and the People of Bobo-Dioulasso in the Small but Musically Mighty Country of Burkina Faso (2018) and curated and co-edited the catalogue for The People Shall Govern! Medu Art Ensemble and the Anti-Apartheid Poster (2019) with Felicia Mings. This summer he curates Mimi Cherono Ng’ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer to My Own Body, the first solo presentation in the United States of the Kenyan-born photographer.
Byrd specializes in modern and contemporary art of Africa and the African diaspora with a particular focus on histories of photography, sound, urbanism, and popular culture. In addition to his role at the museum, Byrd will serve as assistant professor of art history at Northwestern University beginning fall 2021. He received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association in 2017, and his research has been supported by an Andrew Mellon-CLIR fellowship, a Mellon-COSI fellowship, and a Fulbright fellowship.
Installation view of Mimi Cherono Ng'ok: Closer to the Earth, Closer My Own Body, the Art Institute of Chicago, June 18, 2021–February 7, 2022. Photography courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Date: September 24, 2021
Time: 11:00 am CT
Cost: FREE / RSVP Required
Location: Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Wing | 159 East Monroe Street Chicago, IL 60603