Northwestern Places High on Chicago Visual Vanguard List

EVANSTON, Ill. --- There’s a Northwestern thread running through the Art 50: Chicago’s Visual Vanguard. A list of Chicago’s most influential museum directors, gallerists, curators, art writers and critics published by Newcity.com, Art 50 includes Lane Relyea, chair of the University’s art theory and practice department, and Lisa Graziose Corrin, director of Northwestern’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art.

In Art 50’s top 10 are alumni Michelle Grabner and John Corbett. Grabner, an artist and writer, was recently selected as a curator for the 2014 Whitney Biennial, one of the art world’s most prestigious events. Corbet is one-half of Corbett vs. Dempsey, a gallery named best overall gallery in 2013 in Chicago magazine. Corbett recently joined the Block Museum’s advisory board. 

Also on the list is alumna Antonia Contro, executive director of Marwen, a Chicago  organization that provides free art classes to under-served city youth and free college and career counseling to teens.

Relyea, editor-in-chief of “Art Journal,” is author of the newly published  “Your Everyday Art World” (MIT Press). Corrin, the Block Museum’s Ellen Philips Katz Director and senior lecturer in art history, is transforming the Block’s engagement with Northwestern’s campuses and nearby communities.

For a look at the complete list, visit the Newcity website.