September 21, 2022 | 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Join ArtTable in Chicago for an evening at Goldfinch Gallery with owner and director, Claudine Isé. Claudine will speak to us about her career trajectory from various roles within the museum, not-for-profit, and university sectors to making the leap into commercial enterprise by establishing her own gallery. During the evening, she will also provide curatorial insights into three solo exhibitions by artists Yanique Norman, James Kao and Minami Kobayashi.
Admission:
- ArtTable Members – $10
- Member Guests/Non-Members – $15
Not a member? Join today!
Please review the below before registering:
Health & Safety
Masks are encouraged but not required. Extra masks will not be available so please remember to bring and wear one if you prefer to be masked.
Please note that by registering for this event you consent to have your contact information shared with ArtTable to be used in the event that contact tracing is needed.
Accessibility
The gallery is located on the first floor, and is wheelchair accessible.
If you would like information about accessibility or need particular accommodations for this program, please email Haley at [email protected].
Getting There
Goldfinch Gallery is located at 319 N. Albany Avenue in a large, brick warehouse building in East Garfield Park. Additional entrance instructions will be relayed to all registered guests.
About Claudine Isé
Claudine Isé (she/her) is the owner and director of Goldfinch, a contemporary art gallery that opened in 2016. Goldfinch’s program focuses on emerging and mid-career artists with a strong focus on painting and sculpture. She is also a Lecturer in the Painting and Drawing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to moving to Chicago in 2008, Isé was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and before that, was an Assistant Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Over the course of her professional career, she has written extensively about contemporary art in Chicago (and before that, Los Angeles) for publications including Artforum, Art21 Blog (where she also served as Editor), Bad at Sports, Art Papers, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She holds a Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in English from Pomona College.
Images: Yanique Norman, Monticello: Plot 2, 2022, Found and reconstructed image tinted black and transferred onto watercolor papers with hand-cut and sculptural elements, colored xerox, collage, graphite and iridescent medium; Included in Yanique Norman: Blue to Green on view at Goldfinch; James Kao, Smokeset, 2021, Oil on linen over board; Included in James Kao: “something about grinding down, something about glittering”; Taylor Augustine, painting included in the exhibition “Kiss my petals”
Libby Werbel is an artist, curator, and social organizer living and working in Portland, OR. In 2012, she founded the Portland Museum of Modern Art, and 
Christine Pfister was born in Switzerland. Upon moving to the United States, she attended Christie’s Education at Christie’s in New York, NY, and has been the Co-Owner and Director of Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, PA since 1995.
Janice Bond is a cultural architect, curator, and art advisor dedicated to building equitable creative ecosystems. Her work as an interdisciplinary artist traverses the complex terrain of humanity, nature, and identity.
Melissa Diaz is the Head Curator and Museum Manager for the Deering Estate. Melissa is an Art Historian with a focus in Post-war Italian art, and contemporary art theory and practices. At the Deering Estate she oversees the historic house museums, coordinates and curates exhibitions, programing and directs the Estate’s multi-tiered Artist in Residence Program including visual, performing and literary arts.
Becky Franco was born in Havana, Cuba. She escaped Cuba with her family in 1961. She completed in the United States a BFA with Honors from Pratt Institute, New York in 1974. Becky has always been interested in painting on a large scale influenced by the Photo Realist movement of the seventies. Upon graduating, she sought employment in the difficult and male dominated field of outdoor advertising, where she got the opportunity to create large hand painted billboards and had the distinction to prove herself as a competent female artist. She became the first female billboard artist to be hired in the outdoor industry and join The Sign & Pictorial Display Union, Local #230 in the U.S.
Anna Musci came to the Driehaus Museum after a 30-year career engaged in new business strategy in the financial services industry and advisory services to private clients, family offices, nonprofit organizations, and corporations in wealth management and estate planning. She served as a business development liaison to the investment banking, commercial lending, and private client services divisions of UBS Financial Services, CIBC Oppenheimer, Alex. Brown & Sons, and LaSalle Bank. At the Driehaus Museum she led the retail development strategy and started the first External Affairs department before serving in her current role as the Museum’s Executive Director in 2020.
Stephanie Cristello (b. 1991) is a contemporary art critic, curator, and author based in Chicago, IL. Her work focuses on artists who critically engage with the image and its role in visual culture. Cristello was previously the Senior Editor US for ArtSlant (2012–2018). She is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of THE SEEN, Chicago’s International Journal of Contemporary & Modern Art. Her writing has been published in ArtReview, BOMB Magazine, Elephant Magazine, Frieze Magazine, Mousse Magazine, OSMOS, and Portable Gray, published by the University of Chicago Press. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 with a Liberal Arts Thesis in the Visual Critical Studies Department. She served as the Artistic Director of EXPO CHICAGO (2013–2020) and is currently the Director / Curator at Chicago Manual Style. In 2020–21 she was a Guest Curator at Kunsthal Aarhus (Denmark) and the Malmö Art Museum (Sweden), as well as a Curatorial Advisor to the 2020 Busan Biennale (South Korea). She is the author of Theodora Allen: Saturnine (Motto / Kunsthal Aarhus, 2021) and the forthcoming book Barbara Kasten: Architecture and Film 2015–2020 (Skira, 2022), which was awarded a publication grant from the Graham Foundation.