Exhibitions : Visiting Artist Program : Rickert-Ziebold

Scott Speh, Curator
Director of Western Exhibitions
Chicago, IL
BFA Seminar Talk, April 12
Graduate Crits, April 12, 3-5 pm; April 13, 9-11 am

Scott Speh is director of Western Exhibitions, a Chicago commercial gallery showing emerging and established artists who work in contemporary idioms. Recent solo shows featured Adriane Herman from Slop Brand Art; Stan Shellabarger, whose first solo show at Western Exhibitions was reviewed in Art in America and artforum.com; and Mark Wagner, who has work in several collections, including MOMA, the Walker Art Center, and the Getty Museum. Western Exhibitions influence in Chicago has not gone unnoticed, with reviews in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader and Time Out Chicago. Speh also spearheaded the creation of the West Town Gallery Network, a coalition of emerging, like-minded galleries in the Chicago's near northwest side. Western Exhibitions will be participating for the second year in a row in ArtChicago, an annual international art fair located in downtown Chicago.

Speh received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in printmaking and has shown his work at a number of galleries, but now works exclusively as a curator. Previous to Western Exhibitions, he co-founded the artists’ collective Slop Brand Art and was the former organizer of exhibition programming for the 16 Beaver Group in lower Manhattan (which has continued to be a successful alternative gallery). Speh created the art and cultural criticism magazine artzine while living in Madison, WI; and maintains his own website of cultural observation, Hot Commodities, at www.artic.edu/~sspeh. His writing has been published by artnet.com, NYFA Interactive and Bridge Online.

Additional information can be attained by contacting the School of Art and Design at (618) 453-4315.

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