*Doors open at 5pm

Join the inaugural cohort of the Chicago Critic’s Table for our culminating discussion. The Chicago Critics Table was founded on the idea that for new and diverse art to thrive, we need new kinds of criticism and critical communities capable of reaching across audiences — and platforms — that have historically been siloed. We’ll begin with a quick recap of what the Critics Table has been up to in its first year, and continue with a panel discussion exploring some of the many questions concerning our Chicago Critics today, like Who gets to be a critic?, What is worthy of criticism? and Why does criticism matter?

About the Chicago Critics Table:

Chicago Critic’s Table offers emerging critics the opportunity to build a lasting network of colleagues working across a range of topics, methods, and platforms in order to support and experiment with each other as they continue to develop their voice, practice, and audience. In particular, this program seeks to foster critics whose work focuses on arts and culture as relevant to South Side communities. 

In our pilot year, this program explored how we can create new critical communities composed of groups often treated as distinct — scholarly audiences, professional critics, fellow artists, community members who frequent the arts, community members who don’t, and more. 

The Chicago Critics Table is hosted by Arts + Public Life, and made possible through generous support from the Mellon Foundation. Learn more at artsandpubliclife.org/critics-table