Override | A Billboard Project

OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project is a citywide collaborative public art initiative between EXPO CHICAGO and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) in collaboration with the Chicago Digital Network to exhibit artwork on all CDN billboards and City Information Panels "CIPs" in the Central Business District from April 1—21, 2024. Participants included both emerging and established artists from Chicago and around the world. Placing artwork within this public context and the broader presentation of billboard advertising, OVERRIDE takes its name from industry terminology referring to the continuation of an outdoor advertising program beyond a contracted period. Fully integrated into the language of advertising and local familiar signage, each of the works included within the OVERRIDE program present the opportunity for local and international artists to intercept and push the boundaries of how visual culture is disseminated in our increasingly image-based environment.

Building upon the City of Chicago and DCASE’s longstanding commitment to public art, OVERRIDE provides EXPO CHICAGO a key opportunity beyond Navy Pier to showcase works by leading international artists in neighborhoods throughout the city. 

2024 Participating Artists

Art & Language | René Schmitt, Berlin, WOL
Jada-Amina | Artist, Chicago
Jazmine. | Artist, Chicago
Judy Ledgerwood | Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
Lawrence Agyei | Artist, Chicago
Lucia Koch | Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York
Raphaël Barontini​ | Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, Paris, Mexico City
Tom Jones II | Artist, Chicago
Victoria Martinez | Artist, Chicago
Yuge Zhou | Artist, Chicago

Art & Language

BETTER, 2021
Courtesy of the artist and René Schmidt, Berlin, WOL

Comprised of only two words “BETTER WORSE” as simple as striking and true, the work reenacts a guerilla installation, nearly 40 years later, that was initiated by the group in the 1970s.  The artists quote: “Contemporary art made of words is inclined to shout. Better-Worse … mutters. It is perhaps some kind of indexical label applying to or describing its site or location. But if it does describe or draw attention to some feature of its location, or to anything at all, how are we to deal with the fact that the two words are apparently contradictory? What is better is not worse and vice-versa. It seems that we might have to give up on its reflexive indexicality or to find contradictory aspects to its location. Could these two contradictory expressions be, for example, labels that indicate what some place has endured – labels for a process of becoming better or worse? But in what way? The words have nothing to say – that’s a task for the beholder. Something must have happened almost anywhere that could be described in terms of better or worse, but doesn’t attach much detailed meaning to the words."

Art & Language

WORSE, 2021
Courtesy of the artist and René Schmidt, Berlin, WOL

Comprised of only two words “BETTER WORSE” as simple as striking and true, the work reenacts a guerilla installation, nearly 40 years later, that was initiated by the group in the 1970s.  The artists quote: “Contemporary art made of words is inclined to shout. Better-Worse … mutters. It is perhaps some kind of indexical label applying to or describing its site or location. But if it does describe or draw attention to some feature of its location, or to anything at all, how are we to deal with the fact that the two words are apparently contradictory? What is better is not worse and vice-versa. It seems that we might have to give up on its reflexive indexicality or to find contradictory aspects to its location. Could these two contradictory expressions be, for example, labels that indicate what some place has endured – labels for a process of becoming better or worse? But in what way? The words have nothing to say – that’s a task for the beholder. Something must have happened almost anywhere that could be described in terms of better or worse, but doesn’t attach much detailed meaning to the words."

Jada-Amina

for your own protection, 2022
Courtesy of the artist

Rooted in the ethos of Essex Hemphill's For My Own Protection, the video essay from which for your own protection was pulled navigates care, joy, rage, and resistance, in light of gendered societal injustices. Foregrounding the nuanced and enduring images of Black men, the portraits are totems of brotherhood, intersecting generations within gay, straight, and queer identities. 

Jada-Amina

Remembrance, 2024
Courtesy of the artist

The restored Remembrance image captures partygoers, joy seekers, and 'jackers' on the dancefloor of the club turned makeshift sanctuary, Chicago's The Warehouse, framed by the Black memorial aesthetic traditions of airbrush. An homage to the architects of the club movement, Remembrance evokes a celebrated Black legacy that united Chicago and shaped the global cultural landscape beyond.

Jazmine.

Feel, what I feel, when I feel, what I feel, when I'm feelin', 2024
Courtesy of the artist

The composed photographs blend found polaroids of a Black Chicago family taken in the mid to late 60s with medium formatted black and white negatives taken by the artist and later tinted yellow. Titles are drawn from the “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” a 1976 song by Roy Ayers and his band Roy Ayers Ubiquity.

Jazmine.

Everybody Loves The Sunshine, 2024
Courtesy of the artist

The composed photographs blend found polaroids of a Black Chicago family taken in the mid to late 60s with medium formatted black and white negatives taken by the artist and later tinted yellow. Titles are drawn from the “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” a 1976 song by Roy Ayers and his band Roy Ayers Ubiquity.

Judy Ledgerwood

Footsteps, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Every painting Ledgerwood makes owes a debt to all of the paintings made throughout history. The title Footsteps acknowledges the debt. The structure of the painting mimes the rhythm of walking in tandem with others, much like the syncopated rhythms and irregular accents characteristic of Wayne Shorter’s composition Footprints, the elasticity of the repetitions between shapes creates tension in vertical panels of Yellow, Red, & Blue. According to Ledgerwood, if there is a color palette that represents Modernist ideals, it would be Red, Yellow, Blue, Black and White.

Judy Ledgerwood

Jaywalking, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery

Jaywalking is inspired by this color tradition but replaces the stability offered by grid-based abstract painting with expanding and contracting triangles and diamonds inscribed with flower shapes activating and restructuring Modernist pictorial traditions.

Lawrence Agyei

Poetry in Motion, 2021
Courtesy of the artist

Agyei's first time officially shooting a Chicago Public School drill team, it was incredibly cold outside, but he was determined to shoot something beautiful. Agyei recounts having a hard time pressing the shutter because his fingers were so cold, he did not know if the images were going to come out well. After receiving the scans back from the lab, Drill became a series in Agyei's ongoing photographic practice. The experience of witnessing drill performance carries a poetic resonance for Agyei, who considers documenting the team a priviledge. 

Lawrence Agyei

Young Worlds, 2020
Courtesy of the artist

Agyei's first time officially shooting a Chicago Public School drill team, it was incredibly cold outside, but he was determined to shoot something beautiful. Agyei recounts having a hard time pressing the shutter because his fingers were so cold, he did not know if the images were going to come out well. After receiving the scans back from the lab, Drill became a series in Agyei's ongoing photographic practice. The experience of witnessing drill performance carries a poetic resonance for Agyei, who considers documenting the team a priviledge. 

Lucia Koch

Dori, 2017 
Courtesy of the artist and Nara Roesler

Dori and Silver are part of the series Fundos, which Lucia Koch has been developing since 2001. It is a kind of trompe-l'oeil in which the artist explores the architectural characteristics of everyday objects, photographing interiors of cardboard boxes used to package food, and drinks, amongst others.

Lucia Koch

Silver, 2021
Courtesy of the artist and Nara Roesler

Dori and Silver are part of the series Fundos, which Lucia Koch has been developing since 2001. It is a kind of trompe-l'oeil in which the artist explores the architectural characteristics of everyday objects, photographing interiors of cardboard boxes used to package food, and drinks, amongst others.

Raphaël Barontini

Marie Catherine Laveau, 2024
Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, Paris, Mexico City

The present portrait captures Marie Catherine Laveau, a renowned Louisiana Creole practitioner of Voodoo, herbalist, and midwife from New Orleans. The collage-style piece presents a hybrid image of this famous Black woman from the American South. The family portrait celebrates the royal court of Haiti post-revolution and in the wake of colonial French presence. 

Raphaël Barontini

À la cour d'Henri Christophe, 2022
Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, Paris, Mexico City

Henri Christophe was the only monarch of the Kingdom of Haiti and a pivotal leader in the Haitian Revolution. He established unique royal codes blending African and European cultural heritage. The piece intricately blends and creolizes iconographies, symbols, and geographies.

Tom Jones II

Levi Blackdeer, 2023
Courtesy of the artist

Levi Blackdeer and Bela Falcon come from the series Strong Unrelenting Spirits, a series of portraits rooted in Ho-Chunk identity. Jones extends the boundaries of photography by incorporating beadwork directly onto the photograph. The use of Ho-Chunk floral and geometric designs is a metaphor for the spirits of Ho-Chunk ancestors who are constantly looking over their loved ones on earth.

Tom Jones II

Bela Falcon, 2023
Courtesy of the artist

Levi Blackdeer and Bela Falcon come from the series Strong Unrelenting Spirits, a series of portraits rooted in Ho-Chunk identity. Jones extends the boundaries of photography by incorporating beadwork directly onto the photograph. The use of Ho-Chunk floral and geometric designs is a metaphor for the spirits of Ho-Chunk ancestors who are constantly looking over their loved ones on earth.

Victoria Martinez

Planet Trance, 2023
Courtesy of the artist

Planet Trance is a series of paintings by Victoria Martinez, which include silk, dyes, acrylic, fiber paste, enamel, and rubber on metal. The work of art was intuitively created between the artist’s studios in Chicago and Connecticut and will be featured as part of the artist’s solo exhibition Braiding Histories.

Yuge Zhou

Trampoline Color Exercise, 2024
Courtesy of the artist

Trampoline Color Exercise is a collage of Olympic gymnasts whose uniforms change colors throughout the video, as well as their identities. The video shows the athletes striving for perfection, and the birds-eye view foregrounds the celebration of human form and rhythm. The mass of figures becomes an abstract play of primary colors and fluctuating political affiliations.

Yuge Zhou

Interlinked, 2023
Courtesy of the artist

Interlinked depicts major urban centers moving together in unity. Footage filmed in Chicago and Los Angeles is reassembled into interlocking tapestry of transitory encounters and architectural variations. Interlinked depicts major urban centers moving together in unity. Footage filmed in Chicago and Los Angeles is reassembled into interlocking tapestry of transitory encounters and architectural variations.