Lauren Ike

Lauren Iacoponi (Ike) is an artist, curator, and arts administrator living and working in Chicago, IL. Iacoponi is the Director and Founder of Purple Window Gallery and the Director and Co-founder of Unpacked Mobile Gallery. She is a curatorial assistant at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and previously served as the Director of Exhibitions at Columbia College Chicago. Iacoponi served on the Wabash Arts Corridor Advisory Board, where as a member she initiated the successful Kickstarter campaign funding Darryll Schiff's 24 x 56-foot mural, “Descending to Heaven”, located at 710 S. Wabash.

Iacoponi has a decade of experience working as a fine arts professional and is adept in independent curation, exhibition coordination, and fine art promotion. Iacoponi is keenly interested in the development of living artists and actively promotes the work of emerging, mid-career, and under-represented artists. Her curatorial mission includes gallery accessibility, the importance of art as experience, and strengthening the relationship between institutions, society, and artists. She produces inclusive, intersectional exhibitions and public programs that uplift the diverse communities of Chicago and the greater Midwest.

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She is an art critic and certified art historian. Lauren covers Art & Culture in Chicago as a freelance writer for Sixty Inches from Center, New Art Examiner, Chicago Reader, Chicago Artist Writers, Odyssey, DEFINE ART, APOTH Creative, and Discovering Art in Chicago.

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Iacoponi received her MFA from Northern Illinois University with a Certificate in Art History and her BFA from Columbia College with a Minor in Art History. She was the 2016-2017 recipient of the Northern Illinois University Fellowship for the School of Art and Design. ​

 

Iacoponi has exhibited at Chicago's A+D Gallery, C-33 Gallery, Studio Oh!, Elephant Room Gallery, Ground Level Platform, Beverly Arts Center, Zhou B Art Center, ARC Gallery, Gallery 214,  Annette and Jerry Johns Gallery, Purple Window Gallery, and Terrain Exhibitions, and a solo exhibition at the University Club of Chicago. Iacoponi has guest curated exhibitions at Rubberneck Gallery, Chicago, MdW Fair 2022 at Mana Contemporary, BOCCARA Art, Miami, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, and Mies van der Rohe's McCormick House at Elmhurst Art Museum.

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To contact please email lauren.iacoponi@gmail.com

See full resume here + Writing resume here

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Want to know more? Read Lauren's interviews with Sixty Inches from Center and  Voyage Chicago