Join UChicago Arts for a conversation between Virginio Ferrari and Andrei Pop on the lifespan of public art, from conception to fruition to evolution. Together, they discuss the following questions: How does the artist create a sculpture to respond to a specific architectural or geographical context? How does the work survive changes in its surroundings (architectural, geographical, political) after it has been installed? How does the context of the piece evolve through those changes? The conversation will be introduced and moderated by artist and entrepreneur John Kuhns (MFA ’75).

Virginio Ferrari is an internationally acclaimed contemporary sculptor, who has exhibited his work in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and throughout the United States. Ferrari's monumental sculptures can be found on street corners and public parks, at universities and libraries, corporations and in private collections in Chicago, and all over the world.

Andrei Pop is an art historian interested in the relation of art and science, in dramatic and narrative art (what is usually called classicism), and in how modernity deals with the past. He has published a book on the Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), and a translation of Karl Rosenkranz’s 1853 Aesthetics of Ugliness. Pop is an Associate Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago.

John D. Kuhns is an author, artist, businessman, venture capitalist and investment banker. His third and most recent novel, South of the Clouds, was released in July 2018. He has founded and taken five companies public. A sculptor, Kuhns graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1975.

The event is held in the Drama Studio in the Gordon Parks Arts Hall.