EXPO Chicago
Booth 204
Navy Pier Festival Hall, Chicago
April 24-27, 2025
GRAY is pleased to participate in the 2025 edition of EXPO CHICAGO in the fair’s CONTRAST sector, with selections from So Be It! Asé! Photographic Echoes of FESTAC ’77, an exhibition curated by Chicago-based art historian Romi Crawford.
This presentation unveils visual documentation of one of the most significant, yet lesser known, cultural events of the twentieth century: the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria. Known as FESTAC, the 1977 Pan-African festival and convening, brought together around 17,000 artists from African countries and Black diaspora communities across the world. GRAY’s EXPO Chicago exhibition features photographs by Roy Lewis, Bob Crawford, and K. Kofi Moyo, three members of the United States delegation to FESTAC.
As members of the Black Arts Movement in Chicago, Lewis, Crawford, and Moyo each embarked on careers of documenting momentous social and political developments. Roy Lewis started his career as a freelance photographer for publications such as Jet and Ebony, and recorded the historic 1974 match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. Bob Crawford documented black life on the city’s South Side throughout the 1960s and 70s. Photojournalist K. Kofi Moyo’s extensive archive of street photography and photojournalism chronicles some of the most pivotal moments of the period, including the Chicago uprising after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
CONTRAST is a new section of galleries and artist presentations for the 2025 edition of EXPO CHICAGO. The inaugural section will be curated by Lauren Haynes, Head Curator, Governors Island Arts and Vice President for Arts and Culture at the Trust for Governors Island.
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