Given the family’s prominence in just about every other sphere of public endeavour, isn’t it about time the artworld claim its very own Kennedy? Chris Kennedy, that is, son of Bobby and current President of Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc (MMPI), the Chicago-based trade-show juggernaut that, among other things, is also the single largest contemporary art fair production company. With the acquisition of Art Chicago, the Toronto International Art Fair and the Armory Show in New York (which will be expanding this year into two simultaneous and adjacent fairs: Armory Contemporary and Armory Modern), Kennedy has turned Merchandise Mart into a major conduit of contemporary art commerce. This is no passing fancy, however; Kennedy started with MMPI in 1987, when he was fresh out of college, so we can assume that he sees something more in the contemporary art space than its rarefied flash. A new Camelot? Well, let’s just say it’s in the DNA.