2013 Speakers

Alessandro Vincentelli is Curator of Exhibitions & Research at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, where he has worked for 8 years. During this time he developed and curated solo exhibitions with artists such as Steve McQueen, Sam Taylor-Wood, Ed & Nancy Kienholz, Yoko Ono, Bani Abidi, Marcus Coates, Bob & Roberta Smith, and Elizabeth Price amongst others. He worked as co-curator of the Turner Prize in 2011 when BALTIC, Gateshead hosted the Turner Prize. In 2012 his exhibition with Elizabeth Price titled HERE was nominated for the Turner Prize. In 2012/13 he has devised a solo show of David Maljkovic titled Sources in the Air this is a major exhibition of the Croatian artist’s work and was a co-collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and GAMeC Bergamo, Italy. He is developing a solo project and exhibition with British artist Heather Phillipson for June 2013, including a commission for an audio-visual walk from the artist. His personal projects have included installations and projects with Tomas Saraceno, Tobias Putrih and Raqs Media Collective. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Axis Web (www.axisweb.org) national arts organisation and on-line resources for artists and curators. He trained at the Royal College of Art on the Contemporary Art Curating Course and formerly studied Social Anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He continues to have a diverse approach to working with artists in the UK and abroad.

Che Kyongfa is curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and lives in Japan. Che received a MA in Art History and Theory (20th century) from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2000 and completeda post-MAcoursein Critical Studies at Malmö Art Academy, University of Lund in Sweden in 2006.As independent curator until 2012, she organized a number of exhibitions and discursive projects in Asia and Europe. Her major interest lies in exploring artistic language questioning the condition of contemporary society that controls the notion and subjects of otherness, and seeking for possibilities to informthe society and a state of a subject. Her recent curatorial projects include: ‘Omnilogue: Journey to the West’ (2012)hosted by Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi, organized by Japan Foundation; ‘Fog Dossier’ (2010), an exhibition based on collaborative research with an artist Jeuno JE Kim at Art Sonje Center in Seoul; ‘The Demon of Comparisons’ (2009), a two-year research and exhibition project co-curated with Binna Choi and Cosmin Costinas at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.

Daniel Muzyczuk is a curator at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź and former curator (2008-2011) at the CoCA in Toruń. Curator of the numerous projects, among others: Long Gone Susan Philipsz, CoCA, Toruń, 2009; Gone to Croatan (with Robert Rumas); CoCA, Toruń; HMKV, Dortmund, 2008-2011; Mariusz Waras and Krzysztof Topolski. Factory, CoCA, Toruń, 2009; Views 2011, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2011; and Sounding the Body Electric (with David Crowley), Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2012. He is the winner (together with Agnieszka Pindera) of the Igor Zabel Competition in 2011. Co-curator of the Polish Pavillion for the 55th Venice Biennale (with Agnieszka Pindera). AICA member.

Girish Shahane is Director - Art of the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art and lives in Bombay. He has degrees in English literature from Elphinstone College, Bombay University, and Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was editor and later consulting editor of Art India magazine. He has written on visual art, film and cultural politics for leading publications, and contributed columns to Time Out and Yahoo! India. He has lectured at institutions like the NGMA and NCPA in Bombay, the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, the Tate Modern in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He is on the faculty of art history courses run by Bhau Daji Lad Museum and Jnanapravaha. Exhibitions curated by him include Art / Technology (Max Mueller Bhavan Gallery, Bombay, 2000); Legacy: A-vanguard (Gallery Threshold, Delhi, 2010); and Home Spun (Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, 2011).

Kathrin Rhomberg, studied art history and archaeology. From 1990-2001 she was curator and head of the exhibition office at the Secession, Vienna. In 1998 she was appointed as one of the international curators of Manifesta 3 – Contemporary Art Biennial, Ljubljana (with Maria Hlavajova, Ole Bouman and Francesco Bonami). She was co-curator (with Maria Hlavajova and Charles Esche) of the long-term research, education, exhibition and publishing project FORMER WEST (2008–2013). Previously Rhomberg was director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln from 2002–2007 and from 2002-2006 she was artistic director of “Projekt Migration” (with Marion von Osten), an initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation in Germany. She is co-founder of the tranzit network, which supports exchange and contemporary art practices in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Rumania. In 2009 she was curator of the Czech and Slovak Pavilion, Roman Ondák Loop, at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Other recent curatorial projects include: The Bauhaus in Calcutta, A Cosmopolitan Avantgarde Encounter, Bauhaus Dessau, 2013 (with Regina Bittner, Partha Mitter, Boris Friedewald, Sria Chatterjee), Christoph Schlingensief. Fear in the Core of Things, BAK, basis voor actuele Kunst, Utrecht and Galerija Novi, Zagreb 2012; 6th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, 2010; Ion Grigorescu: In the Body of the Victim 1969–2008, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2009; Sanja Iveković. General Alert. Works 1974–2007 (with Nataša Ilić), Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2007. Rhomberg teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna art and theory. She lives in Vienna.

Nancy Adajania is a Bombay-based cultural theorist and independent curator. She was co-artistic director of the 9th Gwangju Biennale, 2012. She currently holds a research residency at BAK (basis voor actuele kunst) and will be teaching the course on curatorial practice at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in August. She has written and lectured extensively on art and the public sphere, and transcultural art practices at Documenta 11, Kassel; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Transmediale, Berlin; Kuenstlerhaus, Vienna and Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, among other venues. From 2000 to 2002, she was editor-in-chief of Art India. She has proposed several new theoretical models and her essays have appeared in numerous books and anthologies, including: ‘Globalism Before Globalisation: The Ambivalent Fate of Triennale India’, Western Artists and India: Creative Inspirations in Art and Design (2013); ‘Coomaraswamy to Ambedkar: Tracing the Vanished Horizons of the Vernacular in the Contemporary’, Vernacular in the Contemporary: Part 2 (2011); ‘The Nth Field: The Horizon Reloaded’, On Horizons: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art (2011); ‘New Media Overtures before New Media Practice in India’, Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857- 2007 (2009) and ‘The Sand of the Coliseum, the Glare of the Television and the Hope of Emancipation’, Documenta Magazine No. 2/ Life! (2007). She is the editor of the monograph Shilpa Gupta (2010) and co-author of The Dialogues Series (2011). Her curatorial projects include: ‘Your name is different there’, Volte Gallery, Bombay, 2012; ‘Landscapes of Where,’ Galerie Mirchandani + Steinrueke, Bombay, 2009; ‘Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art,’ Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2008; ‘Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves,’ ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2007; ‘Avatars of the Object: Sculptural Projections,’ NCPA/Guild Art Gallery, Bombay, 2006; and ‘Zoom! Art in Contemporary India,’ Culturgest, Lisbon, 2004.

Natasha Ginwala is an independent curator, researcher and writer and lives between Berlin, Germany and Pune, India. She is part of the artistic team of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Recent projects include “Landings”— a durational research project in collaboration with critic-curator, Vivian Ziherl (Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art & partner organizations); “The Museum of Rhythm” — a segment of Taipei Biennial 2012 and “Kunstvlaai: Festival of Independents”, INexactly THIS (2012). Her writing has appeared in publications such as Afterall Online, Art Agenda, C Magazine, Manifesta Journal and Mint (The Wallstreet Journal), among others. She has pursed post-graduate studies at The School of Arts & Aesthetics (JNU), New Delhi, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai and has participated in de Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam.

Oliver Kielmayer is the Director of Kunsthalle Winterthur and lives in Zurich, Switzerland. Kielmayer’s career includes numerous positions as curator of major art galleries, including the world-renowned Kunsthalle Winterthur in Winterthur, Switzerland, where he is currently its director and the Kleines Helmhaus in Zurich, where he held the position of curator from 2000 through 2002. From 2001 to 2004, he was the Manager of international artist in residence programme of the foundation Kunstlerhaus Boswil and 2005 co-curator at the IBCA - International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Prague. He is also the publisher of the free artist newspaper WeAreTheArtists and member of the art committee of the canton of Zurich. In addition, Oliver Kielmayer’s work has been featured in many exhibits over the past decade, most notably: Begehren & Eroberung - Filmstills, Russ Meyer Vintage Prints, Celebrity Nudes, Pornophotographica; Aggression; Downloads from Future; and Homecoming. He also has a long list of publications to his credit, including artificialities; Umelec 2/2006; and Christian Vetter – History Park. He has extensive expertise as a lecturer and jurist, most recently as juror of res publica, art project for Stadthaus Zurich; lecturer at Brazier's International, Braziers; and juror Dezemberausstellung, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur.

Pooja Sood is a founding member and Director of Khoj International Artists Association and an independent curator. She was appointed Artistic Director and curator of 48C and lives in New Delhi. Sood has Masters in Art History and Business Management. She is a Chevening scholar [on the Core Leadership programme, UK 2009-2011]. From 2000-2010, she was the Regional Coordinator of the global Triangle Arts Trust, UK, where she researched and facilitated the establishment of independent not for profit visual art organizations in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal called SANA (South Asian Network for the Arts). She was appointed Artistic Director and curator of 48C. Public Art. Ecology, a public art project across 10 public sites in New Delhi commissioned by the Goethe Insitut and GIZ New Delhi in December 2008. She was Curator of the Apeejay Media Gallery , the first dedicated space for new media in India from 2002-2007 and of the Eicher Gallery from 1994-1998. She is also the Director of programme (www.arthinksouthasia.org). She curated KHOJ LIVE08, a week long live arts Festival in March 2008. She has co curated the exhibition “Have we met?” with curators from Indonesia, Japan and Thailand for the Japan Foundation in 2004. She was invited to curate a video art exhibition for the Musee D’ Ethnographie in Geneva in 2004 and was a guest curator for Interactive A03, a video art festival in Mexico in 2003 and the Freewaves Media Festival in Los Angeles, USA, 2004.

Sandhini Poddar is a Mumbai-based art historian and an adjunct curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, working on special projects in New York and Abu Dhabi. From 2007-2012 she served as Associate Curator of Asian Art at the Guggenheim where she was responsible for global exhibitions, acquisitions and scholarship on modern and contemporary Asian art for the Guggenheim’s international network of museums. She curated the much-acclaimed exhibitions Anish Kapoor: Memory and Being Singular Plural for Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and organized the Guggenheim’s presentation of Zarina: Paper Like Skin alongside working as a member of the curatorial team on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project. Poddar is currently developing a major touring retrospective of seminal modernist painter V.S. Gaitonde, scheduled to premiere at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in fall 2014. She writes frequently on contemporary art, philosophy, and politics for various museum publications and magazines, and has postgraduate degrees from India and the US in aesthetics, art history, and arts management.