2015 Speakers

Aleksandra Kedziorek is an art historian, associate curator and project coordinator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Her major interest lies in exploring the intersection of architecture and the visual arts, as well as art and architecture education, both recently manifested in the exhibition “Oskar Hansen. Open Form” presented at MACBA in Barcelona (with Soledad Gutierrez and Łukasz Ronduda, 2014) and the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto (with Łukasz Ronduda, 2015). She is also the curator of Oskar and Zofia Hansen’s house in Szumin, the only Polish member of the Iconic Houses Network. She has participated in international research projects on architecture history launched at ETH Zurich and Universidade de Campenas, Sao Paulo, and contributed as a researcher to several exhibitions on modern and contemporary architecture, including “Lifting the Curtain” which accompanied 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. She co-edited the volume “Oskar Hansen—Opening Modernism: On Open Form Architecture, Art and Didactics” (with Łukasz Ronduda, Warsaw 2014) and published in architectural journals, “Architektura&urbanizmus” among others.

Doryun Chong is Chief Curator at M+ Museum Hong Kong. Previously Chong was Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, where he organized contemporary exhibitions and acquired works for the museum’s collection. At MoMA, he organized Bruce Nauman: Days (2010) and Projects 94: Henrik Olesen (2011), and Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde (2012), and co-edited From Postwar to Postmodern, Art in Japan, 1945-1989: Primary Documents. Prior to his appointment at MoMA in 2009, Chong held various positions a curator in the Visual Arts department at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 2003 to 2009, and co-organized exhibitions including Haegue Yang: Integrity of the Insider (200910); Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis (2008); Brave New Worlds (2007); and House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective (2005). He has also curated and coordinated exhibitions at venues including REDCAT, Los Angeles, the 2006 Busan Biennale, and the Korean Pavilion at the 2001 Venice Biennale, and his writings have appeared in journals such as Artforum, Afterall, The Exhibitionist, and Parkett, and museum and biennale publications by the Auckland Triennial, the Gwangju Biennale, and Kunsthaus Bregenz. Chong is the recipient of the first ICI Gerrit Lansing Independent Vision Award in 2010.

Eugenio Viola, is an art critic and Curator at Large at Madre, The Contemporary Art Museum of Naples. From 2009 to 2012 he was the Project Room Curator at the same museum. He got his Ph.D. in “Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Research” from the University of Salerno. He is a scholar of theories and practices related to performance and Body Art. On this subject he has extensively lectured in Italy and abroad, he has published several essays, and he has edited the monographs devoted to Hermann Nitsch (Ed. Morra, Naples, 2013), Marina Abramovic (Ed. 24 Ore Cultura, Milan, 2012), and to Orlan (Ed. Charta, Milan, 2007). He collaborates on regular basis with “artforum.com” (USA). He is a member of IKT (“International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art”) and he is on several awards international committees and panels. He curated a number of catalogues and exhibitions in Italy and abroad, among the others: Mark Raidpere – The Damage (EKKM The Contemporary Art Museum of Tallinn, 2013); Marina Abramovic - The Abramovic Method (PAC | Padiglione di Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 2012); Transit (Madre Museum, Naples / Townhouse, Cairo / PiST, Istanbul / CCA, Tel Aviv / State Museum, Thessaloniki, 2009-2011); the performance festivalCorpus. Art in Action that featured site-specific works by, among the others: Ron Athey, Milica Tomic, Kira O’Reilly, Jamie Shovlin and Lustfaust, Tobias Bernstrup, Tania Bruguera, Teresa Margolles, Regina José Galindo, Maria José Arjona (Madre Museum, Naples, 2009-2012); Francesco Jodice - Babel (Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, 2011); BinarySystem (Mergellina Stations, Naples / Belgrade Railway Station, 2008); A room with a view (Pan | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli / Villa Italia, Belgrade, 2008); Orlan. Post-Identity Strategies (Kunsthalle of Tallinn, 2008); Through the Looking Glass (Villa Italia, Belgrade, 2008); Carlos Garaicoa for “Fate Presto” (Complesso Monumentale of Santa Sophia, Salerno, 2008); Art and Homosexualiy, from von Gloeden to Pierre and Gilles (Palazzo della Ragione, Milan / Palazzina Reale of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 2007); Orlan: Le Récit(Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, France, 2007); VIP / Very Important Portraits by David LaChapelle (Capodimonte Museum, Naples, 2006).

 After working several years as an independent curator and art critic – realizing among other projects and books with Norma Jeane, Christoph Büchel and a temporary exhibition in former Swiss military Bunkers (Unloaded, 2002) – he is since 2007 director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen. There he realised shows by Swiss and internationals artists like Ryan Gander, Mai-Thu Perret, Gedi Sibony, Loris Gréaud, Shahryar Nashat, Matias Faldbakken and Navid Nuur. He was artistic coordinator of ILLUMInations, the 54th edition of the Biennale di Venezia 2011 and coeditor of the Biennale catalogue. He lives and works in Zurich and St. Gallen.

Based in Mumbai, Jitish Kallat is an artist and a curator. He works across a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography and installation. He was the artistic director curator for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2014. Kallat participated in major shows on Indian Contemporary art such as, “India: Art Now” at the Arken Museum, Ishoj, Denmark (2012-13); “Public Notice 3” at the Art Institute of Chicago (2010-2011); “Indian Highway IV” at MAXXI, Rome, Italy (2012) and at Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France (2011); “The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today” at Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2010); “Chalo! India: A New Era of Indian Art” at Essl Museum – Contemporary Art, Klosterneuburg, Austria and at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (both 2009), as well as “Indian Highway” at the Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2008-09); “Die Tropen. Ansichten von der Mitte der Weltkugel” at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany (2008); “Urban Manners” at Hangar Bicocca, Milan, Italy (2007) and “Century City” at Tate Modern, London, UK (2001) amongst others

 Kazuhiko Yoshizaki is a curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Yoshizaki has an MA in Contemporary Art Theory, Goldsmiths College, University of London. At the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Yoshizaki curated “Francis Alÿs” (2013), “Bloomberg Pavilion Project, Fumiko Kobayashi: Over the Horizon” (2011), and “Berlin 2000-2011: Playing among the Ruins” (2011, co-curated with Angela Rosenberg and Yuko Hasegawa)

Matt Packer is a curator and writer. He has curated over 30 exhibitions and projects in independent and institutional contexts, both in Ireland and internationally, including Disappearing Acts, Lofoten International Art Festival (2015); Lost Boys (2013) and School Days (2011) at Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork; O Flesh (2013) and FWA: Freeing Welsh Architecture (2012) at Treignac Projet, Limousin (FR); When Flanders Failed (2011) at Royal Hibernian Academy; Ice Trade (2008) at Chelsea Space, London. He has taught on postgraduate programmes at IADT Dun Laoghaire, OTIS College of Art & Design Los Angeles, and CCAD Cork, and has published over 100 texts in magazines and journals such as Kaleidoscope, Source Photographic Review, Frieze, Concreta, and Camera Austria, as well as artist publications. He is a graduate of the Curating programme at Goldsmiths College London and a member of IKT: The International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art. Particular curatorial research interests include: documentary photography (practices, exhibition histories), counter-cultural histories of refusal, environmental and technological determinism in contemporary arts practices.

Shanay Jhaveri graduated from Brown University concentrating in Art Semiotics and the History of Art and Architecture. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. Jhaveri is the editor of Outsider Films on India: 1950 -1990, and has curated film programs at the TATE Modern, Frieze and INIVA. He divides his time between Mumbai and London.

H. E. Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi is the President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation. She received her BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002), a Diploma in Painting from the Royal Academy of Arts (2005) and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2008). In 2003 she was appointed curator of Sharjah Biennial 6 and has, since then, continued as the Biennial’s Director. Sheikha Hoor is the Chair of the Advisory Board for the College of Art and Design, University of Sharjah; Member of the Advisory Board, Khoj International Artists’ Association, India; and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. She also serves on the Board of Directors for MoMA PS1, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; the International Biennial Association, Gwangju; and Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. Sheikha Hoor is a Visiting Lecturer at Slade School of Fine Art, London, and is currently a Scholar-in-Residence with The Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM) at Cornell University. She has served on the juries for the Dubai International Film Festival (2014), the Benesse Prize (2013), the Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award (2012), and the selection panel for the Berlin Biennial (2012). Her recent projects at Sharjah Art Foundation include In Spite of it All (2012) and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: A Collective Memory (2013), and in 2014 Ahmed Mater: 100 Found Objects, Abdullah Al Saadi: Al-Toubay, Rasheed Araeen: Before and After Minimalism, Wael Shawky: Horsemen Adore Perfumes and other stories, and Susan Hefuna: Another Place. Sheikha Hoor is the curator of 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, the UAE national pavillion of the 56th Biennale di Venizia 2015

Dr. Tasneem Zakaria Mehta is an art historian, writer, curator, designer and a cultural activist who has studied Fine Arts and Design at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai. She did a Liberal Arts degree at Columbia University, New York, a post graduate degree in the History of Modern Art from Christies, London, and a Masters in English from Delhi University. She has completed research towards a PhD on the establishment of museums and schools of art in the 19th century, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Since 2003, Dr. Mehta is the Managing Trustee and Honorary Director of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai City Museum, (the erstwhile Victoria and Albert Museum) which won the prestigious UNESCO 2005 Asia Pacific ‘Award of Excellence’ for Cultural Conservation. Dr. Mehta conceptualized, curated, designed, and implemented the restoration and revitalization of the Museum. The Museum has embarked on an ambitious exhibition and education program including showcasing modern and contemporary art, under her leadership.

Natasha Ginwala is a curator, researcher, and writer. She is curator of Contour Biennale 8 and curatorial advisor for dOCUMENTA 14 (2017). Recent projects include My East is Your West featuring Shilpa Gupta and Rashid Rana at the 56th Venice Biennale; Still Against the Sky at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and Corruption...Everybody Knows with e-flux, New York within the framework of the SUPERCOMMUNITY project. Ginwala was a member of the artistic team for the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (with Juan A. Gaitán) and curated The Museum of Rhythm at Taipei Biennial 2012 (with Anselm Franke). From 2013-15 she led the multi part curatorial project Landings presented at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, David Roberts Art Foundation, NGBK (as part ofthe Tagore, Pedagogy, and Contemporary Visual Cultures Network) the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and other partner organizations (with Vivian Ziherl). Ginwala writes on contemporary art and visual culture in various periodicals and has contributed to numerous publications.