Marco de Michelis is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the IUAV University of Venice and a member of that faculty's PhD programme "Theories and History of the Arts." Having earned his degree in 1969 at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, de Michelis has since taught History of Architecture within that institution working closely with Manfredo Tafuri. A former scholar at the Getty Center for the History of Arts in Santa Monica, at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and at the Institute of Fine Arts and Cooper Union in NYC, de Michelis has focused on the major protagonists of architecture in his research - including Walter Gropius, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Leberecht Migge, Luis Barragan, Rudolf Schindler, Carlo Scarpa, Aldo Rossi among others. De Michelis contributes regularly to international journals including Domus, Casabella, Abitare and Lotus International. Currently, he devotes his research to the crossover in contemporary art and architecture.
Visitors 2008
Carmine worked at the Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zürich and has organised exhibitions for various institutions such as 999 (1999) and Updating Landscapes (2003) for the Centro d'Arte Contemporanea Ticino, the exhibition Body Proxy about Norma Jeane (Helmhaus Zürich, Swiss Institute New York, and Kunstverein Freiburg, 2004/5), and the painting trilogy Fois Gras (Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, 2007). He has also initiated a number of independent projects like Unloaded (2002) in former Swiss-army bunkers and the mobile platform zimmerfrei. He has contributed to various magazines (Kunst-Bulletin, Frieze, Parkett), written for catalogues and edited publications (PSYOP Post 9/11 Leaflets with the artist Christoph Büchel, 2005). Since March 2007 he is the director of the Kunst Halle St. Gallen.
Leire Vergara is an exhibition curator at Sala Rekalde, a contemporary art space in Bilbao. From 2002 to 2005, she co-directed together with Peio Aguirre the independent art production structure D.A.E (Donostiako Arte Ekinbideak) with base in Donostia-San Sebastián. During this period, artists such as Phil Collins, Susan Philipsz, Asier Mendizabal, Asier Pérez, Ainara García, Iñaki Garmendia, Jakob Kolding and Lise Harlev developed new productions. She participated together with Peio Aguirre, Gorka Eizagirre and Xabier Salaberria in Manifesta 5, Donostia-San Sebastián with the research project Film Ideal Siempre. She has participated in educational workshops and projects such as Dispositive Workshop at Kunstverein München (2004) and Cork Caucus, Cork (2005) and has been involved in the coordination of two workshops in Arteleku: We rule the school, (September-October 2005) and Enthusiasm, (February 2006). She has contributed to art and cultural magazines and art catalogues.
Jonathan Watkins has been the Director of Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK, since 1999. Previously he worked for a number of years in London, as Curator of the Serpentine Gallery (1995-1997) and Director of Chisenhale Gallery (1990-1995). Watkins has curated a number of large international exhibitions including the Biennale of Sydney (1998); ‘Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art’ (Hayward Gallery, London 2001); ‘Quotidiana’ (Castello di Rivoli, Turin 1999); Tate Triennial (2003); Shanghai Biennale (2006); Sharjah Biennial (2007); ‘Negotiations’ (Today Art Museum, Beijing 2010); and the Guangzhou Triennial (2012). He was part of the curatorial team for ‘Europarte’ (Venice Biennale, 1997); ‘Milano Europa 2000’, (Palazzo di Triennale, Milan 2000); and ‘Riwaq’ (Palestinian Biennial 2007). He also curated the Iraqi Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2013. Watkins has written extensively on contemporary art. Recent essays by him have focused on the work of Giuseppe Penone, Martin Creed, Semyon Faibisovich, Yang Zhenzhong, Noguchi Rika, Caro Niederer, Beat Streuli and Cornelia Parker. He was the author of the Phaidon monograph on Japanese artist On Kawara.
Vasif Kortun is the curator and the director of Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, in Istanbul. His texts have appeared in many different books, magazines and exhibition catalogs.Jahresring 51: Szene Turkei: Abseits aber Tor, a book on Turkey co-authored with Erden Kosova was published in 2004. The co-curator of the 9th Istanbul Biennial in 2005, Kortun received the 9th annual Award for Curatorial Excellence given by the Center for Curatorial Studies in 2006. He is was the co-curator of the Taipei Biennial 2008.
Ivo Mesquita is a curator and, since 1996, a Visiting Professor at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. He is the curator for the 2008 São Paulo biennial and since 2006, the Chief Curator at Pinacoteca do Estado, in São Paulo. Ivo Mesquita was the Researcher, Assistant Curator (1980-88), and the Artistic Director (1999-2000) for the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo; Artistic Director, Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo (2001-02). Among the exhibitions curated by Ivo Mesquita are Jorge Guinle, 20th São Paulo Bienal (1989); Desire in the Academy, 1847-1916, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo (1991); Cartographies, Winnipeg Art Gallery (1993); Daniel Senise: The Enlightening Gaze, MARCO, Monterrey (1994); Body and Space, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (1995); Stills: works from the Marielouise Hessel Collection, CCS-Bard College, (1997); Alair Gomes, fotógrafo, Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo (1999); Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Climate, Fundación, "la Caixa", Madrid, (2003); Voyage to Dakar: Three artists from the Américas, VI Dakar Biennale - DakArt 2004; Pablo Siquier, Palácio Velazquez/Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, (2005). Co-curator, Roteiros, 24th São Paulo Bienal (1998); inSITE97 andinSITE2000, San Diego/Tijuana; and F[r]icciones, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2000). Publications include Leonilson: use é lindo, eu garanto (1997/2006), Daniel Senise: ela que não está (1998), F[r]icciones (with Adriano Pedrosa, 2001), Eliane Prolik: Noutro Lugar (2005) and catalogue essays.
Peter Eleey is Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he recently organized an exhibition surveying the visual art of the dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. Prior to joining the Walker, he was Curator & Producer at Creative Time in New York, where he curated a wide range of multidisciplinary programs including exhibitions, projects and commissions with Mike Nelson, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Holzer, William Forsythe, Doug Aitken, Jim Hodges, Shirazeh Houshiary and Haluk Akakçe, among others. He has also organized multi-artist projects and exhibitions for Creative Time such as The Dreamland Artist Club (2004 - 2005).
Frank Lubbers is an international exhibition organiser and art adviser. He has a degree in art education, and also studied art at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and philosophy at Amsterdam University. From 1983 to 1989 he was curator at the Fodor Museum, a department of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Thereafter he worked as deputy director and chief curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven until 2006 when he decided to pursue an independent career. Lubbers has organised exhibitions of numerous international contemporary artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Rodney Graham, James Coleman, Mike Kelley, David Claerbout, Matt Mullican, Marlene Dumas, Rob Scholte, René Daniëls and Aernout Mik. Since 2006 he is the artistic director of Museum De Wieger in Deurne, the Netherlands, and currently, he is co-organiser of NIET NORMAAL (Not Normal, Difference on Display) a large international contemporary art exhibition which will take place in Amsterdam in 2009. Furthermore, he is an adviser on quality management for higher art education in the Netherlands. His most recent exhibition was From 60 to 7 - The Politics of the "private", which he curated in 2007 for the Henie Onstad Art Centre in Oslo. His personal favourite is Un coup de dés, an exhibition based on the poem by Mallarmé, for which he gathered artists as diverse and close as Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Vercruysse, Robert Barry, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham and Donald Judd. He is president of the artistic advisory board of Museum Jan Cunen in Oss and sits on the board of MU in Eindhoven, a multidisciplinary institute for international contemporary art, pop culture, design, new media and architecture. Furthermore, he is president of Packed in Brussels, an institution for the preservation and cataloguing of art in electronic media.
She studied art history, European literary and historical studies, and museum studies in London (at the Courtauld Institute of Art, King's College, and City University respectively). She is currently curator of Contour 2009. During 2006 and 2007 she was the artistic director of Argos - Centre for Art & Media, in Brussels. Previously she was founding director of the Deste Foundation's Centre for Contemporary Art in Athens (1997-2003). At Argos, Gregos organised a number of exhibitions, lectures and events including, among others, the group exhibition Being in Brussels, solo shows of Clemens von Wedemeyer & Maya Schweizer, the Otolith Group, Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan (with Lawrence Weiner), and the Dutch architects MVRDV. While at Deste, Gregos organised numerous exhibitions drawn from the Dakis Joannou collection such as the trilogy Global Vision and Shortcuts as well as independent projects such as Fusion Cuisine, a survey of post-feminist art (2002). As an independent curator Gregos has curated numerous solo and group exhibitions in several institutions, including Channel Zero at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam (2004), and Britannia Works for the British Council (Athens, 2004). In 2005 she was co-curator of the ground breaking project Leaps of Faith, an international exhibition of newly commissioned work which took place on the Green Line and both sides of the city of Nicosia, Cyprus. In 2006 Gregos was the curator of the 6th E V+ A biennial in Ireland and co-curator of the Project Rooms at Artissima art fair, Turin. Gregos has also authored numerous artists' catalogues, and is a regular contributor to Contemporary, London and Flash Art international as well as other international art periodicals. In 2007, she edited a collective artists' book entitled The Residents featuring 46 foreign Brussels-based artists. Gregos is also a visiting lecturer at HISK, the Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
Grant Watson is a curator based in Antwerp working at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA). He is involved in curating exhibitions and artist projects at the museum including the recent Santhal Family positions around an Indian sculpture and Cornelius Cardew, as well as organising Keywords an ongoing lecture series. He was previously the Curator of Visual Arts at Project in Dublin between 2000 and 2005 where his programme focused on commissioning solo projects from contemporary Irish and international artists as well as occasional group exhibitions such as Communism in 2005 and Enthusiasm for Frieze Projects in 2006. He recently co edited the book Make Everything New: A Project on Communism published by Book Works, London, and was "Visiting Curator" for Documenta 12 where he researched the participation of contemporary Indian artists in the exhibition. He studied Curating and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College London.
Suman Gopinath is a curator and founder/director of Colab Art & Architecture based in Bangalore, India (2005). She worked in a private gallery for many years and studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, before setting up Colab. Suman has collaborated with Grant Watson and Anshuman Dasgupta on the exhibition Santhal Family: Positions around an Indian Sculpture, Muhka - Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium (2008); she was invited to speak on Museums of the Future, a series of talks organized by Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Basel Art Fair, Miami, USA (2007); she co-curated Horn Please: Narratives from Contemporary Indian Art, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2007-08); she was invited curator for the Lyon Biennale (2007), The History of a Decade That Has Not Yet Been Named, curated by Stephanie Moisdon and Hans Ulrich Obrist; she was networking curator from India for the Singapore Biennial (2006). She curated Home and the World (a series of films), Retrospective as Artwork, City Park with Grant Watson for Project Art Centre, Dublin, Ireland (2002-05). Other collaborations:The Cork Artists Collective for the Festival of Cork, the European Capital of Culture (2005); Room for Improvement (India, 2001); and Drawing Space with inIVA and The Victoria & Albert Museum, UK (2000-01). Suman's essays have appeared inFlash Art, Italy & USA; Modern Painters, USA; Art Review, UK; the catalogue of the third Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan, (2000); Changing States, inIVA, UK (2004); Independent Practices, UK (2002).
Nicky Hamlyn studied fine art at Reading University. His films have been shown at venues and screenings around the world. His book Film Art Phenomena (2003), a survey of experimental film and video, was published by the British Film Institute. His is a senior lecturer in Video Arts Production and Visual Theory at the University for Creative Arts, Maidstone, UK and visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, UK. He wrote an essay on the American filmmaker Stan Brakhage's Roman Numeral films in David James (ed), Stan Brakhage: an American Filmmaker, Temple University Press, 2004.