Hans Ulrich Obrist is the Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, and co-founder of 89plus. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show ‘World Soup (The Kitchen Show)’ in 1991, he has curated more than 300 exhibitions. Obrist has lectured internationally at academic and art institutions, and is a contributing editor to the magazines Artforum, AnOther Magazine, 032C, a regular contributor to Mousse and Kaleidoscope and he writes columns for Das Magazin and Weltkunst. In 2011 he received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence, and in 2015 he was awarded the International Folkwang Prize for his commitment to the arts. His recent publications include Mondialité,Conversations in Mexico,Ways of Curating, The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar, and Lives of The Artists, Lives of The Architects.
Visitors 2017
Simon Castets is the Director and Curator of Swiss Institute, New York and co-founder of 89plus. He holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from Columbia University and a MA in Cultural Management from Sciences Po, Paris. In addition to exhibitions at Swiss Institute, recent curatorial work includes 'Rachel Rose' at Aspen Art Museum, 'Champs Elysées' at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (with Julie Boukobza and Nicola Trezzi), 'Poetry will be made by all!' at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and 'Americans 2017' at LUMA Foundation, Zurich (both together with Hans Ulrich Obrist for 89plus). His writing has appeared in publications such as Mousse, PIN UP, Flash Art and Kaleidoscope. He has delivered lectures at Columbia University and Brown University, and frequently participates on panels and juries internationally.
Anita Dube completed her BA (History) from Delhi University in 1979 and her MVA (Art Criticism) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in 1982. As a member of Radical Painters and Sculptors Association she wrote the manifesto of the seminal exhibition ‘Questions and Dialogue’ in 1987. Dube is the co-founder and board member of KHOj International Artists' Association. She has contributed texts to many publications on contemporaty art.
Dube's select solo exhibitions include ‘Yours Disparately’ (Nature Morte, New Delhi, 2014), ‘Chance Pieces’ (Nature Morte, Berlin,2013), ‘Eye,etc.’ (Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai, 2013), ‘Babel’ (Galerie Dominique Fiat, Paris, 2011), ‘Kal’ (Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai, 2010), ‘Phantoms of Liberty’ (Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, 2007), ‘Illegal’ (Nature Morte, New Delhi; Bose Pacia, New York, Gallery SKE, Bangalore, 2005), ‘The Sleep of Reason’ (Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Nature Morte, New Delhi, 2003), ‘Via Negativa’ (Nature Morte, New Delhi, 2000), ‘You Tell What You Know Down Here Girl’ (Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 1999), Desire Garden (Community Hall, Apartmenrs, New Delhi, 1992). She has been represented in various national and international biennales and festivals such as the first ‘Kochi Muziris Biennale’ (India, 2012), ‘Biennale Jogja XI’ (Jogja National Museum, Indonesia, 2011), ‘Against Exclusion’ 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, Garage Center, Russia, 2009), ‘iCon: India Contemporary’, Venice Biennale (Collateral event, Italy, 2005), ‘Yokohama Triennale’(Japan, 2001) and ‘7th Havana Biennial’ (Cuba, 2000). Dube has shown widely nationally and internationally in large scale group exhibitions including ‘Part Narratives’ (curated by Gayatri Sinha, Bikaner House, Delhi 2017),‘Given Time: The Gift and Its Offerings’ (curated by Dr. Arshiya Lokhandwala, Gallery Odyssey, Mumbai 1016), ‘Dwelling’ (curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Galerie Mirchandani & Stienruecke, Mumbai, 2016), ‘After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/ 1997’ (curated by Dr. Arshiya Lokhandwala, Queens Museum of Art, New York, 2015), ‘Difficult Loves-7 Contemporaries’ (curated by Roobina Karaode, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, 2013), ‘Labyrinth’ (presented by Lakeeren Gallery, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, 2011), ‘Paris-Delhi-Bombay’ (curated by Sophie Dupleix and Fabien Bousteau, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2011), ‘Archive of Utopia’ (presented by Seven Art Gallery, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 2011), ‘Conundrum’ (Bose Pacia, New York, 2011), ‘Indian Highway’ (curated by Stinna Toft, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, 2010), ‘Indian (Sub)Way’ (Grosvenor Vadehra, London, 2010), ‘Mythologies’ (Haunch of Venison, London, 2009), ‘Beyond Globalization’ (Beyond Art Space, Beijing, 2009), ‘India 3: New Delhi-Republic of Illusions’ (Galerie Krinzinger, Wein, 2009), ‘The Audience and the Eavesdropper: New Art from India and Pakistan’ (Phillips de Pury & Company, London and New York, 2008), ‘Santhal Family: Positions Around an Indian Sculpture’ (MuKha, Antwerp, 2008), ‘Urban Manners’ (Hangar Bicocca, Milan, 2007), ‘New Delhi New Wave’ (Marella Gallery, Milan, 2007), ‘India: Public Places/ Private Spaces’ (The Newark Museum, Newark, 2007), ‘Horn Please- Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art’ (Kunstmuseum, Bern, 2007), ‘Bombay Maximum City’ (Lille, 2006), ‘India of The Senses’ (Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2006), ‘Indian Summer’ (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, 2005), ‘Resonance: Anita Dube and Subodh Gupta’, (International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Vancouver, 2004), ‘Home-Srreet-Shrine-Bazaar-Museum’, (City Art Gallery, Manchester, 2002), ‘Alchemy’, (The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich, London, 2002), ‘ARS 01’ (Kiasma, Helsinki 2001), ‘Edge of rhe Century’, (curated by Amit Mukhopadhya,Nature Morte, New Delhi, 1999).
Lisa Rosendahl is an independent curator and writer. She has been working as a curator at Public Art Agency Sweden since 2014, where she initiated and curated the series 'Industrial Society in Transition' commissioning context-specific works by artists such as Alexandra Pirici, Annika Eriksson, Raqs Media Collective, Sara Jordenö and Lisa Tan in different parts of the country. Her curatorial research into the industrial past and present of Sweden also includes the exhibition 'The Society Machine – the Industrial Era from the Perspective of Art' at Malmö Konstmuseum 2016-17, combining objects from the Natural- Cultural- and Technical History collections of Malmö Museum with contemporary artworks by more than 30 artists.
Between 2011-2013 she was Director of Iaspis, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee's international programme for visual art, architecture and design where she developed international collaborations and ran the Stockholm-based artist residency as well as an extensive programme of discursive events. Larger conferences and events curated for Iaspis include 'Practice International' (2013, with co-curators Binna Choi and Grant Watson), 'Practices For Everyday Life' (2013) 'Body of Work' (2012, with co-curator Lucie Fontaine) and 'Exhibition as Discourse as Disco' (2011 Istanbul Biennial parallel event).
Previous positions include Director of BAC (Visby, 2008-10) Associate Curator at Röda Sten Konsthall (Gothenburg, 2006-08) Director of Exhibitions at Lisson Gallery (London, 2003-06) and Acting Director at Electra Productions (London, 2006-07).
She has curated exhibitions at Moderna Museet (Stockholm) Kunsthall Charlottenborg (Copenhagen) and INIVA (London) amongst other places. She writes and lectures extensively on contemporary art and was a co-editor of Work, Work, Work – an Anthology of Art and Labour (Sternberg Press). She was an external tutor on the MA Curatorial Practice at Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway 2016-17. Since 2016 she also runs the course 'What is an Artist?' on the MA Fine Art programme at Konstfack in Stockholm, enquiring into the history and future of the role of the artist through theory and practice.
Rosendahl will visit Oslo, Lofoten, Tromsø and Trondheim during her stay in Norway in September–October 2017 as part of OCA's International Visitor Programme (IVP).
Professor Jiang Jiehong is Head of Research at School of Art, Director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham City University. He has extensive research and curatorial experience in contemporary Chinese art and visual culture. Jiang was Lead Curator for the 4th Guangzhou Triennial: The Unseen (in collaboration with Jonathan Watkins, 2012), the 3rd Asia Triennial Manchester: Harmonious Society (2014), and most recently in 2016, he curated 'The Shadow Never Lies' (with Mark Nash, Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum), 'The Distant Unknown: Contemporary Art from Britain' (OCAT Shanghai) and 'Everyday Legend' (Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum). Jiang’s book publications include Burden or Legacy: from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), The Revolution Continues: New Art from China (Jonathan Cape, 2008), Red: China’s Cultural Revolution (Jonathan Cape, 2010), and An Era without Memory: Chinese Contemporary Photography on Urban Transformation (Thames and Hudson, 2015). He is Principal Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (Intellect). Currently, Jiang is Lead Curator for the First Thailand Biennale: Edge of the Wonderland, to open in November 2018.
Anna Poznanskaya studied Art History at the Moscow State University, and got her PhD degree in 2008 from the Moscow Fine Arts Academy. She is currently a keeper of 19th century painting in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Poznanskaya has curated numerous exhibitions in the Pushkin Museum since 1999, both domestic and in collaboration with colleagues from European Museums. In her exhibition projects Poznanskaya focuses on cross-cultural problems and relations between the past and the future. She has authored a large number of research publications, including Catalogue Raisonnee - a complete catalogue of Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish 18th–20th century paintings from the collection of the Pushkin Museum, as well as Catalogue Raisonnee of English 16th-20th century paintings. Poznanskaya lectures at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow.
Stefan Kalmar is the Director of Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. Before he came to ICA, he served as the Executive Director and Curator at Artists Space in New York, where he was since 2009. Exhibitions during his tenure supported and introduced artists at decisive moments, including: Marc Camille Chaimowicz (2009), Danh Vō (2010), Charlotte Posenenske (2010), Duncan Campbell (2012), Bernadette Corporation (2012), Sam Pulitzer (2014), Hito Steyerl (2015), Laura Poitras (2015), Cameron Rowland (2016) and Lukas Duwenhögger (2016). Kalmar further introduced a second venue, Artists Space Books & Talks, which quickly became a central platform for critical discussion in contemporary art and culture. Prior to joining Artists Space, Stefan was Director of Kunstverein München (2004–09), Director of the Institute of Visual Culture in Cambridge (2000–04) and Artistic Director at Cubitt Gallery in London (1997–99).
Philippe Pirotte is Dean of the Staedelschule and Director of Kunsthalle Portikus in Frankfurt.
Next to that he is adjunct senior curator at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and part of the curatorial team of the 2017 Jakarta Biennale. Pirotte was one of the co-founders of the contemporary art center objectif_exhibitions in Antwerp, and was the organisation’s artistic director until 2005. From 2004 to 2013, Pirotte held the position of Senior Advisor at the Rijksakademie for Visual Arts in Amsterdam. From 2005 to 2011, he was Director of the Kunsthalle Bern, where he organised solo exhibitions with artists such as Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Owen Land, Oscar Tuazon, Jutta Koether, Santu Mofokeng, Moshekwa Langa, Pavel Büchler, Allan Kaprow, Xu Zhen, Dora García, Xu Zhen (Madein Company), Deimantas Narkevicius, and Rita McBride. At the Kunsthalle he also organised the group exhibition 'Off Key, Animism and Voids – A Retrospective of Empty Exhibitions'. At the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, he curated the retrospective of acclaimed Chinese film-artist Yang Fudong (2013). At Portikus he organised exhibitions with Lucy Raven, Otobong Nkanga, Ade Darmawan, Meyer Vaisman, and Sharyar Nashat, Marina Rosenfeld among others. As a freelance curator Pirotte co-curated and organised exhibitions with Hassan Khan for the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2014); Luc Tuymans for the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2001); the retrospective of Senegalese Painter El Hadji Sy (2015); 'My Communism – Poster Exhibition' at TOP contemporary Art Space Shanghai; '50 Days at Sea' for the Shanghai Biennale; 'A Fantasy for Allan Kaprow' for the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo; and 'Camuflaje' for the Fundación Celarg in Caracas Venezuela. He also served as Advising Programme Director for the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing (where he organised the inaugural exhibition 'A Garden of Diversion') and he is an advisor for the Kadist Art Foundation (Paris/San Francisco). In 2016 he was curator of the 2016 edition of La Biennale de Montréal, entitled 'Le Grand Balcon'. Pirotte has written numerous essays about contemporary art and artists, and contributed to Nka – Journal of Contemporary African Art, Afterall Journal, Kaleidoscope, Mousse Magazine, and Parkett Magazine among others.
Augustin Pérez Rubio has a degree in art history from the Universidad de Valencia and has curated over one hundred exhibitions at museums, art centers and biennials, mainly in Europe and Latin America. Before he was Chief curator and Director of MUSAC 2003- 2013, he organised monographic exhibitions of major artists like Pierre Huyghe, Julie Mehretu, Dora García, Pipiloti Rist, Sejima + Nishizawa / SANAA, Elmgreen and Dragset, Harun Farocki, Dave Muller, Ana Laura Aláez, Ugo Rondinone, Azucena Vietes and Lara Almarcegui. Later, as an independent curator, he curated projects that include solo shows by artists such as SUPERFLEX, Sophie Calle, Nestor Sanmiguel Diest, Rosangela Rennó, Carlos Garaicoa, and many group shows thematically related to gender, linguistics, architecture and politics.
He has been the Artistic Director of MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires since May 2014, where he developed a socio-political programme dedicated to female Latin-American artists that already included the exhibitions of Teresa Burga, Annemarie Heinrich and Claudia Andujar plus the ones planned for the future. In addition, Pérez Rubio is also working, together with Andrea Giunta, on a new curatorial script of MALBA’s collection titled VERBOAMERICA a postcolonial revision of the Collection. Recently, he has curated solo shows of artists such as Jorge Macchi, Yoko Ono, Voluspa Jarpa, Carlos Motta and the retrospective show of the collective 'General Idea: Broken Time' which will tour though Latin America during the next couple of years.
Anthony Huberman is Director and Chief Curator of The Wattis Institute in San Francisco. He was Founding Director of The Artist’s Institute in New York and a distinguished lecturer at Hunter College. Previously, he worked as chief curator of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, curator at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, curator at SculptureCenter in New York, and director of education and public programmes at MoMA PS1 in New York. He has curated major solo exhibitions with artists such as Henrik Olesen, Laura Owens, Sam Lewitt, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Lutz Bacher, Gedi Sibony, Richard Artschwager, and Olivier Mosset, and has developed long-term research projects with artists such as David Hammons, Joan Jonas, Thomas Bayrle, Haim Steinbach, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jimmie Durham. He has published numerous articles in art periodicals, including Artforum, Frieze, Flash Art, Afterall, and Mousse.
Catalina Lozano is an independent curator and writer. Her research interests and curatorial practice are focused on minor historical narratives that question hegemonic forms of knowledge. She recently co-edited the book Crawling Doubles: Colonial Collecting and Affects with Mathieu K. Abonnenc and Lotte Arndt.
Nora Lawrence is curator at Storm King Art Center, NY, USA, where she founded a yearly exhibition program devoted to emerging and mid-career artists (‘Outlooks’), and created a partnership between Storm King and The Shandaken Project that established Storm King’s first-ever artist residency. She has organised and co-organised exhibitions for Storm King, focused on artists including Dennis Oppenheim, Lynda Benglis, Josephine Halvorson, David Brooks, Virginia Overton, and Thomas Houseago, as well as the group exhibition ‘Light and Landscape’. Prior to joining Storm King, Lawrence worked in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on several exhibitions, including ‘Ernesto Neto: Navedenga’ (2010), which she co-curated; ‘Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today’ (2008); and ‘Focus: Picasso Sculpture’ (2008). She has also worked at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City.
Nora Lawrence has authored and co-authored several publications, including Dennis Oppenheim: Terrestrial Studio (2016), Lynda Benglis: Water Sources (2015), Mark di Suvero (2015), Zhang Huan: Evoking Tradition (2014), Monet’s Water Lilies (2009), Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008), and Armando Reverón (2007). She has taught courses at MoMA, the School of Visual Arts, and the University of Southern California. A graduate of Pomona College, Lawrence received her MA in art history from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Philosophy degree from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Francesca Gavin is a writer and curator. She is the Art Editor of Twin and contributing editor at Kaleidoscope, Sleek and AnOther. She was the co-curator of the Historical Exhibition of Manifesta11 in 2016 in Zürich, and has curated exhibitions online and internationally including 'E-Vapor-8', 319 Scholes, Brooklyn, New York, and Site Gallery, Sheffield; 'The Dark Cube', Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and 'The New Psychedelia', MU, Eindhoven. For seven years she was the curator of the Soho House group putting together a collection of over 3000 works. Gavin has written five books including The Book of Hearts, 100 New Artists and Hell Bound: New Gothic Art, and contributed to numerous publications including The Financial Times, Newsweek, Dazed and Confused, Vogue, wallpaper*, Artsy and Mousse.
Marianne Torp is Chief Curator of Contemporary Art and senior researcher at SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst) / National Gallery of Denmark. Recent exhibitions include ‘Ed Atkins, Safe Conduct’ (2016); ‘Danh Vo, Mothertongue’ at the Danish Pavilion (together with Tine Vindfeld), Venice Biennale (2015); 'Lutz Bacher, Into the Dimensional Corridor'; ‘Elmgreen and Dragset, Biography’ and ‘Henrik Olesen, Abandon the Parents’ (all 2014). Torp has been part of a broad selection of networks and committees, among others the Art History Research Committee at Novo Nordisk Foundation (2016-); chair of the evaluation panel at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (2014-15); vice president of the Danish Art Council’s Committee on Visual Arts (2007-11) and Committee of the Nordic Art Prize, The Carnegie Art Award (2004-07). As a writer she has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and publications. Torp studied art history at the University of Copenhagen and at Columbia University, and cultural management at the University College Sjaelland, Denmark.