Exploring The Visionary Brilliance of 5 Exceptional Art Curators
Art curators play a vital role in the art industry since they are in charge of selecting, investigating, and organizing artwork displayed to the public. They not only administer the collections and exhibitions of galleries, museums, and other venues, but they also prepare catalogs, write essays and reviews of artworks, and educate the general public about art. They collaborate with artists and representatives to identify artwork appropriate for their target audience. Art curators help ensure that artwork is displayed in an entertaining and meaningful way.
And in this week’s Arts to Hearts Feature Article, we will highlight five exceptional art curators from all around the world who have made significant contributions to their respective areas.
These art curators have all worked hard to ensure their exhibitions provided audiences with something new or different. These art curators have not only garnered notoriety in the realm of curatorial work but have also contributed to our understanding of art.
These profiles will inspire anyone interested in pursuing a career in the arts and provide a sense of how important these professionals are when bringing artwork into our lives.
So, keep on reading to know about them all.
1- Jasmine Wahi (@browngirlcurator)
Jasmine Wahi is the Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, a Newark, NJ-based nonprofit organization that supports artists who are interested in social discourse and activism. Her practice predominantly focuses on issues of femme empowerment, complicating binary structures within social discourses, and exploring multi-positional cultural identities through the lens of intersectional feminism.
In 2019, Wahi joined the TED speaker family with her first TEDx talk on intersectionality and visibility, entitled All The Women In Me Are Tired. Wahi is a former faculty member at Yale University and at the School of Visual Arts: MFA Fine Arts department. She is currently Faculty at Brooklyn College in New York City. In 2020, She became the inaugural Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Jasmine Wahi received her Master in Art History from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her dog Momo.
2- Daria Borisova (@punh)
Daria Borisova, born in Russia, is a London-based curator and art advisor. Borisova focuses on young, emerging artists and established artists who inspire progressive understanding and promote lasting change. With an emphasis on transparency and education, Borisova has built collections for prominent private and corporate clients and helps collectors navigate the art world. She maintains relationships with international galleries, auction houses, foundations, museums and other organizations. Borisova is an active board member of the non-profit arts organization Art At A Time Like This which serves artists and curators who present art in direct response to current events.
Her most recent curatorial work includes Block Party, the first digital art project with Christie’s in Dubai; Osinachi’s NFT series Different Shades of Water in collaboration with Christie’s and 1-54, the first NFT sale of an African artist in Europe; Restoration: Now or Never, a public art exhibition across London billboards and bus shelters in conjunction with World Environment Day in the UK and organized in collaboration with SaveArtSpace.
Other projects include working at the non-profit organization Beauty for Freedom to bring together world-renowned artists in an effort to raise funds for human trafficking victims; HerStory in collaboration with Beauty for Freedom; Global Call for Artists in partnership with W1 Curates x Amplifier, a digital public art installation in London; Winter Show at Harlesden High Street Gallery in London; House of Togetherness in London; and Alla Gorka: Heroine presented by White Ribbon in the Ukrainian Parliament and America House Kyiv. Borisova has an ongoing collaboration with The Art Gorgeous to educate women on the cryptic art of collecting art.
3- Yasha Young (@strychninberlin)
Yasha Young is a Senior Executive and Curator with 25 years of global project production experience (Humboldt Forum Berlin, MOMA Italy, MOCA, UN NYC, Foreign Ministry Germany, Sotheby’s, Saatchi, Phillips, ART Cologne, Rothschild Collection, SONY Music, Levis, Nike, Patreon, Universal Music, Art Basel, Lollapalooza, SuperBloom, Goethe Institut, Berlin Biennale, NYC Fashion Week).
She is the Founder, Concept Creator, and Founding Executive Director (2013 -2019) of URBAN NATION Berlin, the worldwide first Museum for Urban Contemporary art and a unique interdisciplinary project on a global scale representing over 450 artists and projects in 54 countries. Her passions include working as a Cultural Innovations Manager and as City Concept Developer. Her expertise includes working with Creative City Concepts and Collection and as Art Portfolio Manager for private clients and institutions. Young also works as an international Public Speaker (TED, SXSW, Remix Summit).
Since January 2020, Yasha has been the founding partner, Concept Developer, and Executive Curatorial Director for the FOR_M New York City, a new institution currently in development. The FOR_M produces cutting-edge art exhibitions and projects with social engagement and cultural change at the core of its mission.
Young studied Museology at Harvard University Cambridge, MA and teaches as Associate Professor in Art and Music Business at the Pop Academy Mannheim, Germany.
Philanthropy includes Patron for Children’s Hospice Berlin Heart, Curator for Keep A Breast Cancer Charity Foundation and since 2020, sponsor of the Yasha Young Projects Sculpture Award as part of the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize.
4- Lolita Cros (@l0l0lita)
Born in Paris, Lolita Cros is an independent curator, advisor and dealer living and working in New York City. She develops emerging talents and pioneers established artists by creating dialogues between the two through conversations and exhibitions. With each project, she proposes an alternative venue that asks the viewer to revisit their expectations and look at the work through a new and unique lens.
Cros has exhibited works in various spaces such as a Chinese restaurant, a rooftop, a 26′ truck and other venues in NY, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Paris and London to name a few.
In 2016, Cros launched the Salon Series, a series of artist talks she moderated with important figures of the contemporary art world like Duane Michals, Peter Saul, Tina Barney, and Tschabalala Self to name a few.
Between 2017 and 2020, she founded and ran The Salon at The Wing, a permanent exhibition and gallery space within all nine locations of the women’s club The Wing. Over 180 artists were featured in The Salon including Marilyn Minter, Jenny Holzer and Senga Nengudi among many others. Cros has curated shows for Sotheby’s, Brookfield, Paddle8, and the New York Academy of Art among others and developed the collection of multiple private and public collections including Chanel, Brookfield, The Wing and more recently the California African American Museum.
5- Ryan N. Dennis (@ryandennistaylor)
Ryan N. Dennis is the chief curator and artistic director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
Ryan previously served as the Curator and Programs Director at Project Row Houses where her work focused on African American contemporary art with a particular emphasis on socially engaged practices, site-specific projects, public interventions and the development of public-facing programs for adults and youth. She is deeply interested in the intersection of art and social justice while creating equitable opportunities for artists to thrive in their work.
While at PRH she has organized and co-organized more than 12 Artist Rounds including, Round 47: The Act of Doing: Revitalizing, Preserving and Protecting Third Ward (2017); Round 46: Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter at Project Row Houses (2017); and Round 43: Small Business/Big Change: Economic Perspectives from Artists and Artrepreneurs (2015). Under Dennis’ purview, many highly regarded artists have showcased their work at PRH, including Simone Leigh, Autumn Knight, and Otabenga Jones & Associates.
Throughout her tenure, she organized the 2014 and 2018 Social Practice. Social Justice symposiums. Dennis also led the creation of the 2:2:2 Exchange Residency Program with the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago and established Project/Site, a temporary, site-specific, commission-based public art program. In 2017, she launched the PRH Fellowship with the Center for Art and Social Engagement at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts.
Dennis conceives, implements, and directs public art programs to generate engagement within the Third Ward community and beyond. Programming ranges from gallery talks, lectures, and panel discussions to experimental and participatory experiences with works of art.
Her writings have appeared in online and print catalogues and journals, including Prospect.3 Notes for Now, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, and The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio magazine. Recently, she edited PRH’s inaugural book, Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25, and contributed to the first monograph of artist Autumn Knight titled, In Rehearsal: Autumn Knight, published by the Krannert Art Museum.
Prior to joining PRH, she worked at the Museum for African Art in New York City as the travelling exhibition manager. Her curatorial credits have included El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa, Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria and Jane Alexander: Surveys (from the Cape of Good Hope). Dennis has served as a community organizer and a curatorial assistant at The Menil Collection in Houston. She has been a visiting lecturer and critic at a number of art schools and institutions and has taught courses on community-based practices and contemporary art at the University of Houston.
Dennis earned her master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute with a focus on Curatorial Practice. She is also on the board of the Alliance of Artists Communities and advisory committees of Gulf Coast Literary and Fine Arts Journal, the University of Houston’s System-Wide Art Acquisition, and Houston Art Alliance’s Civic Art Committee. She is currently a proud fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership’s 2019 Fellowship Program. Dennis resides in Jackson, MS.
So these are our wonderful featured art curators and I would take this chance to remind you that the application deadline for ATH Magazine Issue# 3 is fast approaching; if you want to have your work published in an international Magazine, now is your chance to do so, and If you want to know more, check out ATH Magazine Issue# 3 curated by Liz Lidgett.
With this, I will take your leave and I will see you again with some more articles till then keep creating the magic that you do. Take Care & Good Bye.
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