Uta Barth is a contemporary German-American photographer whose work addresses themes such as perception, optical illusion and non-place. Her early work emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s, "inverting the notion of background and foreground" in photography and bringing awareness to a viewer's attention to visual information with in the photographic frame. Her work is as much about vision and perception as it is about the failure to see, the faith humans place in the mechanics of perception, and the precarious nature of perceptual habits. Barth's says this about her art practice: “The question for me always is how can I make you aware of your own looking, instead of losing your attention to thoughts about what it is that you are looking at." She has been honored with two National Endowments of the Arts fellowships, was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004‑05, and was a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. Barth lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Art in General was a non-profit contemporary art exhibition space known for its vibrant and ground-breaking projects as a formidable and longstanding New York City alternative space, focused on giving meaningful resources and opportunities to artists early on in their careers. Founded in 1981 by artists Martin Weinstein and Teresa Liszka and originally located in the General Hardware building in New York City — hence the organization's name, Art in General — the institution produced and presented distinctive programs and exhibitions featuring new work by local and international artists.
Glenn Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity. Based in New York City, Ligon's work often draws on 20th century literature and speech of 20th century cultural figures such as James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Jean Genet, and Richard Pryor. He is noted as one of the originators of the term Post-Blackness.
Cynthia Morris Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception.
Philippe Parreno is a contemporary French artist who lives and works in Paris. His works include films, installations, performances, drawings, and text.
Lucy Rowland Lippard is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the "dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. She is the author of 21 books on contemporary art and has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations.
Vasif Kortun is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices. Kortun served as the founding director of several international institutions, including SALT, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Proje4L, and the Museum of the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. In 2006, he received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies for his "experimental approach and openness to new ideas to challenge the contemporary art world and push its parameters beyond national or international, local or global developments." Kortun has written extensively on contemporary art and visual culture in Turkey for publications and periodicals internationally. He currently lives in Ayvalık, a seaside town on the northwestern Aegean coast of Turkey.
Charles Esche is a museum director, curator and writer. His focus is on art and how it reflects, provokes and influences changes in society. He lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven.
Mark Lewis is a Canadian artist, best known for his film installations. He represented Canada at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
Geeta Kapur is a noted Indian art critic, art historian and curator based in New Delhi. She was one of the pioneers of critical art writing in India, and who, as Indian Express noted, has "dominated the field of Indian contemporary art theory for three decades now". Her writings include artists' monographs, exhibition catalogues, books, and sets of widely anthologized essays on art, film, and cultural theory.
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is an American nonprofit research organization and public forum for art, culture, and politics, established in 1992. Vera List was an American art collector and philanthropist.
The four nominees for the Tate gallery's 2009 Turner Prize were Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright. The award went to Richard Wright on 7 December 2009 winning him the £25,000 prize. The Turner jury said in a statement that they "admired the profound originality and beauty of Wright's work." The other shortlisted nominees each won £5,000.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian-American writer, art historian and exhibition maker. She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. Currently, she is the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-2019).
e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and e-mail service founded in 1998. The arts news digests, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux describe strains of critical discourse surrounding contemporary art, culture, and theory internationally. Its monthly publication, e-flux journal, has produced essays commissioned since 2008 about cultural, political, and structural paradigms that inform contemporary artistic production.
David Campany is a British writer, curator, artist and educator, working mainly with photography. He has written and edited books; contributed essays and reviews to other books, journals, magazines and websites; curated photography exhibitions; given public lectures, talks and conference papers; had exhibitions of his own work; and been a jury member for photography awards. He has taught photographic theory and practice at the University of Westminster, London. Campany is Managing Director of Programs at the International Center of Photography in New York City.
Alex Farquharson is a British curator and art critic who was appointed Director, Tate Britain in Summer 2015. As Director, Tate Britain he is Chair of the Turner Prize.
Rhea Anastas is an art historian, critic, curator and an associate professor at the Department of Art, University of California, Irvine. She was also one of the founding members of Orchard, an experimental artist-run gallery in the Lower East Side in New York.
Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator and museum leader.
Paul Goodwin is a British independent curator, urban theorist, academic and researcher, whose projects particularly focus on black and diaspora artists and visual cultures. He is Director at the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), University of the Arts London.
