 | This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(February 2020) |
Mari Spirito is an American curator jointly based in Istanbul and New York. She is the Founding Director and curator of Protocinema, a non-profit arts organization realizing site-aware exhibitions around the world, in cities including Istanbul, New York, Tbilisi, Paris, Seoul, New Delhi, Moscow, East Lansing, Basel, and Lima.
After receiving her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art and opening a gallery in a loft with her roommates, Spirito began her New York City-based career at 303 Gallery in New York City, where she was director from 2000 to 2012. In 2011, she founded Protocinema, a mission-driven art organization that creates opportunities for emerging and established artists from all regions, in cities where their work has yet to have much exposure. Many exhibitions are presented outside of existing structures, in abandoned spaces, parks, and garages. [1] Spirito said to ArtSpace, that Protocinema is a way to "link cultures and create conditions for empathy, and it's site-aware because it's sympathetic to context." [2]
The name 'Protocinema' was inspired by Werner Herzog and a statement he made in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams : "Why do these drawings show the beast with eight legs instead of four legs? Maybe this is man's first attempt to represent motion, maybe this is protocinema." For Spirito, Protocinema is "about how we understand and then represent the world; how we communicate it to each other, and then what the result of that communication has the potential to be. Ultimately, if art can break down stereotypes, misunderstanding, miscommunications, which I believe it can, then that is at the core of everything that we're doing." [3]
Spirito was an advisor to the second Mardin Biennial in Turkey, in 2012. [4] In 2014, the gallery Artspace, in Sydney, Australia, invited Spirito as a guest curator to represent a range of Turkish independent, not-for-profit and museum sectors. [5] From 2014-2018, Spirito programmed Art Basel's 'Conversations' program, a series of discussions between renowned artists and curators, in both Basel and Miami Beach. Convening the likes of Marina Abramovic , Arthur Jafa , Sheikha Hoor al Qasimi, Glenn Ligon and Claudia Rankin, Spirito felt that, "the most important thing is to have different points of view. The panelists need to be challenging each other and pushing to extract something that's important and meaningful." [6]
In 2015, Protocinema launched its Emerging Curator Series at 5533, an independent contemporary art space in Istanbul in the 1950s Han Building. "[Owners] Nancy Akakan and Volkan Aslan don't want to run an exhibition space, so every year they invite another curator to run the space, and for 2015/2016 they've invited me," said Spirtio to ArtSpace. [2] Calling her project Proto5533, the program became a yearlong series of exhibitions by emerging artists and curators, accompanied by a mentoring system and public programs.
From 2015 through 2017, Spirito served as director and curator of 'Alt' ('below' in Turkish), an art space opened in January 2016 on the site of the historic Bomonti Beer Factory in Istanbul's Şişli district. A subterranean art space, Alt presented visual arts, performance and public programs. The space launched with the first solo exhibition of Rodney Graham in Turkey and a group exhibition titled 'If you can't go through the door, go through the window' with works by Aykan Safoğlu, Hasan Özgür Top, and Hera Büyüktaşçıyan. [7]
In 2017, Spirito was an International Advisory Committee member for the Inaugural High Line Plinth Commissions, one of 13 artists, curators, and art world professionals who each submitted recommendations of artists to invite to submit a proposal for the High Line Plinth, a landmark destination for major public art commissions in New York City located on the High Line at West 30th Street and 10th Avenue. [8]
Spirito is associate curator of visual arts for the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens and New York. [9] In 2018, Spirito curated a program called Nature of Justice, which was a visual arts interpretation of The Birds , [10] the play by Aristophanes, produced in partnership with St. Ann's Warehouse, which ran May 2–13, 2018. [11] The show featured works by artists Machine Dazzle, Louise Lawler, Sofia Stevi and Theo Triantafyllidis.
Sprito is also a member of Independent Curators International (ICI), [12] a New York City-based organization that has produced exhibitions, events, publications, research and training opportunities for curators and diverse audiences around the world since 1975. [13] In 2012, Spirito, along with Övül Durmuşoğlu, was awarded the SAHA Research Award for the project Ancient Works / Asar-ı Atika, a one-week research project at The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey with artists Akram Zaatari, Nilbar Güres, and Rossella Biscotti. [14] The resulting work was Rossella Biscotti's The City, a five-channel video installation visiting the 9,000 year old neolithic archeological site Çatalhöyük, which was presented in a subterranean space near Taksim Square from September 29-October 27, 2018. [15] Spirito was also one of several professionals who developed ICI's inaugural Curatorial Intensive in Bangkok, Thailand, developed in partnership with the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Chulalongkorn University. [16]
Sprito was a jury member for the 2018 Beirut Art Residency. [17] Also in 2018, Alserkal Programming appointed Hale Tenger for a commissioned public intervention that was guest curated by Spirito, and was launched at Alserkal Avenue during Dubai Art Week in March. The resulting work, Under, 2018, was on display from March 19–May, 2018 in The Yard in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. [18]
Spirito is Vice President of the Board of Participant Gallery in New York City. [19] She is also currently on the Advisory Board of Collectorspace in Istanbul, [20] and has served on the Board of Directors of New York Art Dealers Alliance. [21]
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. As the organization undergoes a multi-year renovation it is currently sited at a satellite loft space in the West Village located at 163B Bank Street, where exhibitions and performances are regularly held. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1971 by Steina and Woody Vasulka, who were frustrated at the lack of an outlet for video art. The space takes its name from the original location, the kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center which was the only available place for the artists to screen their video pieces. Although first intended as a location for the exhibition of video art, The Kitchen soon expanded its mission to include other forms of art and performance. In 1974, The Kitchen relocated to a building at the corner of Wooster and Broome Streets in SoHo, and incorporated as a not-for-profit arts organization. In 1987 it moved to its current location.
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.
April Greiman is an American designer widely recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool. Greiman is also credited, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers, with helping to import the European New Wave design style to the US during the late 70s and early 80s." According to design historian Steven Heller, “April Greiman was a bridge between the modern and postmodern, the analog and the digital.” “She is a pivotal proponent of the ‘new typography’ and new wave that defined late twentieth-century graphic design.” Her art combines her Swiss design training with West Coast postmodernism.
Gallery 825 on La Cienega Boulevard serves as LAAA's exhibition space for contemporary art. The gallery features four separate spaces, allowing for the simultaneous hosting of four individual programs. The North Gallery holds juried group shows, while the smaller galleries showcase solo artist exhibitions. Additionally, Gallery 825 collaborates with local non-profit organizations for their events.
Pulitzer Arts Foundation is an art museum in St. Louis, Missouri, that presents special exhibitions and public programs. Known informally as the Pulitzer, the museum is located at 3716 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The building is designed by the internationally renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Admission to the museum is free.
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.
Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE is a British art critic and lecturer. She is currently the Chair of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula’s Public Art Expert Panel. She was the Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London from 2001 to 2022. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1992. She supports the careers of young artists.
Serkan Özkaya is a Turkish-American conceptual artist whose work deals with topics of appropriation and reproduction. He typically operates outside of traditional art spaces and often makes multiple versions of even his own work, including his most noted work David. Özkaya's artworks are held in the permanent collections of the İstanbul Modern, Borusan Contemporary Art, and Arter in Istanbul, as well as three different 21c Museum Hotels locations—Louisville, Kentucky; Bentonville, Arkansas; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Ahmet Öğüt is a conceptual artist living and working in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Berlin, Germany. He works with a broad range of media including video, photography, installation, drawing and printed media.
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin studied aesthetics, philosophy of art, and sociology in Ankara and Paris. Part of the first generation of Turkish artists considered to be globally active and nationally influential, Alptekin is considered one of the most significant figures in the established contemporary art scene of Istanbul.
Antonio Cosentino is a Turkish contemporary artist of Italian origin living and working in Istanbul. Primarily a painter, Cosentino's work also encompasses sculpture, installation, writing and photography.
Alserkal Avenue is an industrial compound hosting warehouses in the industrial zone of Al Quoz, in Dubai. The area is an arts and culture district for Dubai with lineup of galleries, facilities and platforms, such as Alserkal Avenue that houses residencies for local and global artists. In March 2017, Alserkal Avenue inaugurated Concrete, its new space in the Avenue and the first project to be completed in the United Arab Emirates by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), founded by Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Rem Koolhaas.
Eugenio Viola is an Italian art critic and curator based in Bogotá.
Defne Ayas is a curator, educator, and publisher in the field of contemporary art and its institutions. Ayas directed and advised many institutions and collaborative platforms across the world, including in China, South Korea, United States, Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Italy. She is known for conceiving exhibition and biennale formats within diverse geographies, in each instance composing interdisciplinary frameworks that provide historical anchoring and engagement with local conditions. Until June 2021, Ayas was the Artistic Director of 2021 Gwangju Biennale, together with Natasha Ginwala.
Rossella Biscotti is an Italian visual artist best known for her installations, performances and video.
Anne Barlow is a curator and director in the field of international contemporary art, and is currently Director of Tate St Ives, Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018. There she directs and oversees the artistic vision and programme, including temporary exhibitions, collection displays, artist residencies, new commissions, and a learning and research programme. At Tate St Ives, Barlow has curated solo exhibitions of work by artists including Thảo Nguyên Phan (2022), Petrit Halilaj (2021), Haegue Yang (2020), Otobong Nkanga (2019), Huguette Caland (2019), Amie Siegel (2018) and Rana Begum (2018). She was also co-curator of "Naum Gabo: Constructions for Real Life" (2020) and collaborating curator with Castello di Rivoli, Turin for Anna Boghiguian at Tate St Ives (2019).
Banu Cennetoğlu is a visual artist based in Istanbul. She uses photography, installation, and printed matter to explore the classification, appropriation and distribution of data and knowledge. Her work deals with listings, collections, rearrangements, and archives. Cennetoğlu co-represented Turkey at the 53rd International Venice Biennale with Ahmet Öğüt in 2009. Her work has been shown at numerous international institutions such as Musée cantonal des Beaux-arts, Lausanne (2022); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2020); Ständehaus, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfallen, Düsseldorf (2019); SculptureCenter, New York (2019); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2018), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2018); documenta14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2011); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014), Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010); Walker Art Center (2007); Istanbul Biennial (2007); and Berlin Biennial (2003). She is the founding director of BAS (2006–ongoing), an Istanbul-based artist-run initiative that collects and displays artists’ books and printed material as artwork. In Turkey, she is "best known as an apostle of the artist’s book."
Nancy Atakan is a Turkish visual artist. Her works deal with issues of feminism, gender, identity, migration, and memory. Also an art critic and art historian, she has completed her PhD and has authored two books on conceptual art in Turkey. She is a co-founder of the artist-run-space 5533, operating since 2008 in Istanbul Traders' Market Shopping Center.
Hugo Huerta Marin is a multi disciplinary artist and graphic designer based in New York City, whose work centers on subjects of gender and cultural identity.
Cecilia Alemani (born:1977) is an Italian curator based in New York City. She is the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art and the Artistic Director of the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. She previously curated the 2017 Biennale's Italian pavilion and served as Artistic Director of the inaugural edition of the 2018 Art Basel Cities in Buenos Aires, held in 2018.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help){{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help){{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help){{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)