RoseLee Goldberg is an art historian, author, critic and curator of performance art. She is most well known as being the founder and director of Performa, a performance art organisation. [1] She is also currently a Clinical Associate Professor of Arts Administration at New York University. [2]
Goldberg was born in Durban, South Africa and grew up in a middle-class family. She danced in her youth. [3] Goldberg studied political science and fine arts at Wits University, Johannesburg. In 1970 she attained a degree in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. [4]
As director of the Royal College of Art's Gulbenkian Gallery, London, (1972–75) Goldberg set precedents [ citation needed ] for exhibiting modern and contemporary performance and organised exhibitions, performance series, and symposia on a broad range of multi-disciplinary artists including Marina Abramović, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Brian Eno, the Kipper Kids, Piero Manzoni, Anthony McCall, and Christo and Jeanne Claude.
In 1975 Goldberg moved to New York City. [5] In 1978 Goldberg became a curator at The Kitchen, New York. [5] Her programming included the creation of an exhibition space, a video viewing room, and performance series.[ citation needed ] While at The Kitchen, Goldberg presented works by Laurie Anderson, Sherrie Levine and Roberto Longo. [6] She also organised performances by Philip Glass, Peter Gordon, Meredith Monk, and Robert Wilson and curated the first solo exhibitions of Jack Goldstein, David Salle, and Cindy Sherman, among others.[ citation needed ]
Goldberg has curated several performance series including "Six Evenings of Performance," as part of the High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture, exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Couleurs Superposees: Acte VII, a performance by Daniel Buren, (in association with Works & Process), at the Guggenheim, New York.[ citation needed ]
In 2001 Goldberg commissioned and produced Logic of the Birds, a multi-media performance by Shirin Neshat. [1] Developed in residency at Mass MOCA, Logic of the Birds was presented in workshop at the Kitchen in 2001, and premiered at the 2002 Lincoln Center Festival, and toured to the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, and Artangel, London.
In 2004, Goldberg founded Performa, a non-profit multi-disciplinary arts organisation for performance art. [7] According to the organisation's Mission Statement, Performa was created to commission new performance projects, to present a dedicated performance biennial, to consult and collaborate with art institutions, and to offer ongoing education on performance art. [1] The organisation also hosts the Performa Biennial, which Goldberg considers "a form of radical urbanism to counteract the homogenisation of New York". [8] Artists who have created performances include William Kentridge. [9]
Goldberg has taught at New York University since 1987 and has lectured at Columbia University, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Kyoto University of Art and Design, the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, the Tate Modern, London, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale University, among other institutions.
In 2009, Goldberg co-curated 100 Days, a travelling exhibition on the history of performance art with Klaus Biesenbach. [10]
In 2013 Goldberg produced rapper Jay-Z's performance art video for his song "Picasso Baby," which included notable artists such as Marina Abramović, Lawrence Weiner and Fred Wilson. [11]
She wrote a study of performance art, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. Published in 1979 and now in its third edition (2001), Goldberg's book is now a key text for teaching performance in universities [ citation needed ] and has been translated into over seven languages, including Croatian, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish .[ citation needed ]
In 2006 Goldberg was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. [12]
In 2010 Goldberg was awarded with the ICI Agnes Gund Curatorial Award. [13]
In 2013 Goldberg was ranked 24th on ArtReview's Power 100 list of the most influential figures in the contemporary art world. [14]
Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom.
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian photographer and visual artist who lives in New York City, known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her artwork centers on the contrasts between Islam and the West, femininity and masculinity, public life and private life, antiquity and modernity, and bridging the spaces between these subjects.
Scott Benzel is an American visual artist, musician, performance artist, and composer. Benzel is a member of the faculty of the School of Art at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA.
Jens Hoffmann Mesén is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. He is the former director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art from 2007 to 2016 and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at The Jewish Museum from 2012 to 2017, a role from which he was terminated following an investigation into sexual harassment allegations brought forth by staff members. Hoffmann has held several teaching positions including California College of the Arts, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as others.
Steven Holmes is a Canadian curator based in Hartford, Connecticut.
Countess Adelina von Fürstenberg-Herdringen is a Swiss curator specialized in contemporary art. Von Fürstenberg was one of the first curators to show an interest in non-European artists, thus opening the way for a multicultural approach in art. She also took a more global and flexible approach to contemporary art exhibitions, in bringing art into spaces such as monasteries, madrasas, large public buildings, squares, islands, and parks. Her objective is to give a larger context for visual art in making it a more vigorous part of our lives, in creating a more vivid dialogue for it with other arts, and relating it more to worldwide social issues.
Klaus Biesenbach is a German-American curator and museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, as well as the berlin modern under construction.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian-American writer, art historian, and exhibition maker who served as the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea in Turin in 2009 and from 2016 to 2023. She was also the founding Director of Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti from 2017 to 2023. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013–2019). She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. She is currently Honorary Guest Professor at FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern, Switzerland. She has lectured widely at art and educational institutions and Universities for the Arts, including the Goethe University, Frankfurt; Harvard University, Cambridge; MIT, Boston; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Dehli; Cooper Union, New York; The Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Monash University, Melbourne; Di Tella University, Buenos Aires; Northwestern University, Chicago, and UNITO, Università di Torino, Turin.
Johan Thom, is a visual artist who works across video, installation, performance and sculpture. He has been described as one of South Africa's foremost performance artists.
Jeanne Beth Greenberg Rohatyn is the owner of Salon 94, an art gallery with three locations in New York City.
"Picasso Baby" is a song by American hip hop artist Jay-Z from his twelfth studio album Magna Carta... Holy Grail. It is the second track on the album and features additional vocals by The-Dream and Zofia Borucka Moreno. The song was produced by Timbaland and Jerome "J-Roc" Harmon and contains a sample of "Sirens" by Adrian Younge. Following the release of the album, the song peaked at number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 based on downloads only.
Eugenio Viola is an Italian art critic and curator based in Bogotá.
Defne Ayas is a curator, lecturer, and editor in the field of contemporary art and its institutions. Ayas directed, cofounded, curated, and advised several art institutes, initiatives, and exhibition platforms across the globe, including in the United States, Netherlands, China and Hong Kong, South Korea, Russia, Lithuania, and Italy. Exploring art's role within social and political processes, Ayas is best known for conceiving inventive exhibition and biennale formats within diverse geographies, in each instance composing interdisciplinary frameworks that provide historical anchoring and engagement with local conditions. Working between Berlin and New York since 2018, she currently serves as Senior Program Advisor and Curator at Large at Performa. Until June 2021, Ayas was the artistic director of the 2021 Gwangju Biennale, together with Natasha Ginwala.
Performa is an American nonprofit arts organization known for its Performa Biennial, a festival of performance art that happens every two years in various venues and institutions in New York City. Performa was founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg. Since its inception 2005, Performa curators have included Defne Ayas, Tairone Bastien, Mark Beasley, Adrienne Edwards, Laura McLean-Ferris, Kathy Noble, Charles Aubin, Job Piston, and Lana Wilson. The organization commissions new works and tours performances premiered at the biennial. It also manages the work of choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer.
Claire Tancons is a curator, critic, and historian of art. She was born in Guadeloupe and is currently based in Paris, after living for nearly two decades between the Caribbean, primarily in Trinidad & Tobago, and the United States, mostly in New York and New Orleans.
Fyodor Borisovich Pavlov-Andreevich is a Brazilian artist, curator, and theater director.
Sozita Goudouna is a curator and professor, and the author of Beckett's Breath: Anti-theatricality and the Visual Arts, on Samuel Beckett's Breath, published by Edinburgh University Press and released in the US by Oxford University Press. In 2022, Goudouna launched the masters program "Breath Studies: Breath in the Visual and Performing Arts" at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is also the editor of the 2024 Performance Research issue "On Breath".
Themba Sekowe ,[3] known professionally as DJ Maphorisa,[4] is a South African DJ, record producer, singer, and songwriter.[5][6] As a record producer with a blend of house music, amapiano and afropop, he has worked with and has received production credits from several notable artists, including Wizkid, Sizwe Alakine, Kwesta, Uhuru, Drake, Black Coffee, Major Lazer, Runtown, C4 Pedro, TRESOR, Kabza De Small, Era Istrefi, Mpura, Young Stunna and Killer Kau.[7][8] He was signed to Kalawa Jazmee Records prior to establishing his own record label, BlaqBoy Music.[9]
Adrienne Edwards is a New York–based art curator, scholar, and writer. Edwards is currently the Engell Speyer Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Chrissie Iles is a British-American art curator, critic, and art historian. She is the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
