Philadelphia, PA — The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design announce a new initiative that will highlight the talents of guest curators from outside of the Philadelphia region in exhibitions for the fall seasons of 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Read more about this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer - Moore brings in a Whitney Biennial curator and two other high-powered women to create edgy exhibitions at the art school
The Visiting Curators Initiative will focus on engaging new artistic input from three curators who will bring their visions to The Galleries at Moore, a hub for contemporary art and creative exploration in the heart of Philadelphia: Mia Locks, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kalia Brooks Nelson, a New York-based curator and educator; and Charlotta Kotik, an independent curator based in Brooklyn. (Abbreviated biographies of the guest curators are provided below.)
“The Visiting Curator project provides a wonderful opportunity for The Galleries to display a wide range of curatorial styles and perspectives,” said Moore President Cecelia Fitzgibbon. “It brings Moore students the advantage of interfacing with important up-and-coming and established curators who have their fingers on the pulse of what is current and artistically important.”
Mia Locks’ exhibition, Or Both, opening September 27, will highlight the work of artist Ulrike Müller alongside a group show that includes work by artists Martin Beck, Medrie MacPhee, Dona Nelson and Deborah Remington, among others.
Kalia Brooks Nelson’s exhibition in fall 2020 will encompass the art of three women of color--Firelei Báez from the Dominican Republic Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum from Botswana and Saya Woolfalk from Japan--and will feature themes of migration and femininity.
In fall 2021, Charlotta Kotik will present socially engaged artworks, and she will work closely with Moore students as well as people in nearby Philadelphia communities.
“We believe that bringing a fresh curatorial perspective each year will not only help grow our reputation as an incubator for contemporary thinking, but will also provide a unique and creative opportunity for curators to experiment in a new environment full of collaborative possibilities,” said Gabrielle Lavin Suzenski, Rochelle F. Levy Director, The Galleries at Moore. “To have this outside perspective is a really unique way to add variety to what we’re doing. We look forward to our curator colleagues’ exhibitions providing a meaningful learning experience for our students and an important artistic experience for the larger community.”
“We are very grateful to our colleagues Thom Collins from The Barnes Foundation and Susan Talbott, formerly of the Fabric Workshop, for recommending these remarkably talented young women from all over the country to work at the College,” said President Fitzgibbon. “As a force in the local art world, The Galleries, in collaboration with these curators, reveal current thinking in fine art, and we are excited to be a place where Philadelphians can experience this work.”
MIA LOCKS
Exhibition opens September 27, 5:30–8 pm; on view September 28 through December 7, 2019
Mia Locks is currently senior curator and head of new initiatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. Most recently, she was co-curator of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, with Christopher Y. Lew, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and previously held curatorial positions at MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). Her exhibitions include Greater New York (2015), co-organized with Douglas Crimp, Peter Eleey, and Thomas J. Lax; The Little Things Could Be Dearer (2014); Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, 1945–1980 (2011), co-organized with David Frantz; as well as solo projects with Math Bass, Samara Golden, and Im Heung-soon. Locks is on the faculty of the Curatorial Practice program at the School of Visual Arts, New York and a 2018 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
KALIA BROOKS NELSON
Exhibition opens September 25, 2020; on view September 26 through December 5, 2020
Kalia Brooks Nelson is a New York–based curator and educator, currently teaching at the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, focusing on visual cultural theory, the history of photography and the business of art. She is a member of a committee facilitating an international conference series titled Black Portraitures, around the image of the black body in Western art and culture. She has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including exhibitions at New York City Hall; International Center of Photography, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), Brooklyn, NY; California College of the Arts, San Francisco; and Arts Initiative Tokyo, Japan. Brooks holds a PhD in Aesthetics and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME; an MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts; and a BA in Sociology and Geography from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program and an ex-officio board trustee of the Museum of the City of New York.
CHARLOTTA KOTIK
Exhibition opens September 24, 2021; on view September 25 through December 4, 2021
Charlotta Kotík is an independent curator based in Brooklyn who is focused on facilitating various projects for galleries, alternative spaces and museums. She was formerly head of the department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she initiated new programs such as the series of Grand Lobby Projects for extensive installation-based works and the Working in Brooklyn series, to document the energy of the nascent Brooklyn art scene. In 1993, as the United States commissioner for Venice Biennale, she presented works by Louise Bourgeois in an exhibition that later traveled internationally. Kotik has organized over 100 museum exhibitions, presenting works by contemporary artists such as Mariko Mori, Kerry James Marshall, John Cage, Jenny Holzer and Robert Longo. Kotik is a member of a number of national and international art organizations and is a co-chair of the Jindrich Chalupecky Award, an important recognition of young visual artists in the Czech Republic. This project became a model for the acknowledgement of the artistic excellence in 10 other post-communist countries.
