Event Type 2: curated-conversations

Njideka Akunyili Crosby was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1983 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She was a participant in La Biennale di Venezia, 58th International Art Exhibition, May You Live In Interesting Times, curated by Ralph Rugoff (11 May – 24 November 2019). Current and upcoming solo exhibitions include Contemporary Project: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX (2022), and The Hilton Als Series: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Yale Center for British Art (2022-23). She is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts Degree from University of the Arts (2020), an Honorary Doctorate of Art from Swarthmore College (2019), a MacArthur Fellowship (2017), and a United Sates Artist Fellowship (2021). Akunyili Crosby’s work is held in significant museum collections throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro,and David ZwirnerPhoto: Shaughn and John

Living and working in Lagos, Nigeria for over 11 years, Temitayo Ogunbiyi is visual artist who curates and writes about contemporary art. She seeks to build connections across distinct communities, and between botanical cultures and human histories.In 2017, she began designing her first functional playground sculpture in response to the few public playgrounds that she could find in Lagos for her young children. Ogunbiyi is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including a 2022 Graham Foundation Grant for a forthcoming exhibition at the Noguchi Museum, a 2020-2021 Digital Earth Fellowship, a 2018 Smithsonian Artist in Research Fellowship and a 2014 Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Carter E. Foster joined the Blanton in 2016 as Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Prints and Drawings. He organized the exhibition Form into Spirit: Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, to mark the opening of Kelly’s landmark building, and he co-authored the recent monograph on it published by Radius Books. He also organized Expanding Abstraction: Pushing the Boundaries of Painting in the Americas, 1958–1983  and co-organized Drawn: From the Collection of Jack Shear. Prior to the Blanton, he was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art for eleven years. He has written extensively about modern and contemporary art.

Ian Berry is Dayton Director of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery and Professor of Liberal Arts at Skidmore College. He is a leader in the field of academic museums and a regular speaker on interdisciplinary, inventive curatorial practice and teaching in museums. Berry is well known for exhibitions and publications with contemporary artists, including Terry Adkins, Sarah Cain, Nancy Grossman, Corita Kent, Alma Thomas, Kara Walker, and Mary Weatherford.