Márcio Botner co-founded A Gentil Carioca with fellow artists Ernesto Neto and Laura Lima in 2003. It is a unique initiative in Brazil. Its main objective is to make the gallery a place to think, produce, experiment, celebrate and commercialise art. It is located in the Historic Center of Rio de Janeiro, more specifically in the region called Saara, a place known as the largest open market in Latin America and founded in the last century by Arab and Jewish immigrants. A Gentil Carioca was born out of the belief that each work of art is a cultural melting pot with the power to spread culture and education.

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In the decade since Liza Essers took over as owner and director of Goodman Gallery, she has built on the tradition of shaping contemporary South African art by extending beyond local borders and establishing its status as a leading international  gallery. Under Essers, Goodman Gallery’s programme has grown to include artists from the Northern and Southern hemispheres in an effort to enrich international dialogue around colonial legacies and contemporary geopolitics. In addition to maintaining gallery locations in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Essers established Goodman Gallery UK in London in 2019. In keeping with an activist position fostered by the gallery during South Africa’s apartheid years, Essers has remained committed to a socially progressive agenda, dedicating a portion of the gallery’s programme to non-commercial projects that broaden audiences for contemporary art.

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Shireen Gandhy is a second generation gallerist; the first generation being her parents Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhy who started Gallery Chemould in 1963 in Bombay, India. After completing her studies in London, she returned to join her parents in the year the gallery turned 25. A seamless transition, Shireen’s interests began to veer toward a younger generation of artists making art that transcended painting and the strong tradition handed down from British colonisation. The early ’90s marked a major political shift in India; with artists creating a new language and Shireen’s proclivities in politics and activism drew her to a new kind of gallery programming. In 2007, Gallery Chemould was rechristened Chemould Prescott Road, she moved her gallery from the original space to a large loft-like space in the centre of Bombay where she continues to run a robust programme that includes a large number of artists who have worked with her for the last 25 years or more.

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Adenrele Sonariwo is the Founding Director of Rele Gallery Lagos and Los Angeles, and Rele Arts Foundation.

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Mary Sabbatino is Vice President and Partner of Galerie Lelong & Co., New York. She was appointed director of the New York location of Galerie Lelong & Co. in 1991 and became a gallery partner in 2007. She introduced now-canonical artists to the gallery, concentrating on women and artists from then-underrecognised regions such as Latin America, Asia, and Australia including Alfredo Jaar, Ficre Ghebreyesus, Lin Tianmiao, the Estate of Ana Mendieta, Yoko Ono, Zilia Sánchez, the Estate of Nancy Spero, amongst others. In addition to fostering the careers and legacies of the gallery’s artists, Sabbatino co-curated Art from Brazil in New York: which presented the first solo exhibitions of the region’s most vital figures – Waltercio Caldas, Cildo Meireles, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, and Tunga – and curated Juan Downey: Video Installations and Drawings, at the Museo Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile.

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José Kuri is founder and owner, with his wife Mónica Manzutto, of kurimanzutto gallery established in Mexico City in 1999 and in New York in 2018. Born from an idea originally proposed by Gabriel Orozco and carried out by a group of artists, the aim of this coming together was to enable collaborations and support the work of a new generation of Mexican artists both locally and internationally. José and Mónica imagined a gallery that could exist nomadically, adapting its form to the spaces needed by specific projects. Arising from the lack of galleries dedicated to contemporary art in Mexico, as well as the lack of institutional support for the up-and-coming generation of young Mexican artists, kurimanzutto filled a much-needed role. Nine years after the first opening, in 2008, kurimanzutto inaugurated its current gallery space in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighbourhood of Mexico City. In May 2018 kurimanzutto opened a project space in New York that represents an extension of kurimanzutto in Mexico City while affirming the mission to create new situations that will internationally transmit the gallery’s spirit.

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Atsuko Ninagawa established Take Ninagawa in Tokyo in 2008 as a gallery dedicated to promoting emerging and historically significant Japanese artists in a cross-generational, international framework. Represented artists build upon precedents in Japanese postwar experimental art while developing unique approaches for addressing contemporary concerns. International artists in the gallery program are invited to respond to the context for contemporary art and culture in Japan while giving expression to the broader perspectives they bring with them. Each exhibition at the gallery is conceived on a project basis, with artists encouraged to develop ideas across series of exhibitions. Driven by a mission to produce new values that can challenge entrenched power structures in art and society, Take Ninagawa frequently collaborates on initiatives with other galleries in Japan, the Asia Pacific region, and beyond.

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Alex Gabriel was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1976. He attended Communication and Media Studies in UFRJ when he started working in the film and theater industry. In 2001, he joined the recently opened Galeria Fortes Vilaça where he served as Artistic Director. In 2016 he became an associate partner, and the gallery had its name changed, being from then on called Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel. Under the direction of Marcia Fortes, Alessandra D’Aloia, and Alexandre Gabriel, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel acts within the contemporary art circuit maintaining a dynamic program that features around 15 exhibitions, leading the representation of 43 artists. For the past two decades, the gallery has committed to longstanding and devoted relationships with its artists, encouraging emerging voices and cultivating established careers, as well as fostering cooperative liaisons with museums and curators worldwide.

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Jim Amberson is originally from Minneapolis, USA but based in Asia since 1998, a Director in a Multinational Insurer. He has been actively collecting Southeast Asian contemporary art for more than 20 years, acquiring works by Dinh Q. Lê, Sopheap Pich, Handiwirman Saputra, Maria Taniguchi, Yee I-Lann and more. He has a Masters of Arts Degree from the National University of Singapore in Southeast Asian Studies. 

 

He’s published and a frequent speaker on contemporary Southeast Asian art. Amberson is a member of the Development Committee of the Singapore Art Museum, Advisory Panel of S.E.A. Focus, Singapore as well as, an Asia-Pacific Patron of the Delfina Foundation and member of the Asia-Pacific Acquisition Committee of the Tate Modern, both based in London.

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I bought my first art work in 1999 but I’d say that my proper collection started around 2005. In 2012 the curator Jacopo C Visconti joined me in creating the collection, a collaboration that lasted 7 years. The collection changed course several times: from abstract geometry to Latin America to global and then conceptual art. Today the collection focuses on conceptual art and politically engaged artworks. In parallel, over the last 5 years, I have compiled a large archive of conceptual art, performing arts, experimental music and visual poetry, totalling around 15, 000 items. Plans for the future include the use of the archive by researchers and artists and partnerships with public institutions.

 

I graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of São Paulo and I spent most of my professional career in finance. Today 100% of my time is dedicated to my art initiatives.

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Roberto and his wife Tania have six children, they’ve been passionate art collectors for almost 15 years and enjoy living around art with their family. When young they often visited museums with their parents but weren’t raised in collector homes. Their desire to collect was triggered after buying a painting they discovered while walking in the streets of Mexico, they later met the artist and became friends with whom they remain close to this day. That first experience ignited their love to live around art that confronted and inspired them.

 

Their collection does not focus on a specific part of the world, nor a specific subject or medium. They’ve intentionally avoided boundaries, to allow freedom of discovery and personal growth by embracing different perspectives. Being born and raised in a country with such strong cultural roots, they recognize it influences their views and aesthetics as collectors. Roberto is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas and has relationships with curators and museums from different parts of the world to whom they lend works. 

 

Their collection includes significant examples of works by artists such as Glenn Ligon, Ana Mendieta, Pedro Reyes, Jill Magid, Oscar Murillo, Elizabeth Peyton, Ragnar Kjartansson, Mona Hatoum, Hector Zamora, Carmen Herrera, Francis Alÿs, Carol Bove, Jaume Plensa, Gabriel Rico, Etel Adnan, Tezontle, Theaster Gates, Wolfgang Tillmans, Minerva Cuevas, Pia Camil, Rosemary Laing, McArthur Binion, Amy Sillman, José Davila, Doug Aitken and Carlos Garcia among others.

 

Roberto was born and raised in Mexico City. He graduated with honors from BA at the UDLA. During his studies, he started working as Financial Assistant at Grupo Diestra’s Family Office and in the year 2000 co-founded metroscubicos.com, the leading real estate website in Mexico City which sold successfully to AOL Time Warner in 2007. 

 

For 20 years Roberto has been a Financial Advisor for Grupo Diestra Family Office and is CEO of Diestra’s Real Estate Division which develops commercial, residential, and mostly hotel projects throughout Mexico and Madrid. Under his mandate, Diestra has acquired and developed over 4,000 hotel rooms in the upper-upscale and luxury segment in Mexico, some of which hold compelling works of art. Roberto is also co-founder and managing partner of Rocher Holdings and Gerbera Capital Real Estate, a leader mix-use developer in Mexico. In 2019 he co-founded MASA Galeria, a collectible design gallery that promotes Mexican talent as well as Mexican inspired art and design. 

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Pamela J. Joyner has nearly 30 years of experience in the investment industry. She is the Founder of Avid Partners, LLC where her expertise has been the alternative investment arena. Currently, Ms. Joyner is focused on her philanthropic interests in the arts and education. Ms. Joyner is a Trustee of The Art Institute of Chicago,  the J. Paul Getty Trust, SF MoMA, Tate Americas Foundation as well as a member of the Tate North America Acquisitions Committee. She also serves on the Committee on painting and sculpture of the Museum of Modern Art. In the education arena, Ms. Joyner serves on the board of the Art & Practice Foundation.

 

Previously, Ms. Joyner’s philanthropic involvements have included serving as: a member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities; a Trustee of Dartmouth College; a Trustee of the New York City Ballet; a Trustee and Co-Chair of the San Francisco Ballet Association;  a Board Member of the MacDowell Colony;  as well as other arts and educational organizations. 

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Denise Gardner is an avid art patron in Chicago, particularly in the area of promoting and collecting art by artists of African descent. Denise is a Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of The Art Institute of Chicago. She supports acquisitions there through her participation on the Committee for Modern and Contemporary Art. Throughout the museum’s departments, she works to facilitate programming with artists of African descent and supporting their work. She is a founding member of the Leadership Advisory Committee (LAC), the museum’s African-American advisory group. While its Chair, she created the Legends & Legacy Award, which honours renowned living artists of colour. During her chairmanship, she also helped the museum generate over-capacity audiences for a myriad of programs and exhibitions. Denise also serves on the museum’s Nominating Committee.

 

She is committed to building the next generation of artists through her membership on the Board of Governors of The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She and her husband founded the Gary & Denise Gardner Scholarship Fund to provide financial aid to students from Chicago’s South Side communities at SAIC. She is the former co-chair of SAIC’s Board of Governors Institutional Advancement Committee.

 

She and her husband are committed to engaging audiences with work by artists of colour, and to that end, they have supported numerous exhibitions in various museums in Chicago and throughout the United States. She and her husband Gary were the lead individual sponsors of the recent exhibition, Charles White: A Retrospective, at the Art Institute of Chicago. At the MCA Chicago, she and Gary have sponsored the exhibitions: Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, The Mark Bradford Project, Figures of Speech: Virgil Abloh, and Freedom Principle. They have also supported numerous exhibitions throughout the United States through the loaning of work from their collection.

 

She and her husband’s collection of over 150 works includes art by Amy Sherald, Nick Cave, Norman Lewis, Carrie Mae Weems, Julie Mehretu, Charles White, Jennie C. Jones, Kerry James Marshall, Frank Bowling, and many others. Denise also serves on the board of The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. She is a recent member of The Chicago Public Library Board and a past member of the Executive Committee of The Chicago Community Trust. She also served as co-chair of the Arts & Culture Transition Committee for Chicago’s Mayor-Elect Lori Lightfoot.

 

Denise and Gary have been the recipients of the 2018 Citizen Advocate Award from the Illinois Arts Alliance. They have also been named in the Art 50: Chicago’s Visual Vanguard in New City Magazine. They were also recognised with the Educators Award by the United Negro College Fund Chicago.

 

Denise is a graduate of Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. She also holds a B.S.J. from Northwestern University in Advertising and Social Psychology. She has enjoyed a 30+ year career in marketing, beginning at The Leo Burnett Company. She was for 15 years the VP, Marketing at Soft Sheen Products Company, and was the co-founder of Namaste Laboratories, the nation’s leading manufacturer of ethnic hair care products. For 10 years, she was president of Insights & Opportunities, a research-based marketing and strategic planning firm. She has been a leading expert on multicultural marketing and has published articles in numerous trade publications. 

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Stephanie Grose is an Australian collector based in Adelaide, South Australia. Travel over the last fifteen years has taken her away from Australia many months of each year with her husband and collector Julian Grose. 2020 for all of us meant no travel, not even within Australia. She sees South-South as being the ideal vehicle for travel starved collectors, particularly in the Australian region.

 

She and Julian originally started collecting 25 years ago. Traveling to remote parts of Australia, collecting contemporary Indigenous Australian art from the remote, mainly desert aboriginal communities dotted around the northern parts of the country. Eventually they donated most of these works to The Flinders University of South Australia for their collection and educational purposes. Several years into their collecting they enthusiastically merged into Australian Contemporary Art, which took them frequently to most Australian cities, mainly Melbourne and more frequently Sydney. The collection is well known throughout Australia as are Julian and Stephanie who immerse themselves  as much as possible in visual arts communities throughout Australia. ‘We have made many great friends throughout Australia, at the museums, collectors, artists and galleries’ says Stephanie.

 

Similarly over the last fifteen years they have travelled extensively overseas.  When planning their trips they always include visiting and immersing themselves in museums, art galleries, art fairs, biennials and so forth. Wherever possible they like to spend quality time with the galleries they like to work with, meet with other collectors, now many are friends, and importantly spending time with artists and in many cases their families and wherever possible visiting them at their studios. ‘When we are away we do not stop, it is wonderful’

 

Until early this year she was the Chair of the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art which is held at the Art Gallery of South Australia. This saw her engaging with other collectors, benefactors and the broader community raising record funds for the 2020 Biennial. She is on the Board of the Ann and Gordon Samstag Museum at the University of South Australia. She has been a member of the Benefaction Events Committee for the Biennale of Sydney and a Board member of SALA, South Australian Living Artists, an annual community arts programme across the state of South Australia.

 

Her passion is to champion and support visual artists wherever and however she can. Be it moral support, financial support, friendship, fundraising, patronising, promoting, caring.

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Stephen Tio Kauma (48-year-old Ugandan national) is a Cairo based art enthusiast and budding collector. Over the last twelve years he has collected artwork from contemporary artists of African origin from over 15 African countries. He is a founding member and current convener of the Contemporary Art Society of Uganda (CASU) and has also been Chairman of a panel of Judges for the Ugandan based MMA Art Prize (2018 and 2020).

 

Stephen currently works as the Director & Global Head of Human Resources for the African Export Import Bank, based at its HQ in Cairo, Egypt. In this role, he is also co-leading the Bank’s Art Programme, which is aimed at building a contemporary art collection for the Bank’s offices as well as building a platform off which the Bank can promote the visual art scene in Africa, to complement its existing Creative Industry Banking products. 

 

Stephen is a keen golfer and lawn tennis player as well as an amateur photographer. He is married to Kathy and they have two children, Tendo (18yrs) and Kirabo (14 yrs).

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I started collecting contemporary art around 20 years ago starting with South East Asia and then the passion spread to a collecting habit that’s borderless and more of a journey, I embrace where life takes me and also where life takes me with art. I enjoy collecting artists in depth and concentrate on mostly mid career artists born 1960 and younger but at times do extend myself to other artists who I feel may be an inspiration of sorts to artists I have been collecting or conversing with.

 

The collection comprises of various mediums from paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photography, films, videos, sound installation etc. The idea is to collect things which in time I can share with a larger audience by lending to institutions and doing shows around the works from the collection. Artists working on themes like politics, feminist theories, gender issues, personal histories, minimalism, abstraction are of particular interest. It’s a deep inward and research based kind of collecting where I am trying to form my own relationship to these artists that are coming home overtime. I was awarded the “Young Collector of the Year” by Forbes Art Award India in 2014.

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Alan Lo is co-founder of Michelin starred bar and Chinese restaurant Duddell’s. Lo has many years of hospitality project experience, having worked for project management and development teams at a number of international hotel groups.

 

He is active in promoting design, creativity and tourism in Hong Kong, serving on a number of government and non-government bodies including Design Trust, Para Site and Art Basel’s Global Patrons Council.  Alan also served on a number of government committees including Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Liquor Licensing Board, Harbourfront Commission, Business Facilitation Advisory Committee, Qualification Framework Catering Industry Advisory Committee, Tourism Strategy Group and Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council. He holds an AB in architecture from Princeton University.

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Professor Cav. Simon Mordant AO specialises in advising local and multinational companies and Government on their capital markets strategy and merger and acquisitions. Simon has been a practising corporate adviser in Australia since 1984 and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He has collected art for over 40 years and sits on the boards of arts organizations around the world.

 

Simon is Executive Co Chairman and founder of Luminis Partners in affiliation with Evercore. He previously co-founded Caliburn Partnership which was sold to Greenhill in 2010 and prior to that was Head of Corporate Finance at BZW Australia and ABN AMRO.

 

Simon is a passionate collector of contemporary art with a long history of benefaction to the Arts. In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation which was re-established to raise funds for the $53 million capital campaign for its redevelopment. For 10 years until 2020 Simon was Chairman of the Board of the MCA Australia and was then appointed the Inaugural International Ambassador.

 

Simon chairs the NSW Visual Arts Board, is the Vice Chair of MOMA PS1 in New York, a Trustee of the American Academy in Rome, a member of the International Council of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, a member of the Executive Committee of the Tate International Council, Inaugural International Ambassador for the Gallerie dell’Accademia Museum in Venice, a director of the Garvan Research Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of Venetian Heritage in Italy, Chair of Lend Lease’s Art Advisory Panel for Barangaroo, a member of The Centre for Independent Studies Board,  a member of The Ethics Centre Board and a Sydney Committee member of Human Rights Watch. He was Australian Commissioner for the 2013 & 2015 Venice Biennale, a director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2012-2017, Deputy President of Takeover Panel 2000-2010 and past board member of Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Bundanon Trust, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Los Angeles and Wharton Executive Board for Asia.

 

In 2020, Simon was knighted in Italy and awarded the Order of the Star of Italy (Cavaliere dell’ Ordine della Stella d’Italia) and was awarded an AO being made an Officer in the General Division of the order of Australia for Distinguished service to the visual arts at a national and international level, to emerging artists, and to philanthropy. 

 

Also in 2020, Simon was appointed Enterprise Professor at the University of Melbourne’s Centre of Visual Arts and as an Adjunct Professor at Universita Cattolica in Milan and Rome for their International Program in Cultural Diplomacy and Masters Program in Cultural Diplomacy: Arts and Digital Media for International Relations and Global Communication.

 

In 2012, Simon was awarded an AM being made a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia for Services to the Arts and to the cultural environment of Australia through philanthropic and executive roles, and to the community. In 2010 Simon and his wife Catriona were awarded the Australia Business Arts Foundation’s Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Leadership Award.

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Pulane Tshabalala Kingston is the founder and Managing Director of Mirai Rail Corporation, a South African based Sub-Saharan rail solutions and technology company. She is qualified lawyer, entrepreneur, social activist and patron of the arts who has served on a number of Boards of companies and NGOs. She co-founded and is a board member of Sphere Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, an investment holding company which has interests primarily in the financial and industrial services sectors of the economy. She has previously served in various senior executive positions, including at Webber Wentzel Attorneys in South Africa where she practiced law as a partner specializing in oil and gas regulatory law. She also represented the firm at Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), an organization where South African business leaders engage key players in South African society, including government, civil society and labour, to exchange ideas in the national interest and to create effective dialogue. She also worked as a Managing Principal at Absa Capital (Barclays Capital), where she was responsible for the investment bank’s Human Capital, Transformation & Diversity, Marketing & Communications, and Sustainability platforms.

 

Pulane is an active Patron of the Arts, where she is a Global Patron of Art Basel, the leading international art fair which is staged annually in Basel (Switzerland); Miami Beach (Florida) and Hong Kong. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art in Cape Town (Zeitz Mocaa), South Africa. She is a member of the Africa Acquisitions Committee of the Tate Modern Museum in the United Kingdom. Over the years, she has built an art collection whose mission is to redress the underrepresentation of African visual artists – women in particular – by ensuring that these artists find their place in the full context of a diverse canon of art history. As part of her corporate social responsibility work, Pulane works with various non-profit organizations, including serving as a board member of LALELA, a charitable organisation that provides arts education to at-risk youth to spark creative thinking and awaken the entrepreneurial spirit. She is a Fellow of the African Leadership Institute.

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While constantly supporting and promoting the arts, over the last 16 years Benedicta developed a personal art collecting method that she uses as an excuse to understand cultural production’s role in transforming collective thought. Her studies in Human and Social Sciences, Museum Studies, training in creative processes, group dynamics, self awareness and multi-sensory approach guide her as she engages with contemporary art professionals that challenge political and socio-economic status quo, stereotypes, privilege, gender roles and aesthetics givens.

 

Born in Argentina, she has lived in Puerto Rico, Mexico and the United States. When she relocated to Singapore 4 years ago her Latin American background was confronted with Middle Eastern, South and Southeast Asia’s art markets. Upon realising the the isolation and lack of direct connection between Latin America and these regions, she pledged to help build narratives and platforms that strengthen human connections in areas of the world that share emerging and vibrant contemporary art ecosystems.

 

Her art practice and collecting as a political exercise evolved into a personal statement that aims to build bridges between Others, celebrate differences and bring up conversations that cannot be ignored.

 

She is a member of the Global Council, Para-Site, Hong Kong; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Latin Circle Acquisitions Committee, New York; Collecting as Practice Residency – Delfina Foundation, London; International advisor, AFIELD Council, Paris; International Ambassador, SOUTH SOUTH; Board member and second generation founder of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago.

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Jorge M. Pérez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Related Group, has led South Florida’s complex urban evolution for over 40 years. His commitment to “building better cities,” and natural ability to identify emerging market trends makes him one of the most trusted and influential names in real estate.  

 

A lover of art and an avid collector, Pérez infuses each development with museum-quality works of art. The carefully curated collections are proudly displayed throughout all Related developments, complementing each building’s unique character and often serving as prominent community landmarks.

 

Driven by a lifelong commitment to better his community, Mr. Pérez has grown to become one of the country’s most prolific philanthropists and recently established two foundations dedicated to the advancement of an equitable, thriving South Florida. The first, the Related Philanthropic Foundation, serves as the charitable arm of the Related Group, while the second, named The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation, functions as the Pérez family’s personal philanthropic fund. While each has its own respective focus, both foundations are dedicated to empowering and supporting organizations driving positive impact in the areas of economic development, education, health and well-being, the environment, and arts and culture.

 

Mr. Pérez also continues to support long-term causes, most notably, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), which was renamed in his honor following a $40-million-dollar gift in 2013. Over the years, Mr. Pérez has sustained his support of the institution through various gifts, both in cash and works of art.  His most recent project, El Espacio 23 was launched in December 2019. Located within a repurposed 28,000 square foot warehouse in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood, El Espacio 23 serves artists, curators and the general public with regular exhibitions, residencies and a variety of special projects drawn from the Pérez Collection.

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Born in 1950 in Calcutta, Lekha Poddar is a philanthropist, business woman, and an art collector. In 1990 she established Jeevashram, which cares for injured and sick animals. In 1997 Textile Arts of India was formed as a society to promote the excellence of traditional handloom crafts of the country. In 1990, along with friends, she restored and started Neemrana Fort Palace Hotel, near Alwar, in Rajasthan. In 2000, along with her son, an 18th century Fort Palace was restored and opened as an hotel called Devigarh, with 30 suites. In autumn of 2011, Jaipur saw the opening of 2 new hotels Devi Ratn, a property with new age design which has been influenced by the Jantar Mantar  ( 18th C Observatory ) and Rasa, and eco friendly property with modern Cube like tents.

 

Together with her son Anupam, Lekha harnessed her passion into the formation of the Devi Art Foundation, which was established in 2008. She is the Chair at the Tate Modern, London of the South Asian Acquisition Committee, since October 2012 and is also a Member of the Tate International Council, since October 2013.

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Born and raised in Lebanon, Maria relocated to London with her husband Malek and their three children in 2003. Their art collection named ISelf looks at identity with particular reference to the human condition. ISelf was shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2017 and 2018 and received over 350,000 visitors. Maria is a member of the International Council at Tate. She co-chairs their Middle Eastern Acquisitions Committee (MENAAC) and sits on their Photography Acquisitions Committee (PAC).

Maria is a trustee of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and is a member of the Contemporary and Modern Middle Eastern Art (CaMMEA) acquisition group of the British Museum and is a Strategic Advisor of the Delfina Foundation. She also sits on the Commissioning Committee at the Hayward Gallery.  She supports the Showroom, the Chisenhale, the Camden Art Centre, the South London Gallery and the Design Museum. Whilst in Lebanon Maria supported the Beirut Art Centre and the Homeworks Space.

 

She sits on the Solomon Guggenheim Directors Circle and on the New Museum International Leadership Council in New York. Maria is on the Photo London Founders Committee as well as their Advisory Board and is a nominator of the Prix Pictet photography prize.

 

She is also a member of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies Advisory Board at Boston University. Maria is a trustee of the St Jude’s Cancer Centre for Children (Beirut-London) and a vice-chair of the Chain of Hope (London).

Maria is also a trustee of the Showroom and of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. She is involved in the following charities: the Chain of Hope, London and Give a Child a Brighter Future, and is a Trustee of St Jude Children’s Cancer Centre, Lebanon-UK.

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The Taguchi Art Collection was established by Hiroshi Taguchi, founder of the Misumi Group and the Misumi Collection. The Taguchi Art Collection has about 550 works of contemporary art (as of December 2020) from around the world, including the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Japan. Since 2013, Hiroshi’s daughter, Miwa, has taken over the management of the collection.

 

In 1990, Hiroshi established the Misumi Collection, which focuses on American pop art and, at the time, was a pioneer of corporate art collections in Japan. After Hiroshi retired from his position as president of the company around 2000, he started to build his personal collection, which was named the Taguchi Art Collection. Since then, Hiroshi has expanded the scope of his collection including not only artists from the United States, but also artists from other countries around the world, with a wide range of media including three-dimensional art, photography, and videos.

 

The collection does not have a specific exhibition space but holds exhibitions all over Japan in response to requests from public art museums. So far, the number of exhibitions of the Taguchi Art Collection is 11 private and public museums and 2 public spaces.

 

Miwa, the current president of the Taguchi Art Collection, had a career as a social worker and a university tutor. Miwa’s participation has led to an increase in the number of works dealing with social issues and works related to music, which Miwa is passionate about. Miwa is also interested in how she can use the collection to contribute to society.

 

For example, Miwa focuses on activities for children and communities where there are few opportunities to experience contemporary art. When Miwa holds exhibitions at local museums, she is actively involved in educational programs for the community. Miwa also organizes reach-out activities, such as holding interactive appreciation sessions for children and visiting elementary schools to exhibit some works of art from the collection.

 

For art lovers in general, Miwa organizes educational programs for people to learn about news from the overseas art world, which they would easily miss out on due to a lack of opportunity to reach overseas’ information.

 

We, at the Taguchi Art Collection, wish to share the joy of enjoying art with as many people as possible. This is the huge passion behind our collection, and we hope to continue our activities delivering contemporary art as a door to the world for the children who will make the future. 

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Art Collector | Independent Curator
SEED THE ART SPACE LTD, SINGAPORE

 

Lourdes Samson is a Director at SEED THE ART SPACE, an independent, non-profit art space in Singapore. The organisation aims to support artists from Southeast Asia and to expand appreciation for contemporary art through exhibitions, research, and community projects. Her interest in curation and the artistic practices of Contemporary Southeast Asian artists led her to pursue a Masters degree in Asian Art History at Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore. This interest was honed by years of collecting art works from the region, a passion that she shares with her husband. Prior to forming SEED, she participated in various exhibitions aimed at bringing selected works from private collections to a wider audience. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management Economics from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a MBA degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

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Daudi Karungi is at the forefront of a movement that promotes contemporary art from East Africa. He is a founding member of the Kampala Arts Trust (KART), a coalition of artists and art appreciators who are working toward the dream of making art an integral part of Ugandan society. Among KART’s projects is establishing a modern art museum in the country that will facilitate research, exchange programs and training as well as offering a state-of-the-art exhibition space for local works. KART also produces the Kampala Art Biennale and Daudi has worked as its Director since
2014. He founded Afriart Gallery (AAG) in 2002 witha focus on advancing careers of African contemporary artists, as well as forging collaborations among artists, professionals and institutions globally.

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Dyangani Ose was the the Director and Chief Curator of The Showroom, London while she convened the first THINK TANK during VEZA 01. She is currently the director of Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. She is affiliated to the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths and the Thought Council at the Fondazione Prada. Until November 2018, she served as Creative Time Senior Curator, where she most recently curated their 11th edition of their Summit. She is currently curating the publications of 34th Bienal
De São Paulo and is the Curator for the PHotoESPAÑA, International Festival of Photography and Visual Arts. Dyangani Ose was Curator of the eighth edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary art, (GIBCA 2015) and Curator International Art at Tate Modern (2011–2014). Ose has published and lectured on modern and contemporary African art and has contributed to art journals such as Nka and Atlántica. She studied a Doctoral Degree in History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, New York; has a MAS in Theory and History of Architecture from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona; and a BA in Art History from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

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Rodrigo Moura is the chief curator of El Museo del Barrio in New York City. Previously, he was associate curator of Brazilian art at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) from 2016- 2019. While at MASP, he organised numerous solo exhibitions, as well as the first major re-cent monographic show about the 18th-century Afro-Brazilian sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa, also known as Aleijadinho. Prior to joining MASP, Moura was the artistic director of the Instituto Inhotim, the sprawling outdoor contemporary arts center in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Among the acquisitions and site-specific commissions he organized while at Inhotim are projects with Ernesto Neto, Iran do Espírito Santo, Alexandre da Cunha, Jorge Machhi, and Rivane Neuenschwander. He is a prolific writer whose work has appeared in several Brazilian newspapers, as well as international publications, including Flash Art, ArtNexus, the Exhibitionist, and Metropolis M.Click here to view the archive of the Film Programme he curated for VEZA 01.

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Paula Nascimento is an architect and curator with degrees from the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the LSB University in London. Has collaborated with architecture studios in Oporto and London before funding with Stefano Pansera Beyond Entropy Africa in 2011 – a research-based collective network that operates in the fields of architecture-urbanism-visual arts and geopolitics. Paula has also been a consultant on various projects, including the Angola Pavilion for Expo Milano 2015, and often collaborates with different artist institutions and collectives, both on the continent and abroad. . Between 2012 and 2020 was a founding and active member of Colectivo Pés Descalços, a Luanda based multi-disciplinary collective developing projects in the cultural field. Since 2019 Paula has curated the African Galleries at Arco Lisbon. Currently, she is the chair of the artistic committee at Nesr Art Foundation and an adviser at Hangar – Artistic Research Centre. Click here to learn more about the special OVR she co-curated titled Kiximbi.

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Suzana Sousa is an Independent curator, writer and researcher. She studied Advanced studies in Anthropology at ISCTE- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and has a Masters in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her career has developed in two areas: curation and research in cultural policies. As an independent curator she has worked both nationally and internationally. Recent work includes correspondent curator of Front – Cleve-land Art Triennial 2018, Luanda, co-curated with Paula Nascimento (2017, Hangar, Lisbon) and Imbanba ya Muhatu- Coisas de Mulher (2016, Portuguese Cultural Center in Luanda), Seeds of Memory for the Angola Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015 and Love me Love me Not, Art from the Sindika Dokolo Collection at Galeria Municipal Almeida Garrett in Porto, Portugal. Click here to learn more about the special OVR she co-curated titled Kiximbi.

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Jitish Kallat is among the most globally recognized and celebrated Indian contemporary artists, working across painting, sculpture, video, and photography, and he has been exhibiting with Chemould Prescott Road since 1997, less than a year after graduating from the Sir JJ School of Art in Bombay. Kallat earned early acclaim as a painter, representing facets of daily life and visual culture in the bustling city of Bombay (with 20 million + inhabitants) down to the most minute detail, and conveying the weight of history as well as the energy and ambition that drives this city that inspires his work. “The highly populated city of Bombay, where I live, is almost a theatre where the codes of daily existence are pushed to the extreme and this continually percolates my practice,” elaborates Kallat. The timeless dilemma of the collective versus the individual manifests in Kallat’s work, and leaves viewers with a sense of responsibility to instigate positive change before history repeats itself. The natural elements in these urban works are distorted and disturbing, often evoking a sense of apocalyptic doom such as in the 2012 painting Allegory of the Endless Morning, where trees sprout from buildings and carnivorous birds attack each other. As his painting career developed, Kallat began to add sculptural elements to the works such as bronze mounts that depict colonial era details from the 120-year-old Victoria Terminus station in the heart of the commercial district of Bombay. At times, these beautifully detailed brackets seem to vomit onto the canvases, bearing silent but attuned witness to the atrocities that urban life imposes upon migrant laborers traveling through the station’s doors. Kallat’s work extends far beyond painting, and in recent years, he has been celebrated for the scale of his sculpture, installation, and new media projects both in terms of their size, but also in terms of their research. The Lie of the Land and Humiliation Tax exhibited in Chicago in 2004 and at Gallery Chemould in 2005 explored a speech given by Swami Vivekanada given on September 11, 1893 at the Art Institute of Chicago, stressing the importance of religious tolerance, freedom, and universalism. Nearly seven years later in 2011, Kallat hit a seminal point in his career with a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. It was here that he created the monumental installation Public Notice 3, a text-based work that recontextualized the idea of September 11th in America by recalling Vivekanada’s words and illuminating them on the grand steps of the museum using the bright colors of US Homeland Security threat level coding. Text has a long history in Kallat’s works, from the painted titles on his early paintings to his more recent installations that often use text as form. Public Notice 3 built upon Public Notice 2 from 2007, which created a sculptural alphabet made of 4,500 cast fiberglass bones (an often-used motif in Kallat’s sculptures that remind viewers of humanity’s shared mortality) that spell out Gandhi’s famed March 11th, 1930 speech. At the first Kiev Biennale in 2012, Kallat created another critically acclaimed work entitled Covering Letter, a freestanding fog screen projection that revisits a 1939 letter from Gandhi to Hitler, allowing viewers to stand close to words from one of the world’s greatest advocates of peace who addresses Hitler as a “friend” under the ideology of universal friendship. In addition to universal ideals and shedding light upon the plight of the ‘other,’ several of Kallat’s recent works are more personal, and call upon the viewer to find themselves in the work. In a haunting untitled work at Sculpture at Pilane, Sweden from 2010, Kallat created a 100 foot long sculpture of cast resin and steel bones which spell the phrase “When Will You Be Happy” in a historical burial ground in Sweden, putting desires that are often driven by consumerism into the important context of our human mortality. Kallat’s 2011 work Epilogue explores the 753 moon cycles that his father experienced in his lifetime by creating photographs of each moon cycle with the moons made of roti (the most basic form of bread in India) in various stages being eaten. Viewers can find themselves in the work through the moons they experienced in their lifetimes, depicted through 22,500 rotis labeled by month and year. While the work is incredibly personal to Kallat and distinct from his earlier bodies of work, it contextualizes viewers within the universe and compels them think about time, life, death, and the relationships forged during one’s lifespan, themes that Kallat poignantly explores throughout his diverse practice. Click here to view his curated project, I draw therefore I think.

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Carlos Quijon, Jr. is a critic and curator based in Manila. He is a fellow of the research platform Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia (MAHASSA), convened by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories project. He writes exhibition reviews for Artforum and Frieze. His essays are part of the books Writing Presently (Manila: Philippine Contemporary Art Network, 2019) and From a History of Exhibitions Towards a Future of Exhibition-Making: China and Southeast Asia (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019). He has published or have forthcoming publications in Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art, Afro-Asian Visions, MoMA’s post (US), Queer Southeast Asia, ArtReview Asia (Singapore), Art Monthly (UK), Asia Art Archive’s Ideas (HK), and Trans Asia Photography Review (US), among others. He curated Courses of Action in Hong Kong in 2019, a will for prolific disclosures in Manila, co-curated Minor Infelicities in Seoul in 2020 and In Our Best Interests in Singapore in January. He is co-curator of the exhibition Cast But One Shadow: Afro-Southeast Asian Affinities at the UP Vargas Museum. Click here to view the Bending the Axis project she co-curated with Kathleen Ditzig, Meyken Barreto and Uche James Iroha.

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Meyken Barreto is a curator and currently an adjunct lecturer at City College of New York, she is also an art writer. Meyken has served as Regional Director at Artist Pension Trust (APT), Gallery Manager at Y Gallery in New York, and Studio Manager at Los Carpinteros Studio in Madrid and Havana. She has taught Art History at Havana University and San Geronimo College in Havana. She has lectured in international institutions such as Universidad Complutense in Madrid and Martin Luther University, Halle (Saale). In 2018 she was Curator in Residence at Residency Unlimited, NY and in 2009 she won Cuba’s National Curatorship Award. Recently she has curated the exhibitions Comedy of Errors at Vox Populi, Philadelphia, 2021; Shifting Streams. Twelve artists by the Hudson River at Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, New York, 2020; The Path Leading to the Center at Lakehouse, Guttenberg Arts, 2017; Cabinet of Curiosities: The whimsical world of Carlos de Medeiros at Guttenberg Arts, NJ in 2017; and co-curated the group exhibitions My Body, My Battlefield at GIV, Montreal, 2021; All That You Have Is Your Soul at Faction Art Projects, New York in 2018; Divagation at Y Gallery, New York in 2016; Pioneros: Building Cuba’s Socialist Childhood at Aronson Galleries at Parsons, The New School for Design, New York in 2015, and Flow: Economies of the look and creativity in contemporary art from the Caribbean at IDB Cultural Center, Washington DC in 2014. She contributes to various art publications such as El Oficio and Artnexus. Click here to view the Bending the Axis project she co-curated with Kathleen Ditzig, Carlos Quijon, Jr. and Uche James Iroha.

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“Uche is the leading light of a new generation of Nigerian photographers. Fusing the documentation of everyday reality with the creative language of imagery, he is expanding the possibilities of photography in the local context. His high quality images reflect the diverse realities of people who form the mix of cultures and influences in the megacity that is Lagos. Fire, Flesh and Blood, a body of work depicting open-air abattoirs, won the Élan Prize at African Photography Encounters (2005) in Mali. While documentary in inspiration, the Series plunges the viewer into visual chaos of color, smoke and close-ups, capturing intense moments that are at once harsh, powerful and poetic.” – Mark Sealy, 2008. Originally trained as a sculptor from the University of Port Harcourt, Uche got involved in photography in 1996, pushing the narrative of photography as a medium of art in a cultural environment where, at that time, the medium was perceived largely as a commercial venture that focused mainly on capturing events and official documentation. In regard to technique, his approach is largely construction and deconstruction of the visual plane trying to find the relationship and the workability between two and three-dimensional design. He was a founding member of the Depth of Field (DOF) collective of talented young photographers that have created strong exhibitions at home in Nigeria and abroad throughout the 2001-2007 period. This era was the formal announcement of a renaissance in contemporary photography for lens-based artists working in Africa. His work was presented at Okwui Enwezor’s landmark exhibition at the International Center for Photography New York titled Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography in 2006. Uche is one of the most visible mentors of younger photographers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, organizing and animating workshops and other artistic projects. He was awarded the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands in 2008 for his striking photographic work and his stimulation of photography as an art form in Nigerian and for his energetic support of young artists. His work leads him to construct or set up performances, which are captured still. He employs text and graphics on image surfaces to find a sculptural accent to his work. This he hopes will attempt to address certain issues both socially and generally. In his curatorial practice, he pays attention to the idea of archiving as a critical cultural emergency. In the framework of the Africa Photo Festival in Bamako 2019 he presented the incredible work of Nigerian photographer Tola Odukoya who was active between 1955-1980. The narrative was to shed some light on unseen and work created by largely unknown artists who produced compelling visual materials and objects that in his opinion may unpack more honest directions as far Africa’s global political and economic stance is concerned. He also curated the 2018 and 2019 Abuja Photo Festival. At the moment Iroha works as a conductor at Photo.Garage Lagos, an office the provides logistics as well as offers an indigenous platform for domestic and global intellectual photography exchanges. He has shown his work in numerous exhibitions. He lives and works between Houston, Texas and Lagos, Nigeria. Click here to view the Bending the Axis project she co-curated with Carlos Quijon, Jr., Meyken Barreto and Kathleen Ditzig.

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Kathleen Ditzig is a researcher and curator based in Singapore. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Nanyang Technological University. She was recently a fellow in Getty Foundation’s ‘“Connecting Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia” organised by Cornell University and Asia Art Archives. Her research interests include exhibitionary histories of Southeast Asia, global histories of capitalism and the enduring legacies and networks of the Cold War in cultural production and contemporary geopolitics. As a curator and researcher, she is invested in transnational collaborative research frameworks and in advancing art as an exceptional system of speaking to power. Her collaborative independent curatorial projects, such as offshoreart.co (developed with Robin Lynch and Debbie Ding), have been presented on international platforms such as the Berlin Biennale. With Carlos Quijon Jr, she recently developed the long term research and traveling exhibition project Afro-Southeast Asia: Pragmatics and Geopoetics of Art during a Cold War supported by ASEAN KONNECT. With Fang Tse Hsu, she recently co-curated Art Histories of a Forever War: Modernism between Space and Home at the Taipei Fine Art Museum. Her recent exhibitions include Peace Prosperity and Friendship With All Nations (2021), a solo exhibition of Heman Chong at Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Look East, Gone West (2020), a solo exhibition of Ho Rui An, at A+ works of art in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and As The West Slept (2019), a Performa Consortium Project hosted and organised by Silver Art Projects in New York. Her art historical research and writing has been published by MoMA, Afterall, SOJOURN, Southeast of Now (NUS Press), Artforum, OSMOS magazine, Art Agenda and Art Review Asia, among others. Click here to view the Bending the Axis project she co-curated with Carlos Quijon, Jr., Meyken Barreto and Uche James Iroha.

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