Synopsis "On Curating ii"
On Curating 2, Carolee Thea's new volume of interviews with 14 of today's leading curators, explores the lively system of art biennials that is thriving around the world--particularly outside Europe and America. Spawned by their more formal Western predecessors and motivated by the forces of history and politics, the newer incarnations of the biennial often occur in the cities of the postcolonial world and the Global South, as well as in former socialist countries. The new generation of curators who are organizing these surprisingly provocative and experimental exhibitions hail from cities as diverse as Bogotá, Dakar, Havana, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Lagos, Mumbai, Seoul and Zagreb, and they are the subjects of the interviews collected in this book. Thea's interviewees are Nancy Adajania, Wassan Al-Khudhairi, David Elliott, Mami Kataoka, Sunjung Kim, Koyo Kouoh, Gerardo Mosquera, Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Jack Persekian, José Roca, Bisi Silva, Carol Yinghua Lu, Alia Swastika and WHW. On Curating 2 also includes color illustrations of works by El Anatsui, Boris Groys, Cai Guo-Qiang, Fiona Hall, Mona Hatoum, Pablo Helguera, Emily Jacir, Michael Joo, Paul McCarthy, Ana Mendieta, Zanele Muholi, Issa Samb, Do Ho Suh and Rirkrit Tiravanija, among many others. Carolee Thea is the author of On Curating: Interviews with Ten International Curators (DAP, 2009) and Foci: Interviews with Ten International Curators (2001). An independent scholar, writer, artist and curator, she is the American/English editor for Atlantica #45, and has curated exhibitions for the American Institute of Architects, the Canal Street Billboard Project, Hofstra Museum and Skidmore College. Thea has taught at Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Art, the College of New Rochelle and other institutions. Thea lives and works in New York City.
