The SIPF is pleased to announce the curators for the Open Call of the 2nd SIPF 2010:
Director of Bangkok University Gallery
Curator Ark Fongsmut received his MA in Fine Art Administration and Curatorship from Goldsmiths College, London, and his MA and BA in Political Science from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. He has been a curator at Bangkok University Gallery, Bangkok since 2000 and has produced many important exhibitions and initiations, including the annual Brand New Project and Artist Residency Programme. With insight and experience in the field of contemporary Thai photography, Ark was appointed Chief Curator of the 2004 and 2006 Month of Photography – Bangkok, a major international photography exhibition. He was also one of the four curators in the inaugural SIPF show.
One of the vocal contributors to critical writings on contemporary Thai art, Ark has published in a number of exhibition catalogues and books, including “Art Now,” his latest collections of art writings. Hehas also contributed to many publications, namely, Esquire (Thai Edition), MARS, CRUSH and East Bridge, an online Korean art magazine. He was a recipient of several Curatorial Fellowships and Residencies including BIZ Art Residency (Shanghai); Association Francaise d’Action Artistique Fellowship (Paris); The Alliance Francaise Residency (Bangkok) and The Japan Foundation Fellowship (Bangkok and Tokyo).
Director of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Gallery
Bridget Tracy Tan is the Director of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Gallery (NAFA) and Corporate Communication. From 1996 till January 2004, Bridget was a curator at the Singapore Art Museum. While at the Museum, she specialised in acquisitions and researching Second Generation Singapore artists and those of the Indian subcontinent. She also oversaw the Vietnamese and Thai collections for a year.
In 1998, Bridget curated the ASEAN Art Awards Grand Finals exhibition when Vietnam was the host country. In 2000, she did the same when the Awards returned to Singapore as the host country. During the 2002 Sao Paulo Bienal, Bridget brought Singaporean artist Hong Sek Chern to the Singapore Pavilion.
Some of her major exhibitions include Unmasking Vollard: the Collection of the Leon Dierx Museum (1999); Inspirit Crossing, assembling over 70 artworks from 8 institutions across Canada (2000); Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession – featuring works from the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor collection (2002); Naked Perfection, comprising nudes and figure drawings from the art museum’s permanent collection (2002); and An Invitation to Nature – An exhibition of Brother Joseph McNally’s sculpture that debuted in Dublin, Ireland in March 2003. In November 2003, she also curated and managed the exhibition and publication of Tze Peng, a solo retrospective marked for the Cultural Medallion recipient of that year, Lim Tze Peng. In 2006, she was approached to curate the exhibition as well as write a publication for the late Cultural Medallion photographer, Yip Cheong Fun. Ms Bridget Tracy Tan graduated with a Master of Arts, obtaining First Class Honours in Art History from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Lecturer of Temasek Polytechnic
Mr Chow graduated with a BFA (Honours) degree in Photography in 1994 from Western Michigan University, USA. In 1998, he received the JCCI Art Scholarship, which brought him to Tokyo for his graduate studies. He received his MA (Distinction) degree in Photography in 2001 from Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan.
He has participated in more than 30 solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America. His works have been featured in publications such as Passages North (USA), OP Editions (Hong Kong), Photo Asia (Singapore) and Photographs by the Next Generation: Young Portfolio (Japan), among others. His first publication ‘30th Feb’ – a collection of his surrealistic Images – was launched in Singapore in February 2008. His original prints can be found in various corporate, private and museum collections in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America.
Assistant Curator of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Yasufumi Nakamori has organized a dozen exhibitions of contemporary art and photography at the museum and elsewhere. He is also one of the founders of Arts Initiative Tokyo, the Tokyo-based not-for-profit contemporary art platform.
At MFAH, he has recently organized I Still Believe in Tomorrow: Contemporary Video From Asia, Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture: Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro, and Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made After 1960 from the MFAH Collection where he showed more than 150 works by 80 artists, examining on a global scope the course of contemporary art utilizing photography. At the Whitney Museum of American Art, he assisted to organize The American Effects: Global Perspectives on the United States, 1990 – 2003.
As a scholar of postwar Japanese art, he has written a doctoral thesis on architects’ collaborations with avant-garde artists and photographers in 1953-1970 Japan, where he argues that they used photography as a medium to imagine and construct a new city, for which in January 2011 he will be awarded a PhD by Cornell University. He has a particular interest in how photography shapes and mediates our experiences and understanding of the build environment, urbanism, post-colonialism, and law and social action. Yasu is a graduate of Waseda University (BA in political science), University of Wisconsin Law School (Doctor of Jurisprudence), and Hunter College of the City University of New York (MA in art history). His publications include Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture: Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (MFAH/Yale University Press, 2010).
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