Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Panel Biographies 2005 Lisa Phillips (Panel Chair) Henry Luce III Director, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY Tom Finkelpearl Executive Director, Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY Jan Howard Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Mark Leach Founding Director of the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, NC Mari Carmen Ramírez Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Raymund Ryan Curator at the Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Debra Singer Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen New York, NY Franklin Sirmans Independent curator, freelance writer, editor and lecturer, New York, NY Panel Biographies Lisa Phillips (Panel Chair) was appointed Henry Luce III Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY, in 1999. In 2000, Ms. Phillips initiated a major expansion project that will result in a 60,000 square foot newly constructed museum scheduled to open in 2007. She also developed and launched the Media Lounge, the only space devoted to new media in a New York museum, expanded the touring exhibition program and negotiated favorable publishing deals for New Museum publications. She has co-organized surveys of the work of Paul McCarthy (2001), Carrol Dunham (2002), and John Waters (2004). Prior to joining the New Museum, Ms. Phillips was Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art where she organized such landmark exhibitions as “The American Century Part II” (1999), “Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965” (1995), “Frederick Kiesler” (1989), and “Image World: Art and Media Culture” (1989). She presided over mid-career surveys of Richard Prince (1992), Terry Winters (1992), and Cindy Sherman (1987), in addition to overseeing the 1997 Biennial Exhibition and serving on the curatorial team for each Biennial between 1985 and 1993. Ms. Phillips is the author of over twenty publications for the Whitney Museum, has contributed essays to other major museum catalogues nationally and internationally, and has written articles for journals ranging from Art and Text to Theories of Contemporary Art. She lectures on contemporary art at museums throughout the world, and has served as a visiting critic at Yale University, and as a panelist and juror for the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Public Art Commission, and the Fulbright Fellowship Review Committee. Return to Top Tom Finkelpearl was appointed the Executive Director of the Queens Museum of Art, NY, in March 2002, where he is currently implementing an expansion that will double the size of the museum. The Queens Museum serves a uniquely diverse ethnic, cultural and international community; and he is responsible for overseeing all programmatic and administrative operations of the museum. From 1982-1990, he worked as a curator and program manager at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, and organized fifteen one-person and group exhibitions, including a traveling retrospective of David Hammon’s work. For six years (1990-96), he was Director of the Percent for Art Program at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs where he worked on over 130 public art projects, sixty-four of which were completed during his tenure. Based on his public art experience and further research, he published a book, Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press, 2000). After three years as Executive Director of Program at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1996-1999), he returned to P.S.1 as Deputy Director in 1999, where he worked closely with the Executive Director, city government, and the Museum of Modern Art on long-range planning issues. Other curatorial highlights include organizing a parade and performance by Mierle Ukeles in collaboration with municipal service workers in Givors, France (1993); curating “Uncommon Sense” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1997, with Julie Lazar); serving as the North American Commissioner for the Kwangju Biennale 2000 in Korea; organizing Navin Rawanchaicul’s “I Love Taxi Café” at P.S.1 (with the Public Art Fund), and serving as an international advisor for the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan (2003). Finkelpearl, who was also a working artist, received a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Hunter College. Return to Top Jan Howard was appointed Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, in April 2000. Prior to her position at RISD, she was a curator for fourteen years in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at The Baltimore Museum of Art. Her exhibitions have primarily focused on modern and contemporary art, including “Interior Drama: Aaron Siskind’s Photographs of the 1940s” (2003); “Adrian Piper: Food for the Spirit” (2001-2002); “African Affinities: Contemporary Connections” (2001); “Laurie Simmons: The Music of Regret” (1997); “Abstract Photographs “ (1995); “Roni Horn: Inner Geography” (1994), and the series “Drawing Now” (1987-1989) which included shows for the artists Ellen Phelan, Mel Bochner, Susan Rothenberg, and Pat Steir, among others. Her training includes a NEA Internship in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and curatorial positions in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Kansas. Mark Leach is founding Director of the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, NC. Leach currently holds the post of Deputy Director of the Mint Museums which includes the Mint Museum of Craft + Design and the Mint Museum of Art. Leach has held curatorial posts in Arkansas, Montana, Wisconsin and Ohio. He has taught, lectured, and moderated panels on public and environmental art, art criticism, and curatorship. He has authored articles for such publications as The Journal of Arts Management; Law & Society: the American Association of Museum's Excellence & Equity Newsletter; New Art Examiner; Metalsmith; Artvu; FIBERARTS, and American Ceramics. Mr. Leach is a trustee of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass. He is formerly a trustee of the American Craft Council. There, he served on the Council’s executive committee as chair of the publishing committee, overseeing American Craft magazine. He also served on the Advisory Board of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). Leach has also authored numerous texts, including Michael Lucero: Sculpture 1976 – 1995, co-published by Hudson Hills Press, New York and the Mint Museum of Art. In May 2000, Harry N. Abrams Inc. and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design co-published and released Turning Wood into Art: The Jane and Arthur Mason Collection, for which Mr. Leach served as curator and editor. Leach is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute for Museum Management. He received a B.A. in studio ceramics from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with an Ed.M. degree, specializing in twentieth century art and non-profit administration. Return to Top Mari Carmen Ramírez is the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. She was formerly the Curator of Latin American Art at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (1989 -2001) and adjunct Lecturer of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that position, she was the Director of the Museum of Anthropology, History and Art at the University of Puerto Rico. She has curated numerous exhibitions of Latin American art, notably “Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America” (2004, with Héctor Olea); “Questioning the Line: Gego” (2002); “Heterotopías: Medio Siglo sin Lugar, 1918-1968” (2000, with Héctor Olea), “Global Conceptualism” (1999), “Cantos Paralelos/Parallel Cantos: Visual Parody in Contemporary Argentinean Art”, “Re-Aligning Vision: Alternative Currents in South American Drawing” (co-curator Edith A. Gibson), the Latin American section of Universalis at the XXIII São Paulo Bienal, and “The School of the South: El Taller Torres-García and its Legacy” (1990, co-curator Cecilia Buzio). Ramírez publishes and lectures regularly on issues of identity, power and the politics of representation as they relate to Latin American and Latino artists. She has been a visiting faculty member at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. She has received a Getty Curatorial Residence Fellowship, a Peter Norton Family Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in 1997, and in 2005, she was the co-recipient of the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies annual award for curatorial excellence. Ramírez received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Chicago. Return to Top Raymund Ryan is Curator at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA. At the Carnegie, he is preparing exhibitions on the work of LA architect Michael Maltzan; on new responses to key works by Frank Lloyd Wright, and on architecture in contemporary London. His first exhibition at the Heinz Architectural Center– “Pittsburgh Platforms” – was followed by the installation of “Strangely Familiar” (from the Walker Art Center) and by “APSS · Pittsburgh”, an installation by Chicago architect Douglas Garofalo. Since relocating from Dublin to Pittsburgh in early 2003, Ryan has contributed regular articles to Architecture Ireland (Dublin) and The Plan (Bologna) as well as occasional pieces to The Architectural Review (London), Domus (Milan), and Architectural Record (New York). An anthology of articles from Blueprint (London) is planned. Ryan was Ireland’s Commissioner for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2000 and 2002 (selected architects: Tom de Paor and Bucholz McEvoy). He was the author of Cool Construction (Thames & Hudson) and co-author of Building Tate Modern (Tate Publishing), as well as keynote essayist for catalogues in Ireland, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and USA. Having gained a B.Arch from University College Dublin (UCD) in 1981 and a M.Arch from Yale in 1987, Ryan worked for architect Arthur Erickson in Los Angeles until 1990. He then returned to Ireland as co-director of the Urban Design Group of Ireland’s National Building Agency in Dublin before moving to the School of Architecture, University College Dublin in 1993. Ryan has also collaborated on several architectural proposals in Brussels. Return to Top Debra Singer, was appointed Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Kitchen, one of New York City’s oldest nonprofit, multidisciplinary art and performance spaces, in July 2004. She previously served as the associate curator of contemporary art at the Whitney Museum of American Art for many years, where she recently co-organized the 2004 Whitney Biennial. During her tenure at the Whitney, she also organized solo exhibitions of the work of Tom Burr, Joseph Grigely, Arturo Herrera, Paul Pfeiffer, Helen Mirra, Jennifer Pastor, Paul Sietsema, and Sarah Sze, among others, and the New York presentation of “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend”. She also founded the Whitney’s “SoundCheck” series, an ongoing performance program of music and literary events, as well as organizing the sound and performance components of the 2002 Biennial Exhibition, and the sound component for “BitStreams” (2001). Singer was formerly the branch curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, where she organized numerous exhibitions, as well as producing Performance on 42nd, a free series of dance, music, theatre, and literary events. Singer received a B.A. in political science from Princeton University and an M.A. in History of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Return to Top Franklin Sirmans is an independent curator, freelance writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City. A former U.S. editor of Flash Art and Editor-in-Chief of Art AsiaPacific magazines, Sirmans has written for several journals and newspapers on art and culture, including The New York Times, Newsweek International, Essence Magazine, Grand Street, Art in America, ArtNews and Time Out New York, where he was a regular contributor from 2000-2004. Sirmans is the 2005 Maryland Art Place Critic-in-Residence, and he teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He is a co-curator for the forthcoming exhibition “Basquiat”, at the Brooklyn Museum in March, and a survey of sculpture in New York at the Sculpture Center in May 2005 entitled “Make It Now: New Sculpture in New York”. Sirmans has edited numerous catalogues on contemporary art including Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain, (University of Chicago Press); Jean-Michel Basquiat (Tony Shafrazi Gallery); Freestyle, and Black Belt at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and contributed to Gary Simmons at the MCA, Chicago. In addition, he has contributed to monographs on artists such as Edgar Arceneaux, Monika Bravo, Iona Brown, Mia Enell, Manuel Esnoz, Charles Gaines, Kojo Griffin, Dario Robleto and Kehinde Wiley. He was co-curator of “One Planet Under A Groove: Contemporary Art and Hip Hop”, which originated at the Bronx Museum of Art and traveled internationally, and co-curator of “Ralph Bunche: Diplomat for Peace and Justice” (2004) at the Queens Museum of Art. Sirmans has lectured at institutions and universities throughout the U.S. and abroad. He has been profiled in The Fader magazine, New York Arts, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Corriere della Sera, Italy. He has also contributed commentary on television and radio for CNN, BET, NY1, NPR, the CBC in Canada and Radio Popolare in Italy. Born in New York City, Sirmans was raised in Harlem, Albany and New Rochelle. He received a B.A. in Art History and English from Wesleyan University. Return to Top