Art Talks: The Big Picture | Nicholas Baume, Adrienne Edwards, Jens Hoffmann, Matthew Israel, Arezoo Moseni | An Art Book Series Event

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On the occasion of the publication of the new book The Big Picture: : Contemporary Art in 10 Works by 10 Artists, author Matthew Israel, and influential museum curators and directors Nicholas Baume, Adrienne Edwards, and Jens Hoffman discuss contemporary art's relation to art history and examine the place of contemporary art in museums as well as the future projects and programming at each panelist’s institution. The discussion is moderated by Arezoo Moseni.

Written in an engaging, straight forward style by prominent art historian Matthew Israel, The Big Picture presents ten outstanding examples of contemporary art, each with significant historical or cultural relevance to contemporary art’s big picture. Drawn from the fields of photography, painting, performance, installation, video, film, and public art, the works featured here combine to create a bigger picture of the state of contemporary art today. From Andreas Gursky’s large-scale color photograph Rhine II to Kara Walker’s acclaimed installation in the Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, each work is carefully explored within the larger perspective of its social and artistic milieu. Articulate and insightful, The Big Picture offers readers the ability to consider each work in-depth, while also providing an easily digestible foundation from which to study the often challenging but continually fascinating world of 21st-century art.

Copies of The Big Picture: Contemporary Art in 10 Works by 10 Artists (Prestel, 2017) are available for purchase and signing at the end of the event. 

Nicholas Baume joined Public Art Fund as Director and Chief Curator in 2009. A native of Australia, his curatorial career began there with Kaldor Public Art Projects and later the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. He was Contemporary Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, before moving to Boston to join the Institute of Contemporary Art as Chief Curator. Nicholas Baume has curated more than fifty exhibitions with a wide range of significant international artists at different stages of their careers. Author of several major exhibition catalogs, he is a frequent public speaker on contemporary art, and has contributed essays and interviews to numerous publications.

Adrienne Edwards is Curator at Performa, Curator at Large at the Walker Art Center, and also a PhD candidate in performance studies at New York University. Her scholarly and curatorial work focuses on artists of the African Diaspora and the Global South, including the Blackness in Abstraction exhibition and catalogue for Pace Gallery and 1:54 PERFORMS for the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair. For Performa, Edwards has curated programs, projects, and productions with a wide range of artists, including Performa Commissions by Edgar Arceneaux, Juliana Huxtable, Rashid Johnson, and Laura Lima, in addition to projects and productions by Jonathas de Andrade, Chimurenga, Benjamin Patterson, Pope.L, Ralph Lemon, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Adam Pendleton, Dave McKenzie, Wangechi Mutu, Will Rawls, and Carrie Mae Weems. Edwards works within the Walker’s visual arts department developing and implementing artist projects and exhibitions, and expanding interdisciplinary scholarship and research while making key contributions to the Walker's acquisitions planning. She is a contributor to numerous exhibition catalogues and art publications, including Aperture, Art in America, Artforum.com, Parkett, and Spike Art Quarterly.

Jens Hoffmann is an exhibition maker and writer. He currently is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Jewish Museum in New York, Senior Curator at Large at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and Co-Artistic Director of Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. Prior to joining the Jewish Museum in 2012 he was Director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art in San Francisco and Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Jens Hoffmann has curated over 50 exhibitions since the late 1990s including the 2nd San Juan Triennial (2009), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011) and the 9th Shanghai Biennial (2012). His most recent books include The Studio (MIT Press and Whitechapel Gallery, 2012) Show Time (Thames and Hudson, 2014) and (Curating) From A to Z (JRP|Ringer, 2015). He is the editor of The Exhibitionist: Journal on Exhibition Making, Editor at Large of Mousse Magazine and a frequent contributor to Frieze, Artforum and Text zur Kunst. 

Matthew Israel is an art historian based in New York City. He is currently Curator at Large at Artsy and Director of Artsy OnSite, a global series of artist and curator talks and conversations. He was also the Director of Artsy's The Art Genome Project. He has written for international art magazines and exhibition catalogues; delivered talks about modern and contemporary art and his work at Artsy globally; worked for prominent galleries; managed major artist estates and foundations; and taught modern and contemporary art at New York University where he received a PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts. Matthew Israel's first book, Paradigms of Protest: American Antiwar Art during the Vietnam War, was published by University of Texas Press in 2013. 

Arezoo Moseni is an artist. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at major venues in the U.S. and abroad such as FIAC 2014, Rome Art Week 2016 and it is held in numerous public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Bibliotheque nationale de France, and Musee de La Photographie. She is the recipient of several fellowships and grants including the Carnegie Corporation of New York | New York Times award, Kentler International Work on Site grant, Yaddo Fellowship and Artists Space Independent Project grant. She received a BFA at Utah State University, a MA and MFA at the University of New Mexico, and a MLIS at Pratt Institute. She curates exhibitions and events at The New York Public Library where she has initiated several exhibition and program series featuring the work of emerging and renowned artists, architects, authors, critics, designers, poets and others.

In its ninth year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world 
renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.

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