Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

(Documenta 13, Sydney Biennial, and Istanbul Biennial Curator & Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti Director)

in conversation with FHI Social Practice Lab Director Pedro Lasch.

with a response from Duke alumna Laura Corey, Project Manager and Senior Researcher at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Director’s Office, where she recently co-organized the Museum’s 150th anniversary exhibition Making The Met, 1870–2020 (2020) and also co-edited its catalogue.

Curator, researcher and scholar Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (1957, Ridgewood, New Jersey) is the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin. She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-2019).

Christov-Bakargiev was born in the United States from a Bulgarian father and an Italian mother and she returned to Italy to conduct her studies in Literature and Philosophy at the universities of Genoa and Pisa. She began her career in the arts writing reviews for the magazine Reporter and for the newspaper IlSole24Ore. Friendships with artists in Italy and internationally, including William Kentridge, Alighiero Boetti, Pierre Huyghe, Francis Alÿs, Mario and Marisa Merz, and Jannis Kounellis, propelled her curatorial work.

Following a period at Villa Medici where she curated summer exhibitions (1998-2000), she served as Chief Curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center affiliated to MoMA in New York. Amongst many other projects, at PS1 she organized the groundbreaking survey of Janet Cardiff’s work. In 2002 she returned to Turin to work at Castello di Rivoli upon invitation of its former director Ida Gianelli. In 2008 she curated the Sydney Biennial, followed by dOCUMENTA(13) in 2012, and the 14th Istanbul Biennial Biennial in 2015. The following year she returned to Turin where, until 2017, she directed both GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. Amongst her major publications is the monograph Arte Povera (London, Phaidon Press, 1999).

Free and open to all, anywhere in the world

Guest bio, registration link, and full calendar information included below

20-22 The Ongoing Biennial – A Weekly Conversation Cycle with International Curators

Every Wednesday 1-2pm (EST/GMT-5)

Jan 27th and May 5th, 2021

Organized by Pedro Lasch and the FHI Social Practice Lab with support from the Franklin Humanities I World Arts Initiative at Duke University, this Conversation Cycle is part of a larger program entitled ’20-22 The Ongoing Biennial’. In person visits with some of our guests will also be presented at a later stage in collaboration with the the AAHVS Department and the Nasher Museum of Art.

Set in the context of an unprecedented pandemic, global shutdowns, and the rethinking of every aspect of exhibition making, our remote conversations will include curators and other international arts professionals. The first year of the public program will focus on short online dialogues with individual guests. Our one hour long remote events will begin with a casual interview, focusing on the particular trajectory and ideas of each guest in the series, followed by comments from a respondent and questions from the audience. Within this format, we also hope to provide an opportunity for joint reflection on these highly unusual times. Programming for the second year will be announced at a time of greater certainty.

One-time registration at this link will give you access to all of these free and public events:

https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEsd-uhrDgiE9dKfiHakJ_kA58R76wSVlH9

See full calendar below and click on guest names to see bios and more information for each week：

Jan 27 – Ralph Rugoff

Feb 3 – Cuauhtémoc Medina

Feb 10 – Trevor Schoonmaker

Feb 17 – Candice Hopkins

Feb 24 – Lucia Pietrioiusti

Mar 3 – Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

Mar 10 [Break]

Mar 17 – Andrea Giunta

Mar 24 – Yuko Hasegawa

Mar 31 – Miguel López

Apr 7 – José Roca

Apr 14 – Gabi Ngcobo

Apr 21 – Hoor Al Qasimi

Apr 28 – Rujeko Hockley

May 5 – Ruangrupa