CHARLES DESMARAIS is an art museum curator and director. He is known for his early patronage of now-prominent architects. He hired Stanley Saitowitz to design the award-winning California Museum of Photography, which opened in 1989. In 1991 he organized the first major museum exhibition of the work of Morphosis, the famous partnership of Michael Rotondi and Pritkzer Prize laureate Thom Mayne. Most recently he commissioned Zaha Hadid and led the effort to build a new Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, which, upon its opening in 2003, the
New York Times called "the most important American building to be completed since the end of the cold war"; the following year, Hadid was selected as the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Since 2004 Desmarais has served as Deputy Director for Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where he oversees ten curatorial departments, as well as the museum's renowned education, exhibitions, conservation, and library activities. He is also Curator at Large for the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, responsible for long-term curatorial and publishing projects. He served as Director of the CAC from 1995 until January 2004. Prior to joining the CAC, Desmarais served as Director of the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, California. In the 1980s, he directed the California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside.
A native of the Bronx, Charles Desmarais earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the State University of New York, Buffalo, and was one of the first participants in the Museum Management Institute program of the J. Paul Getty Trust. He has written more than 100 articles and books and was awarded an Art Critics Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979. In addition to his experience as a museum administrator, Desmarais has curated more than 50 exhibitions of the work of various artists, photographers, and architects. Among his books and exhibition catalogues are
Nothing Compared to This: Ambient, Incidental and New Minimal Tendencies in Current Art (2004),
Stephan Balkenhol (2000),
Jim Dine Photographs (1999),
Humongolous: Sculpture and Other Works by Tim Hawkinson (1996),
Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph, 1960-1980 (1992),
Why I Got into TV and Other Stories: The Art of Ilene Segalove (1990),
The Portrait Extended (1980),
Michael Bishop (1979) and
Roger Mertin: Records 1976-78 (1978).
DINABURG ARTS works with individuals and private clients to develop new and established collections. Founded by Mary Dinaburg, Dinaburg Arts provides curatorial advice and consultation for galleries, museums, institutions, and corporations, with a focus on business development and cultural branding. Areas of expertise also include acquisition and de-accession of Post Impressionist and Modern masters as well as established and emerging international Contemporary artists. Dinaburg Arts has an active presence in Asia, working directly with artists, collectors, museums, and private and public institutions to develop curatorial projects, exhibitions, and symposiums. In 2006, Dinaburg Arts formed two additional companies, Fortune Cookie Projects in partnership with Howard Ruthkowski, and MD/GV Arts LLC, in association with Michael Werner Gallery, that specifically work to promote an exchange of Eastern and Western artists, exhibitions, and ideas.
Selections for "By Invitation Only" were made by Director,
Jacob Robichaux, who oversees many of the exhibitions and programs for Dinaburg Arts and Executive Director,
Susan Reynolds. Reynolds served as co-director of Feigen Contemporary from 1993 to 2006, overseeing the Gallery's move from Chicago in 1996/1997 to become one of the early galleries opening in Chelsea. She was responsible for establishing much of the Gallery's program and success.
DAVID GIBSON is a native-born New Yorker and art world denizen. He began his post-college career as a critic writing for
Cover,
NY Arts,
Zingmgazine,
Flash Art, and
Performing Arts Journal. After a period of three years, during which he also worked in galleries and museums in various capacities, he also started his independent career as a curator. Recent accomplishments include "Everland" at Annina Nosei Gallery, "Beautiful Dreamer" at Spaces Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, "The Social Body" at Rocket Projects in Miami, Florida, and "The Raw and The Cooked" at The University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He also organized "Real Art Today," a salon series for The Makor-Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y, and has lectured at various state universities in Florida, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Wisconsin. A record of his curatorial efforts can be found online at
articleprojects.blogspot.com and his writing at
davidmichaelgibson.blogspot.com.
DAVID HUMPHREY is an artist represented by the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York. He received a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, studied at the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture, and received an MA from New York University. He has an extensive exhibition record and is represented in the collections of several museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Denver Art Museum; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Humphrey has written articles and reviews for many art publications including
Bomb,
Tema Celeste and
Flash. His column "New York email" appeared in
Art Issues from 1990 until its closing in 2002, and he is a current contributor to
Art in America. Humphrey is the host of the Internet radio show Sound and Vision on WPS1.org. He received a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2002. Humphrey has also guest curated several gallery exhibitions including "Life and Limb" for Feigen Contemporary in 2005. His large group exhibition "Horizon" (with a unique installation) will be on view June 1 - July 27 at the gallery of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, 323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY (
EFA Gallery).
DAVID HUNT is a celebrated writer, editor, curator and art advisor based in New York. He has been a regular contributor to such publications as
frieze,
Flash Art,
Newsweek, and has written essays for over forty exhibition catalogues. Hunt has also served as curator to public and commercial exhibition spaces and art fairs across the United States. In the past five years, he has held several important academic and lecturing positions at major American institutions including Sotheby's, NYU and Yale University. Hunt has organized many acclaimed gallery exhibitions worldwide, including "Relentless Proselytizers" for Feigen Contemporary in the summer of 2004 and most recently "Blood Meridian" at the new Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin.
TRONG G. NGUYEN is an artist and curator based in New York City. He has exhibited internationally in solo and group shows, including "Sequences: Real Time Festival" (Iceland), "2006 Havana Biennial" (Cuba) and "Performa 05" (New York). His curating history includes "amBUSH!" (Van Brunt Gallery, NY), "Who? Me?" (Zabriskie Gallery, NY), "From New York with Love" (Covivant Gallery, FL), and "Nails, Nails, Nails" (Broadway Spa, NY). Nguyen collaborates regularly with other artists, musicians, dancers, architects, and thinkers, including Art Hijack, his collective with Elana Rubinfeld. He has written for publications including
NY Arts Magazine and
Flavorpill, lectured at the Reykjavik Art Academy, New York University, Columbia University, and the Catalyst Foundation, and is a member on the Fashion in Film Festival Advisory Board. He is presently the recipient of an LMCC Artist Workspace Residency and Harvestworks New Media Felllowship. Nguyen aslo continues to work on a lost chapter to the Da Vinci Code based on the secret love life of Marcel Duchamp.
SAUL OSTROW is an art critic and Chair of Visual Arts and Technologies at The Cleveland Institute of Art. Trained as an artist he is best known as a critic and curator, having curated over 80 exhibitions since 1985 in the US and abroad. His writings have appeared in numerous art magazines, journals, catalogues and books in the USA and Europe. He is the Editor of the book series
Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture published by Routledge, UK, the Art Editor for
Bomb Magazine and was Co-Editor of
Lusitania Press (1996-2004.) Ostrow guest curated the first show for Feigen Contemporary in 1989, "Filling in the Gap".
SUSANNAH PALMER is the Manager for Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, facilitating the day-to-day activities of all gallery organization, registration, shipping and database management. She has seen countless artworks come through the Gallery and been instrumental in our presentation of many gallery exhibitions.
JULIE QUON is the Archivist and Webmaster for Kinz, Tillou + Feigen. Born and raised on the Lower East Side in New York, she graduated with a B.A. in Architecture at Columbia University. It was her time spent at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland that redirected her interest to contemporary art and decided her fate as a gallerist in the art world. She has been indispensable in overseeing our comprehensive and highly acclaimed website and all of the artists information with rare sensitivity to the documentation and presentation of images and information.
PAUL WESTON is an artist, designer and illustrator who has worked with several high profile publications, and who has long been the discerning eye and graphic designer for Feigen Contemporary / Kinz, Tillou + Feigen under Instigator Design. In 2005 he opened Instigator, a project room and alternative storefront gallery for editioned works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and is in the artists' collaborative band, Pink Sock.