Photos: Sarah Blesener

Contemporary art installations evoke memories and create new contexts to buildings, places, and institutions. In view of the worldwide debate about the role of museums and the significance of art in public space, we invited practitioners and academics to discuss the role of temporary art installations in and around museums: Kate Bonansinga (University of Cincinnati) is a curator and researcher in the fields of Contemporary art, art in public space, and museum practice. Shanay Jhaveri is a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and - among other exhibitions - curated the 2021 façade commission as well as the rooftop commission in the same year. German Artist Mischa Kuball’s work res.o.nant at the Jewish Museum Berlin serves as a reference point and context to this discussion, along with other works on display at 1014. Moderated by curator Niama Safia Sandy.

Co-hosted in partnership with the University Alliance Ruhr: North American offices of the Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Kate Bonansinga is Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at University of Cincinnati, where she is also a professor and teaches courses about curatorial practice and art in public space.  She was the founding director of Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Art at The University of Texas at El Paso where she curated dozens of exhibitions and established an undergraduate minor in museum studies.  She is interested in museums as dynamic sites for learning, in the impact of art in gallery and non-gallery settings, and in the current methods that artists employ to instigate positive social change.  Bonansinga is the author of Curating at the Edge:  Artists Respond to the U.S./Mexico Border (University of Texas Press, 2014) and of numerous articles and book chapters.  She served as guest curator of Tania Candiani: Sounding Labor, Silent Bodies (Contemporary Arts Center, 2020-21) and American Painting: The Eighties Revisited (Cincinnati Art Museum, 2021-22).  

Shanay Jhaveri is Associate Curator, International Art, Modern and Contemporary at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He curated the museum’s 2021 rooftop and facade commissions.

Mischa Kuball has been working in the public and institutional sphere since 1977. He is a Professor at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, and associate professor for media art at Hochschule für Gestaltung/ZKM, Karlsruhe. Since 2015 he has been a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts, Duesseldorf. In 2016 he was honored with the German Light Award.

Niama Safia Sandy is a New York-based curator, producer, multidisciplinary artist and educator. Her work delves into the human story, often with stories of the Global Black diaspora at its center. Niama has produced resources and public events aimed at empowerment and showcasing Black artists of all disciplines, curators, and administrators on the global stage. In 2020, Sandy created FOR/FOUR, a conversation series featuring Black women and non-binary persons in the arts and culture sector. She is a co-founder of The Blacksmiths and an active member of the artist collectives the Resistance Revival Chorus and Wide Awakes. Niama has spoken and convened events at TEDWomen, Schomburg Center, MACAAL, MICA, World Around Summit, Harvard University, Oberlin College, RISD, UNTITLED & more. Past artist residencies include The Watermill Center and Project for Empty Space. Niama is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute.