Venetia Porter was Senior Curator for Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum (1989-2022) where she is now Honorary Research Fellow. She studied Arabic and Persian and Islamic Art at the University of Oxford, and her PhD from the University of Durham is on the history and architecture of Medieval Yemen. She was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, opened 2018. Her research and publications range from Islamic tiles, Yemeni history, Arabic inscriptions and amulets to contemporary art, and include her mother’s autobiography Thea Porter’s scrapbook which she edited (Unicorn Press, 2019). Her exhibitions include Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East (London 2006, Dubai 2008), Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012), Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa (2021) and Amakin, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, 9th edition, (Jeddah and Dahran 2022).  Artists making books: poetry to politics, published by British Museum Press will be out in August 2023 and accompanies an exhibition at the British Museum which is on until the end of 2023.

Morad Montazami (France, 1981) is an art historian, publisher and curator. After working at the Tate Modern (London) between 2014 and 2019 as a curator for the Middle East and North Africa, he developed the publishing and curatorial platform Zamân Books & Curating, exploring Arab, African and Asian modernities. He has written numerous essays on artists such as Zineb Sedira, Walid Raad, Latif Al Ani, Faouzi Laatiris, Michael Rakowitz, Mehdi Moutashar, Behjat Sadr... and curated exhibitions including Baghdad Mon Amour, Institut des cultures d’Islam (Paris, 2018); Monaco-Alexandria: The Great Detour. World-capitals and Cosmopolitan Surrealism, Nouveau musée national de Monaco (2021-2022); Casablanca Art School. Platforms and Patterns for a Postcolonial Avant-Garde, Tate St-Ives/Sharjah Art Foundation/Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2023-2024

 Morad Montazami, director of Zamân Books & Curating, and currently resident of the Villa Medicis in Rome (Italy) is the curator for Beyond Emerging Artists, Abu Dhabi Art 2023 

Chris Wan Feng is a Hong Kong-based writer and independent curator with a research focus on the locality and art ecosystem of greater China, especially the Hong Kong region, leading to exhibitions like “A Collection in Two Acts” (Rossi & Rossi, 2022) and “Residual Heat” (Axel Vervoordt, 2021), among others. His recent curatorial project “Blue Throat” initiated dialogues on identity, diaspora, and displacement, spinning off exhibitions such as “Blue Throat: A Profound Disruption” (Singapore JW Projects, 2023) and “Blue Throat: Start the Churning” (Art Central Hong Kong, 2023). In 2023, he was invited to curate a public programme in Art Central Hong Kong. Chris has been contributing to many art journals and mass media, including Artforum and Initium Media. He is also the founder and editor of Daoju (www.daoju.art), a not-for-profit art writing project with a focus on the Hong Kong contemporary art scene.

Essia Hamdi was initiated into the profession of antique dealing by one of the pioneers of the School of Tunis, Ali Bellagha. Hamdi opened her first gallery, Atyqa (translating to "antique"), dedicated to the exhibition and sale of the antique objects that she had collected. This first experience as a gallery owner and antique dealer paved the way for her to promote works of art of all kinds and saw her become a significant figure in the art market. The Atyqa space has since become a showcase for Islamic art and antiques, a museum for local artistic heritage in Tunisia.

It was a meeting with one of the leaders of the New Realist movement, Arman, that would see the Atyqa gallery branch out to modern and even contemporary art. The gallery Le Violon Bleu, whose very door was designed by Arman, opened in 2003 and was to host seminal exhibitions of modern and contemporary art over the years in Sidi Bou Said.

From there, exhibitions of modern artists from the entire MENA region followed, for which Hamdi has become a reference and a specialist. Le Violin Bleu has participated in art fairs across the region and been responsible for the acquisition of Tunisian, Moroccan, Egyptian and Algerian painters by renowned museums such as The Guggenheim (Abu Dhabi and New York) and the V&A, London.

Maneli Keykavoussi is an independent curator and art consultant with a diverse background in the art world. Previously, she held the position of head of the Middle East markets at The Fine Art Fund Group, a global investment firm headquartered in London, and worked as a consultant for Sotheby's Middle Eastern sales.

As the founder of the Farideh Lashai Foundation, a public foundation based in Basel, Switzerland, Keykavoussi is dedicated to preserving the artistic legacy of her mother, the renowned artist, writer, and translator Farideh Lashai, while also promoting art from Iran and West Asia. The foundation has successfully collaborated on and supported major retrospectives of Lashai's work at prestigious institutions such as the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and the Sharjah Art Foundation, and exhibitions like "Eyewitness: Francisco Goya & Farideh Lashai" at the Museum of Fine Art, Ghent, "La Obra Invitada: Farideh Lashai" at the Prado Museum in Madrid, and "On Violence and Beauty: Reflections on War" at The British Museum in London.

Keykavoussi’s educational background includes a masters in Public International Law and International Political Economy of Art from Hautes Études Internationales in Geneva. She holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School with a focus on Postmodern Legal Theory and Postmodern Art, and an M.A. in Intellectual Property Law from the University of Turin. She is a member of the Arts Council of Farhang Foundation in Los Angeles, where she is based, and the New York State Bar.

Riccarda Mandrini began her career as a journalist specialising in international modern and contemporary art. She moved from fashion, architecture and then to the art market field, collaborating for several years with arteconomy24, the art market supplement of the Italian economic and financial newspaper Il sole 24 ore.

Her deep interest in the art market has led her to work with established Italian and international art fairs, where she has taken on various roles from Head of the Talks Programme to Galleries and Art Collectors Representative. She has contributed essays to the publication “Enciclopedia Treccani d’Arte Contemporanea”.  She is also a frequent contributor to the art magazine “Art e Dossier”. Mandrini is a visiting professor at Cattolica University in Milan where she teaches the master’s in Art Management.

Dr. Omar Kholeif (UK/EG/SU) aka Dr. O is an author of prose and poetry, a historian of the academy and its peripheries, and a curator of vanquished and/or suppressed archives. Dr. Kholeif has worked as a broadcaster, filmmaker, editor, publisher, and a museum director in South Africa, Great Britain, the United States, the GCC and Northern Africa. Over the last two decades, Dr. Kholeif’s work has concentrated on the nature of networked image culture and its relationship to intersectional questions in the field and study of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexuality. Dr. Kholeif has curated 65+ exhibitions of visual art across five continents, and has authored, co-authored, or edited over 40 books, which have been translated into 12 languages. Dr. Kholeif was co-curator of Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, is the founding director of www.artpost21.com and is Curator of FORUM at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. Dr. Kholeif currently serves as Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. Kholeif’s forthcoming monograph, Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs is published by Phaidon in 2023.

The portrait is courtesy of BLAKE GALLACHER

Rachida Triki is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics at the University of Tunis, and a writer and curator, based in Tunisia. She is a founding member of the Tunisian Association of Aesthetics. She was a member of the Arts Committee of the Mahres Festival (Tunisia 1998 - 2002). She has organized several exhibitions in Tunisia including as Curator for North Africa for the seminal exhibition "Contact Zone" (National Museum of Mali, Bamako, 2007), curator for North Africa for Dak’Art 2010, the 9th Biennale of Contemporary African Art, Dakar and curator of the Tunisian Dakar Biennale exhibition in 2018. She has written several catalog texts on Tunisian and Maghrebian artists and organized international meetings on contemporary issues of creation. She has published several books about aesthetics and has also co-produced for Tunisian television over twenty medium-length films on Tunisian painters in their studio.

Rachida Triki is the curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2022 gallery sector “Focus: New Tomorrows”.

Sam Samiee is a painter, essayist, and psychoanalyst in training based in Berlin and Tehran. He finished Rijksakademie residency in 2015. His painting education took place at the Art University of Tehran and ArtEZ AKI in the Netherlands, where he was later a painting lecturer until 2019. He synthesises studio practice and research in art history and Persian literary history in his art, writing, and curatorial research. His research focuses on global modernist movements in 19th and 20th century Iranian visual arts in relation to the concept of Adab. Samiee is a jury member of the Dutch Royal Painting Prize (2020 to 2024). In 2016 he was among the winners of the same prize. He has exhibited at the 10th Berlin Biennale, Kunstmuseum the Hague, Manchester Art Gallery, and Kunstinstituute Melly. Since 2013 he has curated shows at W139 artist-run space, Dastan's Basement, and Art Dubai.

Sam Samiee is the curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2022 “Farideh Lashai” Exhibition.

Jade Yesim Turanli, born in Istanbul in 1971 and now based in London, has established herself as a key figure in the art world and has been instrumental in Istanbul’s art scene as a leading international gallerist over the past two decades. In April 1998, Turanli opened Pi Artworks on the fifth floor of  a  building in the Ortakoy district of Istanbul. Pi Artworks later moved to Tophane, and then to Piyalepasa, with the latest premises featuring a 250 sq mt exhibition space. A second  gallery space  in central London was set up by Turanli in September 2013, its programme of exhibitions expanding to include international artists such as Susan Hefuna, Michael Rakowitz, Gulay Semercioglu, Mehmet Ali Uysal and Fatma Bucak. Turanli is a member of AWITA in London (Women in the Arts Association) and the  selection committee of  Contemporary Istanbul.

Jade Yesim Turanli is a curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2022 gallery sector.

Riccarda started her career as a journalist for Domus, then moved to the Condé Nast magazine, Uomo Vogue. Following her time at Uomo Vogue she moved to arteconomy24, the art market supplement of “Il Sole 24 Ore”. Riccarda’s deep interest in the art market led to partnerships with Arte Fiera Bologna and Art Verona, and she finally moved to Investec Cape Town Art Fair, where she worked as Galleries & Art Collectors Representative for the last four years.

Riccarda is a visiting professor both at Cattolica University (Milano) and Pavia University, dealing with Art Management Masters. She has contributed to many essays and to the publication of the new edition of “Enciclopedia Treccani d’Arte Contemporanea”. She is also a frequent contributor of the art magazine “Art e Dossier”.

Riccarda Mandrini is a curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2022 gallery sector.

Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator, lecturer, art critic and novelist. Njami was the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He has served as the Artistic Director of the first Johannesburg art fair in 2008, the Bamako photography biennale for 10 years, and the Dak’art Biennale (2018/2018). He also co-curated the first African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Njami has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and photography, including Africa Remix (2004/2007) and the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008; The Divine Comedy (2013), at the MMK (Museum fur Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt; SCAD, Savannah (2014) and The Smithsonian in Washington DC (2015); Xenopolis in Berlin (2015); Afriques Capitales in Paris and Lille (2017); and Metropolis Maxxi (2018). He was member of the scientific boards of numerous museums and a visiting professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). In 1998, he created the Pan-African master classes in photography, with the Goethe Institut, which he then directed for more than 12 years. Njami also set up the collection of contemporary art for the Memorial Acte museum in Guadeloupe. He has published and edited numerous books, with the latest being Stories Histories: The Story of Revue Noire (2020). Njami studied literature, law and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Simon Njami is Curator of the gallery sector “Kind of Blue” at Abu Dhabi Art 2021.

Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath are Founders of Art Reoriented, a multidisciplinary curatorial platform launched in 2009 in New York and Munich. They are curators of the Lyon Biennale in 2022, and affiliate curators at Gropius Bau in Berlin.  
As an independent voice, Bardaouil and Fellrath have collaborated with more than 70 institutions worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Tate Liverpool, Moderna Museet, Reina Sofia, ARTER, and the Montblanc Cultural Foundation. They are internationally recognised curators and award-winning authors whose practice is rooted in global Contemporary art, as well as in the field of Modernist studies. 
In 2016 they were part of the team of curatorial attachés of the 20th Biennale of Sydney. At the Venice Biennale, they were curators of the National Pavilions of Lebanon in 2013 and the United Arab Emirates in 2019, and they are curators of the French Pavilion in 2022.  

Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath are co-curators for Beyond: Emerging Artists, Abu Dhabi Art 2021

Instagram: @sbardaouil and @till.fellrath
Facebook: sbardaouil and till.fellrath
Hashtags: #artreoriented #samandtill #sambardaouil #tillfellrath

Harvard and Oxford educated, Roxane Zand began a career in the arts at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, subsequently moving to the UK to work in the non-profit arts sector. She has served a variety of institutions such as the British Museum and Asia House, joining Sotheby’s in 2006 to lead its presence in the Middle East & Gulf. 

In March 2020 she left Sotheby’s as Senior Director and Deputy Chairman to start her own consultancy. She continues to sit on a number of MENA Boards, AFAC, Aga Khan Museum UK Steering Committee, and advises the non-profit sector. Her most recent book was Geometry and Art in the Modern Middle East. She was appointed Deputy Lord Lieutenant (DL) by Her Majesty the Queen for her services to Middle Eastern art. She is also a charity auctioneer. 

Roxane Zand is the organiser for the Collectors Forum, Abu Dhabi Art 2021.

Instagram: @roxzand

Rose Lejeune is a London-based curator and researcher focused on creating sustainable, cross-sector mechanisms to support the production and collection of contemporary art across the whole range of materials and mediums that artists today use.

In addition to regular writing and public speaking on these topics, she is currently working towards Performance Exchange, a UK-wide project working to embed performance within collections, and highlight the work commercial galleries do to support artists across the spectrum of contemporary art materials and practices. Rose is also the Associate Curator for the Delfina Foundation’s Collecting as Practice programme where she developed the groundbreaking programme that looks at the politics and economics of global collections.

Rose’s current curatorial activities have developed following a decade of experience working with public organisations throughout the UK and in particular working closely with artists to commission for non-gallery situations. This includes as Curator for Art on the Underground, and Education Projects Curator at the Serpentine Gallery. Rose holds a BA in Philosophy and Art History, and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art. Finally, Rose is currently a PhD candidate in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where her research focuses on curatorial frameworks for performance art in, and out, of the art market.

Rose Lejeune is Curator of performing arts programme “In the Round”, Abu Dhabi Art 2021.

 

Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator, lecturer, art critic and novelist. Njami was the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He has served as the Artistic Director of the first Johannesburg art fair in 2008, the Bamako photography biennale for 10 years, and the Dak’art Biennale (2018/2018). He also co-curated the first African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Njami has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and photography, including Africa Remix (2004/2007) and the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008; The Divine Comedy (2013), at the MMK (Museum fur Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt; SCAD, Savannah (2014) and The Smithsonian in Washington DC (2015); Xenopolis in Berlin (2015); Afriques Capitales in Paris and Lille (2017); and Metropolis Maxxi (2018). He was member of the scientific boards of numerous museums and a visiting professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). In 1998, he created the Pan-African master classes in photography, with the Goethe Institut, which he then directed for more than 12 years. Njami also set up the collection of contemporary art for the Memorial Acte museum in Guadeloupe. He has published and edited numerous books, with the latest being Stories Histories: The Story of Revue Noire (2020). Njami studied literature, law and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Simon Njami is Curator of the gallery sector “The Day After” at Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Simon Njami is also speaking at the Talk: The Day After

Sung woo Kim is an independent curator and writer. He is interested in curatorial methodologies that produce and pose questions relating to time and space, and investigates how to reflect individuals’ subjectivities in the form of exhibition. Kim directed the curatorial programme and management of Amado Art Space, Seoul (2015-2019), and was appointed as an artistic director in the curatorial collective formed for the Gwangju Biennale (2018). This year, he was appointed as a curatorial advisor for the Busan Biennale. The exhibitions and projects he has curated include Glider (Gallery2, Seoul, 2020); Anamorphose : depict but blurry, distant but vivid (WESS, Seoul, 2020); MINUS HOURS (Wumin Art Center, Cheongju, 2019); Tracing, Detouring, Piercing (Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul, 2020); Remembrance has a rear and front (publishing project, Hejuk Press, 2019); The 12th Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders (Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Asia Culture Center, 2018); Different Kinds of White (P21, 2018); Black Night, Video Night (d/p, 2018); sunday is monday, monday is sunday (Space Willing n Dealing, 2018); Blank Shot (Art Sonje Center, Seoul, 2017); Nobody’s Space (Amado Art Space, 2016); Platform. B (Amado Art Space, 2015).

Sung woo Kim is Curator of the gallery sector “Material-Real”, Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Nada Raza is Curatorial Advisor for Alserkal Arts Foundation. She was the founding Artistic Director of the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai, where she curated Altered Inheritance: Home is a Foreign Place with Shilpa Gupta and Zarina Hashmi, and Body Building, a thematic exhibition of lens-based work, both in 2019. Prior to this, Raza was Research Curator at Tate Research Centre: Asia, with a particular focus on South Asia. Raza co-curated Bhupen Khakhar: You Can't Please All (2016), and organised displays of work by international artists including Meshac Gaba, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Zarina Hashmi, Sheela Gowda, Amar Kanwar and Mrinalini Mukherjee. Raza was guest curator of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2014) and curated a thematic exhibition, The Missing One, for the Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh and the Office for Contemporary Art in Norway (2016). She has also worked on international art at the Institute for International Visual Art (Iniva) and at Green Cardamom in London. She holds an MA from the Chelsea College of Art and Design and is a doctoral candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Nada Raza is Curator of the gallery sector “A Picture Held Us Captive”, Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Ashwin Thadani founded Galerie Isa in 2011, and has since established the gallery as a leading proponent of international contemporary art on the Indian subcontinent. He has been deeply committed to the growth of the gallery since its inception and has played an integral role in exhibiting works of several critically acclaimed International artists, such as Diana Al-Hadid, Ali Banisadr, Adrian Ghenie, Olafur Eliasson and Idris Khan among others.

 Ashwin Thadani is Curator for the second year of the gallery sector “India Today”, Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Ashwin Thadani is also speaking at the Talk: Focus on India

 

Born in Beirut, currently lives in Oxford, UK.

Maya El-Khalil is an independent curator, who for the last decade has been working locally, regionally and internationally with artists, collectors and institutions to develop the identity and ideas that have defined the contemporary art scene in Saudi Arabia. From its inception in 2009 until 2016, she was the Founding Director of Athr, a leading contemporary art gallery based in Jeddah. She is the curator of the 7th Edition of 21,39 Jeddah Arts.

El Khalil holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the American University of Beirut. She is currently enrolled in an MA Program in Art and Politics at Goldsmiths University.

Maya El-Khalil is Curator of the programme “Beyond: Emerging Artists”, Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Maya El-Khalil is also speaking at the Talk: Beyond: Emerging Artists

 

Rose Lejeune is a London-based curator and researcher focused on creating sustainable, cross-sector mechanisms to support the production and collection of contemporary art across the whole range of materials and mediums that artists today use.

In addition to regular writing and public speaking on these topics, she is currently working towards Performance Exchange, a UK-wide project working to embed performance within collections, and highlight the work commercial galleries do to support artists across the spectrum of contemporary art materials and practices. Rose is also the Associate Curator for the Delfina Foundation’s Collecting as Practice programme where she developed the groundbreaking programme that looks at the politics and economics of global collections.

Rose’s current curatorial activities have developed following a decade of experience working with public organisations throughout the UK and in particular working closely with artists to commission for non-gallery situations. This includes as Curator for Art on the Underground, and Education Projects Curator at the Serpentine Gallery. Rose holds a BA in Philosophy and Art History, and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art. Finally, Rose is currently a PhD candidate in Curating at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where her research focuses on curatorial frameworks for performance art in, and out, of the art market.

Rose Lejeune is Curator of performing arts programme “In the Round”, Abu Dhabi Art 2020.

Rose Lejeune is also speaking at the Talk: "In the Round"