Okwui Enwezor & Mona Hatoum

Okwui Enwezor is a curator, writer, and critic. Recently appointed Director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, Enwezor’s wide ranging practice spans the world of international exhibitions, museums, academia, and publishing. He is currently Joanne Cassulo Fellow at Whitney Independent Study Program, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Artistic Director of La Triennale 2012, Paris; and Adjunct Curator at International Center of Photography, New York. He is the founder and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art published by Duke University Press.

Enwezor has held academic appointments as Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President at San Francisco Art Institute (2005-2009); Visiting Professor in the Department of Art History and Architecture at University of Pittsburgh and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Visiting Professor at the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York. In the spring of 2012, he will serve as Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor at Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Amongst his numerous curatorial credits, he was Artistic Director 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1996-1998), Artistic Director of Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (1998-2002), Artistic Director of 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville, Spain (2005-2007), and Artistic Director of 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008). His many exhibitions include The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Century City, Tate Modern, London; Mirror’s Edge, Bildmuseet, Umea; In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940-Present, Guggenheim Museum; Global Conceptualism, Queens Museum, New York; David Goldblatt: Fifty One Years, Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona; Stan Douglas: Le Detroit, Art Institute of Chicago; Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, International Center of Photography, New York; The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, Centro Andalucia de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, and Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, at International Center of Photography, New York. He is also completing work on several projects including: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid and Sun in their Eyes: Photography and the Invention of Africa, 1839-1939, both for International Center of Photography; and 1979-1989: Art and Culture between Revolutions.

His recent publications include: Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art (Steidl and ICP, 2008), Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (Damiani Editore, 2009) with Chika Okeke-Agulu, and co-editor with Terry Smith and Nancy Condee of Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity (Duke University Press, 2008). His forthcoming books include James Casebere: Works, 1975-2010, a monograph on the work of the American artist; and Archaeology of the Present: The Postcolonial Archive, Photography, and African Modernity (to be published in 2012).

Enwezor is a recipient several awards and honors for his work as a curator, critic, and editor, including the Peter Norton Foundation Curatorial Award (1998); Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2000), the Agnes Gund Curatorial Award (2007), Bard College Award for Curatorial Excellence (2009); Deustcher Fotobuch Preis (2006). In 2006 he was honored by the College Art Association with Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Criticism.

Christos Ioakimidis is a renowned modern art theorist and curator.

Mona Hatoum is a multidisciplinary artist of Palestinian origin. In 1975 she was forced into exile when the Lebanese civil war broke during one of her visits to London, where she stayed, training at both the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College.

Hatoum's work revolves around the body, politics, gender issues, the concept of space, and the physical interaction with the viewer/spectator. Her creations – in which she often used her own body as a medium - are an attempt to create both sensual and intellectual experiences dealing with the themes of exile, displacement, the sense of loss and separation caused by war, and the relation between the Third World and the West.

Since 1983, Hatoum has been displaying her installations and performance videos on solo and group exhibitions all around the world, including: Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Britain, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; MoMA, New York; Darat Al Funun, Jordan; Venice Biennale, Italy; Documenta XI, Germany; and the XXIV Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil.