Art & Dialogue: Alex Klein

Alex Klein, Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber (CHE’60) Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, presents a talk on her curatorial practice. This public program is in collaboration with Artadia’s series Art & Dialogue. In addition to her talk, Klein will visit with eight Artadia Awardees in Boston. 

Alex Klein

Klein is the Dorothy and Stephen R. Weber (CHE’60) Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Recent exhibitions at ICA include Suki Seokyeong Kang: Black Mat Oriole (2018 co-curated with Kate Kraczon); Broadcasting: EAI at ICA (2018) co-organized with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI); Nathalie Du Pasquier’s first museum survey BIG OBJECTS NOT ALWAYS SILENT (2017) co-organized with the Kunsthalle Vienna; Myths of the Marble (2017) co-organized with the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway (HOK) and accompanied by a critical reader published by Sternberg Press; Barbara Kasten: Stages  (2015), the first major survey of the artist’s work, and Julia Feyrer and Tamara Henderson: Consider the Belvedere  (2015). She is currently working on a long-term research initiative, I is for Institute, which includes collaborations with RAW Material, Senegal and Kunsthalle Lissabon, Portugal.  From 2013 to 2015 she served as an agent in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hillman Photography Initiative where she co-curated the exhibition Antoine Catala: Distant Feel (2015, with Tina Kukielski) and co-edited the publication Shannon Ebner: Auto Body Collision (CMOA, 2015). She has lectured widely and her writing has been published in numerous collections, including Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good (MIT Press, 2016), The Human Snapshot (Sternberg Press/ CCS Bard, 2013), How Soon Is Now?  (LUMA, 2012), and the critical volume on photography Words Without Pictures (LACMA/Aperture, 2010), which she also edited. Before joining the ICA in 2011 she held positions in the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In addition to her curatorial work, she is an exhibiting artist and the co-founder, with designer Mark Owens, of the editorial project and publishing imprint Oslo Editions.

Artadia is a national non-profit organization that supports visual artists with unrestricted, merit-based awards and fosters connections to a network of opportunities. We recognize artistic excellence in cities throughout the United States and introduce local communities to the international art conversation. In the past 19 years, Artadia has awarded over $3 million to more than 300 artists throughout its participating award cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Over 20,000 artists have applied for the Artadia Awards program.

Art & Dialogue is a national program designed to expand support for Artadia’s growing network of Awardees. Artadia currently supports over 300 Awardees working in a diverse array of disciplines in seven cities across the country. Developed through in-depth research of artists’ needs, Art & Dialogue bridges connections between visual artists, curators and diverse publics in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco through a series of studio visits, public programs, and online engagement. All Art & Dialogue programs are documented, anthologized on Artadia’s website, and publicized internationally.