January 2025 Residency thematic:

“In Conversation”

Art Talks Speaker Bios

Yng-Ru Chen is the founder and CEO of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, one of the most recognized galleries in the Boston region. She has previously held positions at Sotheby’s, PS1/MoMA, and the Asia Society. Recently, she co-founded Arrival Art Fair, which will take place in North Adams in June, building on the town’s art and cultural impact. Pamela Franks, director of the Williams College Museum, and curatorial ambassador for Arrival Art Fair, will be a respondent to Yng-Ru’s talk. 

Amy Podmore’s exhibition, Audience, is currently on view in Building 6 at MASS MoCA. Propelled by an interest in surrealist strategies of transformation and the line between stillness and motion in sculpture, this exhibition of plaster casts of found wicker baskets with blinking eyes engages the viewer in an uncanny exchange. Podmore is a Professor of Art at Williams College and has shown her work at the Tang Museum, DeCordova Museum, and the ICA in Portland, ME among many other venues. Meghan Considine, curator of her show, and now on the curatorial staff at the ICA Boston, will be a respondent to Amy’s talk.

Gulnur Mukazhanova is Berlin-based artist who investigates the production, transformation, and circulation of textiles, particularly felted textiles from her native Kazakhstan. Mukazhanova’s fiber-based work is on view in Eluding Capture at MASS MoCA, and has been shown widely in group and solo exhibitions, including at the Center for Heritage Arts and Textile, Hong Kong; the Central Asian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale; Kulturforum Ansbach, Germany; and Kunstquartier Bethanien, Germany. Jess Chen, curator of the show, and currently a Harvard PhD student in the History of Art and Architecture, will be a respondent to Gulnur’s talk. 

Steve Locke’s exhibition, the fire next time, on view at MASS MoCA and curated by MASS MoCA curator, Evan Garza, is a meditation on uniquely American forms of violence directed at Black and queer people. In his painting-based interdisciplinary practice, Locke engages issues of identity, desire, race, violence, and memory, revealing as much tenderness and humor as he does brutality. Solo exhibitions of his include those at the ICA Boston; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Gallatin Galleries at NYU; and the Moss Art Center at Virginia Tech. He is the recipient of the Rappaport Prize from deCordova, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He is on the faculty at Pratt in Brooklyn.

Visiting faculty for our January 2025 residency, Julianne Swartz has a long-term sound piece installed at MASS MoCA. Titled In Harmonicity, The Tonal Walkway, it’s a composition of human voice utilizing the 150+ foot length between buildings to “throw” sound back and forth along the stretch of the bridge and make aural illusions with distant and proximate spatial harmonies. Swartz has shown her work at venues such as the Tate Liverpool Museum; 2004 Whitney Biennial; New Museum; Jewish Museum, New York; MoMA PS1; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She is on the faculty at Bard College.

Currently based in North Adams on a year-long MASS MoCA fellowship, Alison Pebworth is an artist whose work focuses on long-range projects that combine painting, installation and social interaction. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; The Salt Lake Art Center, Utah; and Vivo Media Arts Centre, Vancouver, BC; and she has received awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, The Center for Cultural Innovation, GEN ART, and the Present Group. She is currently working on an exhibition for MASS MoCA, curated by the respondent to her talk, MASS MoCA curator Alexandra Foradas.