ICI's The Curator's Perspective: Bisi Silva May 9, 2010

Independent Curators International has developed its first touring curatorial conversation in the U.S. with Bisi Silva, independent curator and the founder/director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria. At the New Museum the conversation will explore the growing impact of transnational practice, using Silva’s extensive curatorial experiences across Africa, Asia, and Europe as a starting point for discussion.

Looking at the potential for new dynamic forms of exhibition-making and cultural exchange, Silva will present her research into artists, as well as her perspectives on the expansion of curatorial networks and emerging collaborative institutional models around the world. ICI’s executive director Kate Fowle will moderate.

Bisi Silva is an independent curator and the founder/director of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos), which opened in December 2007. She was co-curator of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece, Praxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty (September 2009), as well as Maputo: A tale of One City (February 2009). In 2008 she was co-selector with Portuguese curator Isabel Carlos for the international Artists’ Prize, Artes Mundi 3. In 2007 Silva co-curated Contact Zone: Contemporary Art from West and North Africa at the National Museum of Mali, as well as Telling… Contemporary Finnish photography at the 7th African photography biennale in Bamako. As director of CCA, Lagos, she has curated Fela, Ghariokwu Lemi and The Art of the Album Cover (2007); Ndidi Dike, Waka-into-bondage:The Last ¾ Mile (2008) and George Osodi, Paradise Lost: Revisiting the Niger Delta (2008) as well as ‘Like A Virgin…’, Lucy Azubuike (NIG) and Zanele Muholi (SA) (2009). In 2006 Silva co-curated the Dakar Biennale in Senegal. Other recent curatorial projects include In the light of Play at Durban Art Gallery and Johannesburg Art Fair (March/April 2009) and Chance Encounters’,Seven Contemporary Artists from Africa at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, India (April/May 2009) and Sakshi Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (Aug/Oct 2009). Silva has written for international art magazines and journals such as Artforum, artinfo.com, Art Monthly, Untitled, Third Text, M Metropolis, Agufon, and for Nigerian newspapers such as ThisDay and 234Next. She is on the editorial board of N Paradoxa, an international feminist art journal.

This event is free with museum admission.

This season of The Curator’s Perspective has been made possible through the support of Agnes Gund.