Staff
RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director and Curator
Esa Nickle, General Manager
Defne Ayas, Associate Curator
Tairone Bastien, Curatorial Associate
Lana Wilson, Communications Associate
Rachel Abelson, Development Associate
Shelley Gross, Administrative Assistant
Elizabeth Sonenberg, Intern
Georg Scherlin, Intern
Additional Contributors
RoseLee Goldberg, Founding Director, and Curator, PERFORMA
RoseLee Goldberg, art historian, critic, curator and author whose book Performance Art from Futurism to the Present first published in 1979, pioneered the study of performance art. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art (London University), she was director of the Royal College of Art Gallery in London and curator at The Kitchen in New York. In 1990 she organized ‘Six Evenings of Performance’ as part of the acclaimed exhibition ‘High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture’ at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Author of Performance: Live Art Since 1960 and Laurie Anderson), she is a frequent contributor to Artforum and other magazines. In 2001-02 Goldberg originated and produced Logic of the Birds , a full length multimedia production by Iranian born artist Shirin Neshat in collaboration with singer Sussan Deyhim, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Summer Festival in 2002 and toured to the Walker Art Institute in Minneapolis and to Artangel in London. RoseLee Goldberg has lectured extensively at The Architectural Association in London, California Institute of the Arts, Yale, Princeton and Tate Modern, and has taught at New York University since 1987.
RoseLeeGoldberg.org
Working between New York and Shanghai, Defne Ayas is a Curator for Performa, where she has been developing and presenting performances and performance-related programs since 2004. Prior to joining Performa, Ayas worked as the Education and New Media Programs Coordinator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, where she co-organized new media-related artist projects, and exhibitions including “One block Radius,” “Airborne,” “public.exe: Public Execution,” and “Democracy is Fun?” As a curatorial consultant for Bizart/Arthub’s Prince Claus Fund-the Netherlands Network Partners 2008-2010 program in Shanghai, Ayas is also one of the contributing curators of the city’s new media-based E-arts Festival. Ayas completed De Appel Curatorial Training Program in Amsterdam and received her M.P.S. from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. Ayas is on the Advisory Board of CCA in Kabul, Afghanistan and is an adjunct professor for New York University.
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Esa Nickle joined the Performa team in May 2005 as the Biennial Coordinator of the PERFORMA05 biennial and has since expanded her role as the line producer of Performa commissions, international tours and special events. During her 16 years working in the field she has managed large scale public art events, art education programs, and curatorial projects for the city agencies such as the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival in London. Since arriving in New York in 1998 Esa has worked with public art consultant Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz, Arts for Transit, managed White Box, a non-profit alternative contemporary arts space in Chelsea and curated several exhibitions and programs on sound art and experimental music. Esa studied the Sociology of Art at Indiana University and Art History at the City University, London.
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Tairone Bastien, Curatorial Associate
Lana Wilson, Communications Associate
Lana Wilson handles publicity and publications at Performa. She has previously worked in film programming and administration, dance technology and education, and as a writing tutor and editor. She has presented film programs and lectures at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, the Tanzquartier Wien (Vienna), Wesleyan University (Connecticut), and Anthology Film Archives as part of Performa 07 (New York). As a dancer, Lana has performed with Michael Bodel, Aki Sasamoto, and Lily Skove (SkoveWorks), among others, and she was also a member of the jury for Lincoln Center’s 2008 Dance on Camera Film Festival. Lana holds a BA in Film Studies and Dance from Wesleyan University, where she graduated with honors.
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Rachel Abelson, Development Associate
Rachel Abelson graduated from Bard College with a BA in Literature and Writing. Prior to joining PERFORMA, she worked in development, programming and administration for social justice, community development, and visual and literary arts organizations and as an editor, writing tutor, and adjunct professor of Literature and Composition.
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Shelley Gross, Administrative Assistant
Sara Dufour, Project Coordinator
Sara graduated with a degree in Cultural Mediation and Communication from the Sorbonne, in Paris, France. Before coming to New York, Sara was in charge of the communication at the publishing house Paris Musees (a non-profit organization which manages the 15 museums of the City of Paris). She was involved in promoting publications (mainly books of art and exhibition catalogues), organizing editorial events, such as trade fairs and book signings.
Jennifer Liese, Publications Editor
Jennifer Liese edits exhibition catalogues and books for museums, galleries, and publishers including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Queens Museum of Art, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Haswellediger, Phaidon, and Zone Books. She is an editor of Cabinet magazine and a contributing editor of BOMB and has served as managing editor of Artforum and editor of Provincetown Arts. Her writing and reviews have appeared in Cabinet, Artforum, Bookforum, BOMB, and TenbyTen. Liese has worked in curatorial departments at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She has lectured at Rhode Island School of Design, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, from which she holds a Master’s degree in modern art history, theory, and criticism.
Paula Court, Archival Photography
Paula Court lives and works in New York City.
Georg Scherlin, Intern
Student of MultiMedia Art at the University of Applied Science, Salzburg and member of the visual arts crew kon.txt. For more information visit gorg.kontxt.net
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