Calls with CURA: Stories from the Art World

Hormazd Narielwalla is a London-based artist who is known for his geometric collages made from repurposed tailoring and sewing patterns. His work also encompasses original prints, artist books, and sculpture. After moving to the UK from his home of Pune, India, to study fashion, he had a conversation with a Savile Row Tailor that changed the course of his art practice. The tailor described the disposal of bespoke paper patterns of customers who had passed away and this ended up influencing Narielwalla’s creative journey and continues to play a large role within his work. Narielwalla has an impressive resume. His work is held in public and private collections worldwide, some of which include the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Ben Uri Museum Collection, the British Library, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York; and Parsons School of Art & Design, New York. 

Lily Ackerman founded Ackerman studios – a London-based art consultancy working closely with artists and galleries, connecting them to hotels, restaurants, and private spaces. They offer full services including strategic planning and conception, art curation and procurement, and advisory. Built on over a decade of experience, Ackerman Studios work closely with a variety of hospitality spaces, most recently including 45 Park Lane and the Daisy Green Collection. They pride themselves on working with both established and emerging artists and focussing on the narratives underpinning each project.Capitalising on her extensive relationships with artists and galleries, Lily enjoys transforming the way people interact with art - making it a spectacular part of the everyday. Lily is a great advocate of both emerging and established artists and is continually looking to discover the most exciting new talent, as well as nurturing relationships with established figures with whom she already enjoys long-standing associations.

Philip Smith is an auctioneer and specialist in 20th Century Design and Modern & Post-War British Art, running these departments and as Associate Director at Lyon & Turnbull.After graduating with a Masters from the Courtauld Institute in 2007, Philip has over 10 years’ experience within the auction industry, beginning his career at a leading provincial auctioneers in the South of England. During this time he has developed some of the leading sales in the country within these fields and is particularly known as a leading specialist in studio & contemporary ceramics, post-war art and artist’s studio sales. He has developed his specialism further with multi-disciplinary auctions at Lyon and Turnbull, notably the ‘Modern Made’ sales.  Philip is a trustee of Court Barn; the Guild of Handicraft Museum, in Chipping Campden which includes curating and organising exhibitions for the Museum.He has also contributed to a number of publications including Ceramic Review, The Times and The Telegraph, and has given lectures on the changing nature of Studio Ceramics in the art world at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Victoria Chapman founded VC Projects in 2014, out of a desire to aide artists and curators with both gallery and museum exhibitions. Her services also include art advisory, proposal writing, and social media outreach. Victoria studied at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, at Tufts University, starting her professional career early, working at the college art gallery and at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Over the course of the next 30 years she worked with Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Laguna Art Museum and Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach. As an Art Director for Daniel Fine Art Services, Laguna Beach she curated art collections domestically and internationally for the hospitality sector. She was then an Associate Director at Art Cube Gallery, Laguna Beach. In 2019 she co-authored a book with Los Angeles based International artist Shane Guffogg, and now divides her time supporting Shane and other artists, assisting Hollywood galleries including The Lodge, and with curatorial support for  Italian based, Cultural Institutions; Casa Regis: Center for Culture and Contemporary Art, and Villa Emma artist residency.Last year, she introduced many new initiatives, including the 'Artists in Isolation' series on Instagram TV, which consisted of detailed interviews about each artists state during lockdown. 

Ashleigh Brown is a trained paper conservator and collection care advisor with experience in both the private and public sector on both sides of the Atlantic. She studied History of Art at Manchester University before completing a master’s degree in Conservation of works on paper at UAL. She gained significant experience outside of conservation as an Art Collection Manager to ultra-high net worth individuals and further knowledge in insurance and the legal aspects of the art trade in her role as Head of Conservation at John Jones. She has since founded a conservation studio called The Conservators Ltd. in London. 

Skylar Hughes is an artist living and working in Los Angeles who explores relationships and the artistic process revealed through his meditative brushstrokes and warm color palette. He is interested in one’s experience and relationship to nature.The artist’s first major solo exhibition, “One Big Gust of Wind” was held at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut in 2013. Since then, Hughes has participated in multiple shows throughout the U.S. and has work in numerous public and private collections.

Helen Armon-Jones studied Art History at Manchester University before pursuing a career in commercial marketing (including managing art sponsorship for Hiscox Insurance, where she worked with The Whitechapel and Serpentine galleries) and went on to develop her knowledge and expertise at Sotheby’s, and in galleries in London and Surrey.    She founded her business The Art Buyer, with the aim of banishing blank walls and filling our homes with beautiful art.  Her website states: ‘We know that buying art can be daunting for many people and it’s often difficult to even know where to start. We also know that many artists making amazing and affordable art often struggle to find the right audience. We’re here to help. We scour degree shows, exhibitions and fairs and work collaboratively with emerging and established artists across the UK.’   

Sacha Halona Baumann is a woman of many talents. She is an artist, curator and art business consultant where she helps Los Angeles based artists problem solve and achieve their goals. Sacha is the independent publisher, designer and editor of FULL BLEDE, a newspaper which features contemporary art and writing and usually launches in conjunction with an exhibition opening in LA. Since 2019, Sacha has also been working with Bettina Hubby as the studio manager of Hubby Co. Born in Hollywood and after growing up in California, Alaska and Utah, Sacha currently lives and works in downtown LA and has a true and deep love for the city.

Alayo Akinkugbe is currently reading history of art at Cambridge University, having grown up in Lagos, Nigeria. After studying she hopes to become a curator, whilst pushing the globalization of African Art. We met Alayo on Instagram, through her incredible account @ablackhistoryofart – which highlights the overlooked Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day. With growing need for reform in terms of diversity in the field of art history, we wanted to hear more from Alayo about her studies of the subject and her aspirations for her future career.

Kamila M. Korbela is an award-winning and accredited German Art Conservator with almost 15 years of experience in the field. She has held positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Balboa Art Conservation Center, the National Gallery of Denmark and the German government to name a few. Kamila is the founder of LA Art Labs, a Los Angeles–based conservation studio devoted to museum-quality conservation and the study of paintings, sculptures and painted objects, with a large focus on contemporary art.

Alice Lodge is an Australian-born Angeleno who founded The LODGE, a gallery that has been called “East Hollywood’s Art Oasis.” Originally constructed as a shopping mall in 1923, the building, which still includes several artists’ studios, gained attention in the 1960s when the artists Joe Goode and Ed Ruscha rented a couple of the spaces. Alice’s upbringing greatly influenced her love for the arts. She has created a warm and welcoming ambiance; frequently opening her doors to the vibrant Los Angeles community. The gallery presents a unique and fresh program of exhibitions, featuring established and emerging talent.

Fru Tholstrup is a London-based art consultant with a specialism in the contemporary global art market, advising collectors and international businesses on building museum-quality art collections. Fru is best known for her role launching Sotheby’s flagship London Art Gallery, S|2 in 2013, she also worked closely with the S|2 Brand in New York and Hong Kong helping curate exhibitions. As the inaugural director, Tholstrup guided the gallery to commercial and critical success with an ambitious and diverse programme. Tholstrup also invited senior international figures to become guest curators, including Jeffrey Deitch, Tommy Hillfiger and Vito Schnabel. In 2010 Tholstrup began curating the Soho House Art Collection for Nick Jones — which began with the West Hollywood House. Tholstrup’s trademark is a creative approach to making engaging and original exhibitions; An ability honed during 10 years at London’s Haunch of Venison Gallery which included the role of Director. Tholstrup sits on the judging panel for the prestigious HIX Award art prize and is on the select committee for the Groucho Club on Dean street.

Aubrey Catrone is an international art historian, appraiser, and provenance researcher. Aubrey earned an MA in History of Art from University College London, specializing in the documented histories of art objects, and is a USPAP-compliant Associate Member of the Appraisers Association of America. With an art gallery and academic research background, Aubrey founded Proper Provenance LLC to provide her clients with the tools, not only to historically contextualize art, but also to shed light on attribution and legal title within the international art market. Aubrey has researched artworks including paintings, artefacts, works on paper, prints, and sculptures spanning the fourth century B.C. to the twenty-first century A.D. She continues to volunteer with the Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenburg: Jeu de Paume Database.

Molly Segal is an artist and teacher from Oakland, California who lives and works in Los Angeles. Her use of watercolour on a slick, plastic paper highlights her artistic process and results in powerful paintings that provoke a lasting visceral response for the viewer. Segal describes her paintings as works “that explore fragile connections and limited reserves, both environmentally and emotionally. Segal’s work has appeared in exhibitions throughout the US including Charlie James Gallery, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Zevitas Marcus, and Northeastern Gallery 360. Her work has also been in publications including Full Blede, Venison Quarterly, Beautiful Decay, and Lapham’s Quarterly. Note: Correction; in the episode, Molly refers to the 'London Calling' exhibition, which was at The Getty in 2016, rather than the Hammer Museum.

Jo Baring is a curator, consultant and arts speaker and Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art, one of the UK’s leading art collections. As a graduate of Oxford and the Courtauld Institute Jo has curated exhibitions at museums and public galleries across the UK. A former Director of Christie’s UK, Jo is regularly requested to interview artists at museums and art fairs. She delivers lectures and takes part in panel discussions on all aspects of the art world. Her particular areas of expertise focus on 20th century & contemporary art, sculpture, arts philanthropy and the art market. Jo is a trustee of arts charities ArtCan and the Artists Collecting Society, a member of the Association of Women in the Arts, she sits on the board of the Women of the Year charity, and on the Apollo Magazine Advisory Board. She is also on the authentication committee for the artist Elisabeth Frink and is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts. In Spring 2020 she released her first podcast series: ‘Sculpting Lives’, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, which was awarded The Guardian’s Art Podcast of The Week.

Sveva D’Antonio was born in Naples and graduated in art history and conservation of artistic heritage in 2013. After having carried out various internships at galleries in Naples and Brussels, in 2016 she began working at Laveronica Gallery in Modica, where she is now a director, focusing on socially and politically engaged art. Since 2014 she has dedicated herself, together with her husband Francesco, to the development and promotion of the Taurisano Collection, a private collection of contemporary art based in Naples, started in the 1970s by her father-in-law Paolo Taurisano. The Collezione Taurisano consists of nearly 400 works and is now focused on work by contemporary artists addressing salient social and political issues - art that speaks to contemporary life seems to cover every surface of their home. In an interview with Artsy earlier this year, Sveva talks about their commitment to collecting and how personal the process is to them as a couple, stating: ‘Our collection is our life. In our home, we are surrounded by amazing artworks. Each one of them has a personal story. Having such memories in front of us every day allows us to escape our daily routines, travel virtually to different places, and meet our beloved artists’ As well as acquiring works, the couple understands the wider philanthropic role they play as patrons of the arts. This year, whilst in Lockdown, they launched a series of live Instagram interviews with artists and arts professionals entitled ‘We Care’. In fact, we met Sveva through Instagram, and we are thrilled to include her inspiring story in this series. We discuss the history and evolution of their private collection, as well as plans for the future.

Heather Christensen Smith is the founder of Art at Work and a curator creating gallery spaces within corporate settings. She designs dynamic exhibitions and installations to bring business spaces to life and reflect the ethos and energy of the company for employees, clients and visitors.

Marine Tanguy is a French art entrepreneur, speaker and media commentator. In June 2015, Tanguy founded MTArt Agency, the first agency for artists worldwide, in order to provide a better supporting structure for artists outside the traditional gallery model. Marine is a member of the Thousand Network, the Creative Industries Federation, The Association of Women Art Dealers and The Association of Women in the Arts. Marine also serves as a young patron of the V&A Museum and has been appointed Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She has delivered two TedX talks; on how to transform cities with art (2017), and on how social media visuals affects our minds (2018). In 2018 Tanguy was a recipient of Forbes 30 under 30 Europe: Art and Culture. We met Marine through Christie’s Education and MTArt Agency’s ‘The Young Collectors Club’ for which we gave the introductory lecture.

Stephanie Manasseh is a Canadian entrepreneur in the arts and founder of SM Art Advisory and the Accessible Art Fair. With the fair, Stephanie has brought together top leaders in the industry to select and showcase the best emerging artists in cities around the world including Antwerp, Tel Aviv, and New York. Stephanie has always been passionate about giving a high-end platform to underrepresented artists in upscale environments, a philosophy that extends to her art advisory and curating practices. She is sought after for her knowledge of the art market, having worked on a number of prestigious projects that range from building philanthropic collections to providing art for upscale hospitality settings. Stephanie was responsible for developing and implementing the Art & Design Sessions for BMW in Belgium. She has spoken at the New York Times Art for Tomorrow conference and had her own Ted X talk in Antwerp on new ways of showing art.

Chad Attie is a mixed media artist living and working in Los Angeles who uses collage, photography, painting, sculpture and video to explore subject matters from various perspectives. Attie collects found materials that connect to memory, literature and history before deconstructing these compilations once again, creating a mysterious evolution. The development of a series of work sometimes takes him years to complete and results in a collection of multiple constructed elements.Attie has had solo shows in galleries including The LODGE, Klowden Mann, Frank Pictures; Carl Berg Projects in Los Angeles; and Wooster Projects New York. His work has also been included in shows at the University of LaVerne; Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills; MOCA, Los Angeles; Santa Monica Museum of Art and the Zimmer Museum, Los Angeles.We were thrilled to include Chad Attie’s work in our online exhibition ‘LA: Night and Day’ at THE LODGE earlier this year.

Alice Minter, having spent 10 years as a specialist and then Director at Sothebys, is now Curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She studied in Paris for a master in History and then History of Art. Meant ‘for everyone’, the Gilbert Collection represents the life-long passion of Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert and was donated to Britain in 1996. Visual richness and intricate detail appealed to the Gilberts, who were dressmakers and fashion entrepreneurs in London during the Second World War. The Gilberts moved to Los Angeles in 1949 where Arthur became a highly successful property developer. With expert support, they began collecting in the 1960s, aiming to build a museum collection in each of their chosen areas: silver and gold, gold boxes, enamel portrait miniatures and mosaics.The Gilberts and their collection are close to my heart. I was an intern at the V&A when the collection arrived in 2008, and I assisted curators there with some of the first displays. Their collection also relates more broadly to CURA Art and our two home cities of London and LA. Alice has been a huge support to us and was a panellist for our first talk on the subject of collecting. We were thrilled to include her in this podcast series.

Jessica Burgess is a textile conservator living and working in London. She has worked in the private conservation sector for many years and is now in the process of opening her own studio, Soteria Conservation. Liza met Jessica during her first day of university at Camberwell College of Art where they both studied Art Conservation.

Valeria Napoleone is an Italian collector, patron and philanthropist and lives in London with her family. Valeria studied in New York receiving a BA from New York University’s Journalism School and an MA in Art Gallery Administration at the Fashion Institute of Technology.Valeria has established a strong collection that focuses on female contemporary artists working internationally. Forming an exceptionally close bond with artists, she has provided pivotal support to the careers of many of today’s most critically acclaimed artists including Phyllida Barlow and Margarita Manzelli.In June 2015 Valeria launched ‘Valeria Napoleone XX’, an umbrella platform for projects and initiatives that work towards increasing the representation of female artists in major public institutions. Named to highlight both collaboration and the female chromosome, the platform launched with a partnership with the Contemporary Art Society. Their combined initiative is an on-going commitment to purchase and donate a significant work by a living female artist to a different UK museum each year. Valeria is a patron to a select number of arts organisations; as Head of the Development Committee at London based not for profit gallery Studio Voltaire; a Trustee of the Contemporary Art Society; she sits on the Boards of the Institute of Fine Arts in NYC; and an Advisory Board member of the Association of Women in the Arts. She has also been an avid supporter of many UK based institutions such as; Camden Arts Centre, Nottingham Contemporary, ICA London, Milton Keynes Gallery and Chisenhale Gallery.We met Valeria last summer as part of a guided tour of her home and collection with Sotheby’s Institute. She is an inspiration to us and we were thrilled to have spoken to her for this podcast.

Jonathan Prince explores his fascination of form and material through the creation of his elegant abstract sculptures. His work investigates the duality of form and chaos, one complementing the other; Nature, science, the human form, and ancient artifacts inspire Prince’s work and his process requires both careful skill and heavy machinery where imperfect jagged breaks often interrupt the highly polished, smooth surfaces.The artist returned to sculpture full time in 2004, after a distinguished and diverse professional career in the arts and sciences. Prince graduated with a doctorate degree from Columbia University, and received a post-doctorate from the University of Southern California. He has created several large-scale technology and art installations at renowned venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, and holds several design patents for his developments in optical engineering. His work is featured in notable public and private collections worldwide, including The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and The Joseph M. Cohen Family Collection. We have always admired Prince’s work and was intrigued to hear more about his story and studio in the Berkshire Mountains, which is 2 and a half hours from New York City.