Description

Coming from an extremely broad background as an art professional over the last 25 years – from academic, to art dealer, to critic, to curator, to art fair director and museum director – Coulson will speak to the ecosystem of the art world, explaining how each part feeds of the next.

With each change of function, there comes a different point of view and therefore Coulson can explain, from person experience, and from different perspectives, from each vantage point, as to how each aspect functions.

She will speak to her experience creating an art fair and how art fairs can be an asset and a curse, both for the galleries and the artists, and will share her suggestions as to how artists can engage at the various levels.

About Amanda

Amanda Coulson has worked for three decades as a scholar, critic, curator and cultural producer on both sides of the Atlantic. She has collaborated with artists and institutions, and worked alongside both private and corporate colleagues in the US, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, the UK and various sites in the Caribbean. Since late 2011, Coulson has served as the Executive Director of The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas (NAGB). A Bahamian and US national, she was educated in London with frequent visits to her Nassau-based family. Having studied for her Master’s Degree at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, she started her career in New York at the old-Master dealers Wildenstein & Sons, before continuing on to various galleries in London, Paris and Milan. Developing as a writer, Coulson spent 2 years as the international Editor of the bi-lingual contemporary art magazine tema celeste in Milan, before moving to Frankfurt, where she consolidated her critical credentials by writing for a wide variety of international journals, including Modern Painters, Art Review, Art News and Frieze. She has also provided critical texts for monographic gallery and museum shows and has organised exhibitions for both institutions and commercial spaces.

Coulson is one of the co-founders of the VOLTA contemporary art fairs, held annually in Basel and New York, and served as Executive Director from 2005-2012. She stepped down to return to The Bahamas—with her husband and two daughters—to take up the leadership role at the NAGB. She remains as brand and curatorial consultant to VOLTA, now in its 15th year of operation, while dedicating her focus to increasing international awareness of the contemporary Caribbean art scene, expanding the capacity and reach of the NAGB, through a rigorous combination of capital works, collaborative projects and the building of strong inter-island and international networks.

Admission to this event is free. For more information  call 945-8111 or email info@nationalgallery.org.ky