Arlene Shechet is a sculptor known for her combination of disparate elements, precarious arrangements and boundary-collapsing visual paradoxes. Her gravity-defying work seems to tilt, contort, bend and melt, and be in motion while still. Highly technical and yet intuitive, her work embraces improvisation and examines the humour and pathos of being alive and in a body. Shechet has changed the landscape of ceramics since she began working with clay in 2007, leading a resurgence of ceramic work in contemporary art through her experiments with glazes, hybrid forms and pedestals and by embracing risk, rejecting binaries, and leaning into the underlying tensions of not only form and material, but life itself.
Sheena Wagstaff was Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 2012-22, now vested as Met’s Chair Emerita. Her leadership of The Met Breuer museum was lauded for the distinctively diverse exhibition programme she initiated. Wagstaff is renowned for her innovative concept of a trans-historic, trans-continental approach, establishing a wide cultural scope of acquisitions to enliven the context of the Met’s global collections spanning 4,000 years. Previously, Wagstaff was Chief Curator of Tate Modern where for 11 years she was responsible for devising the exhibition programme and Turbine Hall commissions. She has worked at curatorial leadership level in cultural organisations with strong civic values for 30 years, curating numerous exhibitions and writing/editing books throughout her career.
