Agenda: Magdalena Abakanowicz

Joanna Inglot is Edith M. Kelso Associate Professor of Art History at Macalester, St. Paul, MN USA. She specializes contemporary art, with focus on feminist art and art in former Eastern Europe. Her book The Figurative Sculpture of Magdalena Abakanowicz: Bodies, Environments, and Myths (University of California Press, 2004) examines Abakanowicz’s work in context of a dynamic cultural and sociopolitical scene that developed under Communism in Poland and in the international context. In May, she directed a symposium New Encounters with Abakanowicz at Tate Modern and is currently working with Mary Jane Jacob on editing a new book on Abakanowicz that will feature chapters written by an international group of scholars featuring new interpretations on Abakanowicz’s textile and fiber work from the outset of her career until mid-1970s.

Dr. Camilla Larsson is post-doc researcher at Södertörn University, studying Polish art in Sweden between 1960s until today (2023-2025). Art historian specialising in contemporary art, critical historiography, and transnational exchange. Areas of expertise: performance art, theories of performativity, and the history and theories of curating. Defended her PhD, Appearances. Performative Interpretations of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, in May 2021. Independent curator and writer. Previously positions; lecturer in Art History at Södertörn University, the Gerlesborg School of Fine Art, Stockholm, and Curating Art (International MA), Stockholm University. Curator of contemporary art at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm between 2006 - 2015. Art Consultant for Public Commissioned art. Board member of the Swedish section of The Nordic Art Association, running a residency program in Stockholm.

Mary Jane Jacob is a curator and writer who championed public, site-specific, and socially engaged art as a shared practice and discourse. Her most recent book, Dewey for Artists published by the University of Chicago Press, brings together the experiences of artists and curators with that of the public in making meaning in the everyday. Jacob is co-curator of the Tate Modern touring exhibition of Magdalena Abakanowicz and Artistic Director of the artist’s charitable foundation. She is also Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is currently Chair of the Sculpture Department.

Ann Coxon is curator of International Art at Tate Modern, London. She has a long-standing interest in textile-based practice. Coxon is curator of the exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tate Modern, 2022 (Musee cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2023 and the Henie Onstad Art Center, Norway 2023-24). She has curated numerous exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern, including Dorotha Tanning, 2019; Anni Albers, 2018, Beyond Craft, 2017, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, 2015; and Saloua Raouda Choucair, 2013. Ann is the author of Motherhood (Tate Publishing, 2023), and Louise Bourgeois (Tate publishing, 2010). She is currently researching for a PhD thesis focusing on textile art in Europe from 1960-1979.

Merete Røstad, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and artist-researcher whose practice is rooted in examining collective memory, representation, and archives. Currently, Røstad holds the position of Head of Program and Associate Professor in the Master program Art and Public Space (MFA) and serves as the Head of Research at the Arts and Craft Department at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO).

Caroline Ugelstad is Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Chief Curator at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo. She is an active contributor to the current discourse on the future of art institutions as well as the new forms of digital dissemination, such as in recent research funded by Arts Council Norway. Ugelstad is currently researching polish influence on Norwegian textile art in the 1960s and the 1970s for the research project The Feminist Legacy in Art Museums (FLAME) and curating the Magdalena Abakanowicz touring exhibition at Henie Onstad. Other recent curated exhibitions include Niki de Saint Phalle (2023-2022); Guadalupe Maravilla: Sound Botánica (2022) and Merz! Flux! Pop! (2022). Ugelstad holds a major in philosophy and a PhD in art history from the University of Oslo and an MA from Courtauld Institute in London.