About Art

• 168. Jori Finkel

  Cultural journalist Jori Finkel is based in Los Angeles and won the 2023 Rabkin Prize for excellence in the field. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and the West Coast contributing editor of The Art Newspaper, covering artists and the art world with particular attention to gender issues. Previously, she was a senior editor of Art+Auction magazine in New York. She developed and co-produced the Emmy-nominated 2018 PBS documentary Artist and Mother, working to flip the script that devalues art made by parents and establish an art historical lineage for artist-mothers. She is also author of the critically acclaimed book It Speaks to Me: Art that Inspires Artists, called “an argument for why art museums matter” by New York magazine. She speaks at museums and art fairs and appears on broadcasts and podcasts as part of her larger project of making contemporary art more accessible.She and Zuckerman discuss turning an advocation into a vocation, opening doors for people, realizing your mission, being in the wrong place, communicating with people, advocacy, following her curiosity, the consensus making machine of the art world, ways of resistance, motherhood, artworks you keep coming back to, not complaining, taboos, female genius, the germ of something, and art as a safe space for dangerous thinking!

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• 167. Ricky Swallow

  Los Angeles based, Australian artist Ricky Swallow uses ordinary materials to create precisely rendered objects that he then casts in bronze. The unique works that result are expressions not only of the objects’ constructed forms, but also of the process of transformation by which an inert grouping of things becomes a sculpture. Swallow is invested in equal measure in the making of things and the testing of concepts; in hands-on work with cardboard, tape, wood, and rope and the mediated potentials of the foundry; in the immediacy of craft and the austere elegance of geometric abstraction. He elicits a questioning state of mind by establishing geometries and juxtapositions that just manage to exceed what the eye perceives as possible. Like mysterious, hieroglyphic numbers or letters translated into three dimensions, his works are as indelible as they are evocative.He and Zuckerman discuss how we see our own work, working against the logic of an object or image, when people remember your work, doing less, the availability of abstraction, meaning, conducting yourself with authenticity, sculptors as underdogs, being married to an artist, what makes him happy, space and order, meditation, the radical idea of doing nothing, figuring things out himself, a time-tested belief system, leaving your mark, not destroying anything, self-guided work, collecting, what is parallel to making!

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• 166. Madeleine Haddon

  Madeleine Haddon, Curator of V&A East, is a curator and writer whose work reexamines art historical narratives through contemporary lenses. Her interests and projects span both historical and contemporary art, from Nuestra Casa: Rediscovering the Treasures of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library to current commissions by contemporary artists for the new V&A East. Madeleine brings a critical and innovative perspective to the evolving role of museums for diverse audiences. She serves on advisory committees for Harvard Art Museums, Public Arts Trust of India, Photo London, CORA Foundation, and Athena Art Foundation.The first building of V&A East, V&A East Storehouse, opens on May 31 and will house over 250,000 objects and 1,000 archives from the V&A’s collection. Through programs like “Order an Object,” visitors can request specific works and gain behind-the-scenes insight into how objects are stored and conserved. V&A East Storehouse will also feature the forthcoming David Bowie Centre, opening this September, showcasing the newly acquired archive of over 90,000 objects belonging to David Bowie.She and Zuckerman discuss V&A East’s upcoming openings, including the phased development of a dynamic working museum store offering an innovative “order an object” service that reimagines public access to collections, the museum’s deep commitment to accessibility, community engagement, and inclusivity — as well as its new commissions program, designed to foster meaningful dialogues between historic collections and contemporary artistic practice, the evolving role of museums in the twenty-first century, and how institutions like V&A East are reshaping the ways audiences encounter, experience, and connect with art and culture.

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• 165. Cecilia Alemani

  Cecilia Alemani is an Italian curator based in New York City who is currently at work curating the 12th SITE SANTA FE International, titled Once Within a Time and opening in June 2025.  Since 2011, she has been the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, the public art program presented by the High Line in New York City. From 2020 to 2022, she served as Artistic Director of the 59th Venice Biennale, where she curated the acclaimed exhibition The Milk of Dreams, which received over 800,000 visitors. More recently, she has curated several exhibitions, including Tetsuya Ishida: My Anxious Self, the Japanese painter’s first American retrospective, presented at Gagosian Gallery in New York (2023); Making Their Mark, the first public presentation of the Shah Garg Collection (New York, 2023; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2024); and Anu Põder: Space for My Body, Poder’s first solo exhibition presented outside of Estonia at Muzeum Susch, Switzerland (2024). Alemani also served as Artistic Director of the inaugural edition of Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires in 2018 and was the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Over the past twenty years, Alemani has developed expertise in commissioning and producing ambitious artworks for public space and unusual sites. She and Zuckerman discuss the act of learning, not being curatorially snobby, the rhythm of nature, giving up control, objects having their own life, the realness of cultural uncertainty, the 1948 Venice Bienniale and moving between the past and the future, female voices, the artist as client, the land of enchantment, and that art matters because it is our life!

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• 164. Jennifer McCabe

  Jennifer McCabe is a distinguished curator, educator, and museum director with over 20 years of expertise in leading cultural institutions, fostering innovative curatorial practices, and supporting artists. Currently, she serves as the Director and Chief Curator of the SFO Museum, the only airport-based institution accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Under her leadership, the museum operates more than 25 exhibition sites throughout the San Francisco International Airport, engaging millions of visitors annually. Its acclaimed Aviation Museum and Library houses a permanent collection of over 160,000 artifacts documenting the history of commercial aviation.Previously, McCabe served as Director and Chief Curator of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, where her eight-year tenure garnered significant acclaim, including consecutive "Best Museum" awards from the Phoenix New Times. Her curatorial vision and writing delve into themes of intersectional feminisms, site-responsive art commissions, and groundbreaking artist interventions.She and Zuckerman discuss SFO, what one can do with all the time and headspace one had spent fundraising in a museum, bypass doors, how what she learns can be applied in other organizations, shaking up societal associations of craft, expanded perspectives, having an audience of millions, moments of pause, a journey through space, joy, incorporating breaks from art talk, being forever changed by parenting, seeing things through someone else’s lens, daily practice, the pause, and being your own support system!

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