Michelle Kuo is Chief Curator at Large and Publisher at The Museum of Modern Art. She is the curator of Jack Whitten: The Messenger; and leads interdisciplinary work on temporary and collection exhibitions, digital initiatives, research and scholarship, and acquisitions for the Museum’s collection, and directs MoMA’s global publications program. Kuo joined MoMA in 2018 as the Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture. Recent exhibitions and collaborations include Otobong Nkanga: Cadence (2024–25), Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner—Spirit Movers (2024), among others. She has written and lectured widely; her publications include Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (2024), she serves on the advisory board of the Museum Brandhorst, Munich, and the journal October.

Sampada Aranke is an Associate Professor of Art History and Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. Her research interests include performance theories of embodiment, visual culture, and black cultural and aesthetic theory. Her work has been published in e-flux, Artforum, Art Journal, ASAP/J, and October. She has written catalogue essays for Sadie Barnette, Betye Saar, Rashid Johnson, Faith Ringgold, Kambui Olujimi, Sable Elyse Smith, and Zachary Fabri. She has curated and co-curated exhibitions at galleries and museums, including the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis and The Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the recipient of the 2021 Art Journal award for her article Blackouts and Other Visual Escapes. 

Adam Pendleton, a central figure in contemporary American painting, continuously redefines the medium as it relates to process and abstraction. Upending linear compositional logic, Pendleton’s paintings are created by a distilled layering of gesture, fragment, and form that mirrors the cacophony of contemporary experience. Each painting comes to life through its expressionistic flourishes, stark contrasts, and subtle uses of material, tone, and finish, as well as a precision reminiscent of minimal and conceptual art. Generative and poetic, his paintings create fluid and essential spaces for seeing, thinking, and feeling

Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin, where he directs the Center for the Study of Modernism. His scholarly interests range broadly across the field of modern and contemporary art and theory. His recent books include Sensuous Thoughts: Essays on the Work of Donald Judd (2020), Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and Works on Paper, 1969-2019 (2020), Jack Whitten: Cosmic Soul (2022), and Writing After Art: Essays on Modern and Contemporary Artists (2023). He has published several essays on the art of Jasper Johns.