Barbara Rose is an American art historian and critic who has published widely in the field of modern American art. Born in 1938 in Washington, DC, Rose studied at the Sorbonne, Smith College, Barnard, and finally, Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro. Rose became immersed in the New York-based circle of modernist artists and curators in the late 1950s and early 60s, and made her substantial contribution to the discourse on contemporary art with the insider’s perspective this afforded her. Rose taught at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence, University of California at Irvine and San Diego, and the American University Art in Italy program, and was senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Lorenza Giovanelli studied art history at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. In 2016, she worked as office coordinator and press office assistant during Christo’s last major project The Floating Piers. In 2017, she joined Christo’s team in New York.

Ibrahim Mahama was born in 1987 in Tamale, Ghana. He lives and works in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. He uses the transformation of materials to explore themes of commodity, migration, globalization and economic exchange. His large-scale installations employ materials gathered from urban environments. Mahama’s interest in material, process and audience first led him to focus on jute sacks that are synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana where he lives and works. Fabricated in South East Asia, the sacks are imported by the Ghana Cocoa Boards to transport cocoa beans and eventually end up as multi-functional objects, used for the transportation of food, charcoal and other commodities.

Jonathan Fineberg is the program director of the PhD in Creativity program at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He is the author of Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, the most widely read survey of postwar art, and co-creator (with John Carlin) of Imagining America: Icons of 20th Century American Art, the award-winning PBS television documentary of 2005. Fineberg is also the author of some 30 books and catalogs on modern art, including: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: On the Way to the Gates; The Innocent Eye: Children’s Art and the Modern Artist; When We Were Young: New Perspectives on the Art of the Child; and most recently Modern Art at the Border of Mind and Brain.

Phong H. Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and Co-Founder and Publisher/Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail, Rail Editions, River Rail and Rail Curatorial Projects.