Alison Burstein and Kjersti Solbakken in conversation

Office for Contemporary Art Norway

As part of our ongoing International Visitor Programme (IVP), we are pleased to host Alison Burstein, curator at The Kitchen in New York.

Office for Contemporary Art Norway - OCA

As part of our ongoing International Visitor Programme (IVP), we are pleased to host Alison Burstein, curator at The Kitchen in New York, and invite you to a public talk at OCA on 22nd June.One of the first of what came to be known as “alternative spaces” in New York City, The Kitchen was founded in 1971 by Steina and Woody Vasulka—artists who sought to create conditions conducive to supporting the production and presentation of the nascent medium of video art, which museums and other traditional institutions had not yet embraced. Reflecting on the institution’s origins and its evolution over the past five decades, Alison Burstein, Curator at The Kitchen, discusses her approach to curating projects that engage directly with the The Kitchen’s history while activating its archive and institutional structures as materials to inspire the creation of new work. Following this introduction, Burstein will join Kjersti Solbakken, Curator of LIAF 2024, for a wide-ranging conversation about the possibilities for non-traditional institutional models to inform and shape developments in artistic practice.

Alison Burstein is a Curator at The Kitchen in New York, where she organizes exhibitions, artist residencies, archival research initiatives, and digital programming and publications. Recent projects include The Kitchen L.A.B. Research Residency in partnership with the Simons Foundation and the School for Poetic Computation (fall 2022–fall 2023); the archive presentation "Live! From The Kitchen Archives" (fall 2022); the performance commission Beau Bree Rhee: "Shadow of the Sea" in partnership with Madison Square Park Conservancy; and the group exhibition "In Support" (fall 2021–spring 2022). She previously served as Program Director at the nonprofit art space Recess (New York) and as a member of the education departments at MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. She has organized programs and exhibitions for institutions including Tenthaus (Oslo, Norway); The Luminary (St. Louis, MO); Knockdown Center (Brooklyn, NY); Mana Contemporary (Jersey City, New Jersey); the Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles, CA); and NURTUREart (Brooklyn, NY). Her writing has appeared in artist monographs and in publications including Tate Etc.Burstein’s academic and curatorial research focuses on the intersections of institution building and institutional critique in the United States and Europe from the 1970s through the present. She holds an MA in Art History from Columbia University and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Kjersti Solbakken is a freelance curator, writer and an institutional leader based in Oslo, Norway. Solbakken has recently been assigned as the curator of Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) 2024. LIAF acknowledges the complexity of place and seeks to be an open, experimental and including meeting place for artists, audience and locals. Between 2017 and 2022 she was appointed director of Kunstnerforbundet, one of Scandinavia's oldest artist-run exhibition spaces. During her time at the institution, Atelier Kunstnerforbundet was established - a studio collective, a network of art enthusiasts and a pioneer project in the field of public engagement in Kunstnerforbundet’s own premises in the center of Oslo. Between 2015-2016 she was appointed director of Galleri Format in Oslo and from 2014-2015 she was the director of Fotogalleriet in Oslo. In 2014 she curated the exhibition Biography by Elmgreen &amp; Dragset at Astrup Fearnley Museet, together with Gunnar Kvaran. She has curated numerous exhibitions as a freelance curator for institutions such as Hordaland Kunstsenter, Vestlandsutstillingen (Kunsthall Stavanger, Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Kunsthuset Kabuso, Kunstmuseet Kube and Haugesund Kunstforening) Telemark Kunstsenter and F15.

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Alison Burstein and Kjersti Solbakken in conversation

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Alison Burstein and Kjersti Solbakken in conversation

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