NAMITA GUPTA WIGGERS

art jewelry forum with gabriel craig

05/21/11

Namita Gupta Wiggers is curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, where she leads the exhibition, collection and public programs. Wiggers combines a background in art history, museum education, anthropology, design research, teaching and writing into a program that explores craft, design and curating through a museum environment in new ways. Wiggers is particularly interested in curatorial practice as a vehicle to examine contemporary culture and history, using exhibitions and public programs, including podcasts and YouTube videos, to dissolve boundaries between and hierarchies surrounding art, craft, design and museum experiences.

 A former studio art jeweler, Wiggers’s interest in contemporary jewelry is explored through exhibitions, lectures and writing. Touching Warms the Art (2008), co-curated with Rebecca Scheer, placed non-precious, artist-made jewelry into the hands of museum visitors through an interactive format. Lectures on the project have been presented at College Art Association, SOFA Chicago and several universities and colleges around the United States. An expanded version, ‘Curatorial conundrums: Exhibiting Contemporary Art Jewelry in a Museum’ was published on the AJF website in 2010.

NAMITA GUPTA WIGGERS IN CONVERSATION

Link: Art Jewelry Forum