'Open University' Panel Discussion

Open University Panel Discussion

Saturday, 25 January

1.00 pm - 2.00 pm

Free admission, complimentary drinks (21+)

161 Glass St.

Join us for a panel discussion covering DC's launch of the Dallas Contemporary North Texas Graduate Student Program. A new annual initiative, the DC NTX Graduate Student Program facilitates generative mentorship and institutional connections between North Texas MFA students in their final year of graduate work and a renowned visiting curator, resulting in an exhibition at Dallas Contemporary. Led by Matthew Higgs, Lucia Simek and Abby Bryant.

Learn more about NTX Graduate Student Program here.

Inaugural Curator | Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York

Matthew Higgs is an artist, curator and writer based in New York. He is currently the Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York's oldest alternative art space. Since 1993 Higgs has curated more than 250 exhibitions and projects in North America, Europe and Asia; his writings have appeared in over 75 publications and magazines. Previously Higgs was the Curator at the CCA Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and a Director of Exhibitions and London's Institute of Contemporary Art. He has taught extensively over the past thirty years including roles at London's Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College. In 2006 he was a juror on The Turner Prize at Tate Britain, London. Higgs is the founding curatorial advisor to the Independent Art Fair and a Contributing Editor at The Paris Review.

Lucia Simek, Interim Director of Dallas Contemporary

Lucia Arbery Simek is an artist, writer and curator. She has exhibited her artwork both locally and internationally, and has published widely on contemporary art. As a curator, she has mounted exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art and The Reading Room, among others, and most recently curated a permanent collection of works for the historic Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas, where she also organized a highly acclaimed series of public talks with artists and writers. From 2014-2022, Simek served as Head of Communications and International Programs at the Nasher Sculpture Center, where she organized Nasher Prize Dialogues, a series of compelling discussions with artists and curators about contemporary sculptural practice held in partnership with institutions around the world, as well as worked as editor in chief of the museum magazine The Nasher. A seasoned writer, Simek recently penned essays for Hauser & Wirth’s magazine Ursula, ‘The Landscape of Eternity: Travels Through Texas, with Forrest Bess,’ as well as for the Richard Prince exhibition catalogue at the Karpidas Collection in Dallas, and participated in a public talk with artist Will Boone and writer Randy Kennedy for Boone’s exhibition No Man’s Land at Karma gallery in New York, to be published as a book through Karma later this year. She is currently working on a book of essays which considers the relationship to Texas and its landscape in mid-century artists Forrest Bess, Myron Stout and Alberto Burri, to be published by Deep Vellum Publishing.

McReynolds Curatorial Fellow | Abby Bryant, Master's Art History Candidate TCU

Abby Bryant is the first recipient of the McReynolds Curatorial Fellowship at the Dallas Contemporary. She completed her undergraduate degree in History of Art and Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh in 2022 and is in her final year as a Master's Art History student at Texas Christian University. Her research focuses on Contemporary Indigenous art in North America, especially concerning issues of visual sovereignty, resurgence, and dispossession. Alongside her studies, Abby also works at the Kimbell Art Museum as a Museum Educator.

Host or Publisher Dallas Contemporary