Piers Masterson
Curator & Writer
Profile
+44 7725955756
piers@piersmasterson.com
www.piersmasterson.com
Contemporary Art Curator with track record of supporting early career artists. Experience of commissioning high quality art programmes as part of major regeneration projects with budgets over £1m.
Experience
February 1993 until Present
Freelance Art Critic and Curator
April 2006 - November 2009
Senior Visual Arts Development Officer, Camden Council
May 2000 - June 2004
City Arts Officer, City of Sunderland
Education
1995-1997
Royal College of Art, London | Master Degree Curating and Commissioning Contemporary Art
1989-1992
Goldsmiths College, London | BA Fine Art and Art History
Some of my work
Lucida by Suki Chan
Internationally touring single screen video and immersive interactive installation
Isokon Dreams by Sinta Tantra
Commissioned British-Indonesian artist Sinta Tantra for first public art commission. Tantra has developed an international portfolio of public realm projects.
SELECTED EXHIBITION PROJECTS AND COMMISSIONS
2017 Curatorial Research Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
2017-20 Dada and the Punjabi Princess new video by Chila Burman, screened at FACT Liverpool and Tate Modern London
2016 Lucida touring solo exhibition by Suki Chan, Tintype London, Aspex Portsmouth, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester. Reviewed in This is Tomorrow, Art Asia Pacific.
2010 Chord temporary installation by Conrad Shawcross, Holborn Tram Subway
2008 Faisal Abdu'Allah one person exhibition with contributions by Stuart Hall, Keith Piper, Bonnie Greer, Swiss Cottage Library
2008 Sophia Medoidze: Laboratory for the Future first UK solo exhibition by Georgian artist Swiss Cottage Gallery
2007 Lest We Forget bicentenary of abolition of slave trade, Schomberg Institute Washington, British Museum and Swiss Cottage Gallery funded by UNESCO
2007 Isokon Dreams permanent public art commission by Sinta Tantra, Chalk Farm London
PUBLICATIONS
Exhibition Catalogues
Artes Mundi 1 (editor Tessa Jackson) National Museum and Gallery Wales, 2004
Artranspennine, Henry Moore Foundation, Tate Liverpool, Blueprint Media London 1998
Suki Chan:Lucida , Tintype London 2017
You Are Here: Re-siting Installation Art (co-editor Sharmini Peirera) Royal College of Art London 1997
Selected Exhibition Reviews
‘Ghost Tapes and Sonic Weapons: Sung Tieu’s “In Cold Print”’ web review May 2020 https://www.artasiapacific.com/ghost-tapes-and-sonic-weapons-sung-tieu-s-in-cold-print/
‘No History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 5: Korakrit Arunanondchai’ Art Asia Pacific no. 112 Mar-Apr 2019 p. 143
'Beatrice Gibson: Crone Music’ this is tomorrow March 2019 http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/beatrice-gibson-crone-music
‘Tales of Valiant Queens: Chila Kumari Burman’ Art Asia Pacific web review January 2019 http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/WebExclusives/TalesOfValiantQueens
‘Hazel Brill: Shonisaurus Popularis’ this is tomorrow September 2018 http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/hazel-brill-shonisaurus-popularis
‘Michael Armitage: The Chapel’ this is tomorrow January 2018 http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/michael-armitage-the-chapel
‘Sarah Choo Jing’ Art Asia Pacific no. 106 Nov-Dec 2017 p.55
‘Soul of a Nation’ this is tomorrow web review September 2017 http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/soul-of-a-nation-art-in-the-age-of-black-power
‘The Sovereign Forest: Amar Kanwar’ Art Asia Pacific web review September 2016 http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/WebExclusives/TheSovereignForest
‘Christine Ay Tjoe’ Art Asia Pacific web review July 2016 http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/WebExclusives/ChristineAyTjoe
‘Cecily Brown’ this is tomorrow web review June 2016
"Untitled: art on the conditions of our time" this is tomorrow March 2017
"Mahwish Chishty" Art Asia Pacific February 2017
"Joanna: Simon Fujiwara" Art Asia Pacific January 2017
"Sovereign Forest: Amar Kanwar" Art Asia Pacific September 2016
Conference Papers and Seminars
2017 Raffles heritage and the historiography impulse in contemporary Singaporean art panel discussion with Dr Eugene Tan (Director Singapore National Gallery) Dr June Yap (Director Singapore Art Museum) Mustafa Hussain (Curator Singapore National Gallery) and artists Donna Ong and Ho Tzu Nyen
2017 "Vong Phaophanit's Fragments (1990) Reconsidered" Reframing the Archive: The Reuse of Film and Photographic Images in Postcolonial Southeast Asia, SOAS University of London.
2016 "The Lost Collections of South East Asia" Come Cannibalize Us Why Don’t You? Museological Museums and Cannibalistic Methods, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.