2021 Atlanta Biennial

Dr. Jordan Amirkhani is a Professorial Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at American University in Washington, DC. She received her PhD in the History and Philosophy of Art at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom in 2015 and has published scholarship on the Franco-Cuban painter and polemicist Francis Picabia, the British conceptual art collective Art & Language, and the photographic work of Crow artist Wendy Red Star. Recent curatorial projects include Identity Measures, an exhibition of 23 New Orleans-based artists for the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans’ 2019 Open Call exhibition, and DIALOGUES, an inaugural exhibition of 32 artists for STABLE—a subsidized studio, gallery, and educational space in northeast Washington, DC. In addition to her academic scholarship, Jordan also writes art criticism for a number of contemporary art publications including Artforum, Art Practical, Baltimore Arts, and Burnaway.org. Her emphasis on contextualizing contemporary art and artists working in the American Southeast garnered her a prestigious Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation “Short-Form” Writing Grant in 2017 and three nominations for The Rabkin Prize in Arts Journalism in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

TK Smith is a Philadelphia based writer, art critic, and curator. Smith is currently a PhD candidate in the American Civilization Program at the University of Delaware. He received his MA in American Studies and his BA in English and African American Studies from Saint Louis University. Smith’s research interests lie in American art, material culture, and the built environment. Smith most recently curated Looming Chaos at the Zuckerman Museum of Art as an inaugural Tina Dunkley Fellow at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. The 2020 exhibition featured the fiber abstractions of Atlanta based artist Zipporah Camille Thompson. His writing has been published in Art Papers, Burnaway, and ARTS ATL.