Power Talks
Trevor Smith: The Museum in the Present Tense
Born in Regina, Trevor Smith is the inaugural Curator of Contemporary Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts – the oldest continuously operating museum in the U.S. Previously, Smith was Curator in Residence at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, where he co-curated Wrestle (2006), the inaugural exhibition at the Hessel Museum of Art, and Martin Creed: Feelings (2007), the first large-scale survey of the artist’s work. From 2003–2006 Smith was Curator at the New Museum in New York where he co-curated the acclaimed exhibition Andrea Zittel: Critical Space and presented a major Brian Jungen survey. Most recently, he was a curator of the 2011 Singapore Biennale: Open House. Smith’s talk will reflect on his recent work developing the contemporary program for the Peabody Essex, which seeks to connect historical expression to contemporary experience and to amplify dialogue across cultures.