| Artists |
Curators |
Collections |
Kim Abeles
Kim Abeles' interdisciplinary, multimedia-rich work explores the urban environment. In Conversations Kim Abeles' bird's-eye view of the Museum is a global interpretation of the Museum and its collections that includes specimens suggested by the curatorial staff. The sculpture also incorporates visual montages and video interviews with curators.
Read Kim Abeles' full biography.
Read Kim Abeles' artist statement.
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W. Warner Wood & Margaret Hardin
W. Warner "Bill" Wood is a Curator of Latin American Anthropology specializing in Latin American culture with a focus on indigenous Mexican material culture and identity, globalization, and tourism. Margaret Ann Hardin is Curator of Anthropology and Division Chief for History and Anthropology at the Natural History Museum.
Margaret earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1977. She is the author of "Gifts of Mother Earth: Ceramics in the Zuni Tradition" (The Heard Museum, 1983) and numerous articles about the analysis of style in painted pottery decoration. She is currently engaged in a study of the history of the Zuni miniature carving tradition.
Read W. Warner Wood's full biography.
Read Margaret Hardin's full biography.
Read W. Warner Wood & Margaret Hardin's curatorial statement.
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Anthropology
For Conversations Kim Abeles used a study skin of a Black-throated Magpie-Jay, a skeleton of a White-throated Magpie-Jay, a mountain beaver, and a spaghetti worm among other things to create The Importance of Objects (The Natural History Museum Collection).
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online Anthropology Department.
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Lita Albuquerque
Lita Albuquerque's internationally-renowned work brings the realities of vast time and space to a human scale via ephemeral and permanent art works executed in the natural landscape and in public sites. Lita Albuquerque's exploration of scale as an essential part of creating meaning from the objects seen at the Museum. In Conversations her work is inspired by a tiny brittle starfish from the Museum's Malacology collection.
Read Lita Albuquerque's full biography.
Read Lita Albuquerque's artist statment.
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Ángel Valdés
Ángel Valdés is a Curator of Malacology specializing in the biogeography of mollusks and sea slugs.
Read Ángel Valdés' full biography.
Read Ángel Valdés' curatorial statement.
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Malacology
In Conversations, Lita Albuquerque's OPHIODERMA teres
is inspired by a brittle starfish and includes a fossil brachiopod named Paraspirifer bownockeri.
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online Malacology Department.
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Tony Berlant
Tony Berlant's colorful large-scale metal collages grace the walls of the San Francisco and Washington, D.C. international airports, and have been exhibited at the Whitney, MoMA, and LACMA. In Conversations, Tony Berlant pays tribute to the museum he loved as a child and the art of collecting. Berlant used First Phase Navajo Chiefs' Blankets and Prehistoric Chumash carvings from the Museum's collections, as well as 20th-century Arthur Sanger soapstone figurines and a Navajo Chief Blanket from his personal collection.
Read Tony Berlant's full biography.
Read Tony Berlant's artist statment.
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Margaret Hardin
Margaret Ann Hardin is Curator of Anthropology and Division Chief for History and Anthropology at the Natural History Museum. Margaret earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1977. She is the author of Gifts of Mother Earth: Ceramics in the Zuni Tradition (The Heard Museum, 1983) and numerous articles about the analysis of style in painted pottery decoration. She is currently engaged in a study of the history of the Zuni miniature carving tradition.
Read Margaret Ann Hardin's full biography.
Read Margaret Ann Hardin's curatorial statement.
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Anthropology
For Conversations Tony Berlant's Five Artists combines the Museum's collections with his own in a presentation of Arthur Sanger carvings and Navajo Chief blankets.
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online Anthropology Department
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Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy's work encompasses a broad scope of mediums including performance art, videos, installations, sculpture and drawings. In Conversations Paul McCarthy carefully examines how a specimen – boat dioramas from the California history collection – can illuminate process. McCarthy's discovery became a springboard for exploring his artistic process and the Museum's exhibition process.
Read Ed Moses' full biography.
Read Ed Moses' artist statment.
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Jonathan Spaulding
Jonathan Spaulding is Associate Curator of History and Director of the Seaver Center for Western History Research at the Natural History Museum.
Read W. Warner Wood's full biography.
Read W. Warner Wood's curatorial statement.
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History
Paul McCarthy's contribution to Conversations is called Untitled (Working Title) and includes ship models from the early 1960s.
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online History Department
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Ed Moses
Ed Moses is an abstract artist known for his inventive paint application and diverse body of predominantly abstract and non-objective art. In Conversations, Ed Moses explores the spiritual power of African and New Guinea totems and how/if that power changes when these objects are stored behind the scenes of the Museum.
Read Ed Moses' artist statment.
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W. Warner Wood
W. Warner Wood is a Curator of Latin American Anthropology, and specializes in Latin American culture with a focus on indigenous Mexican material culture and identity, globalization, and tourism.
Read W. Warner Wood's full biography.
Read W. Warner Wood's curatorial statement.
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Anthropology
For Conversations, Ed Moses created Bound and Gagged, a piece employing a variety of 20th century wood statues from West Africa and New Guinea.
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online Anthropology Department
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John Valadez
John Valadez is a painter and muralist who takes as his subject the urban landscape and people of Los Angeles. In Conversations John Valadez celebrates the delicate beauty of Crustacea, the ocean's architects.
Read John Valadez's full biography.
Read John Valadez's artist statement.
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Jody Martin
Jody Martin is Curator of Crustacea and Chief of the Division of Invertebrate Studies. His research interests include the morphology (shape, function, and adaptation), natural history, and evolutionary relationships of crabs, lobsters, and shrimps.
Read Jody Martin's full biography.
Read Jody Martin's curatorial statement.
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Crustacea
In Conversations, John Valadez's Crustacea Oceana finds a model canoe, submarine model motion picture prop and Heermann's Gull among the beauty of Crustacea.
View a photograph of the artwork.
Visit the Museum's online Crustacea Department.
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