Saturday, May 31, 2025
Curator Talk w/ Laurel Ptak
About
Join us for a morning talk with curator and writer Laurel Ptak, Curator-at-Large at Lighthouse Works.
Ptak will speak about her curatorial practice—shaped by a commitment to small-scale institutions, artist-driven initiatives, and the politics of collaboration—as well as the ideas informing her new work at Lighthouse Works. The conversation will offer insight into how curating can act as both a responsive and generative force in contemporary art.
Ptak has organized exhibitions, performances, and public programs at institutions across the globe, including Art in General, Triangle Arts Association, Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), FUTURA (Prague), Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), and Performa (New York). She is the co-editor of Undoing Property? and a co-founder of Art + Feminism and Rethinking Residencies. In addition to her role at Lighthouse Works, she teaches at NYU and the School of Visual Arts.
This event is free and open to the public. A Q&A will follow the talk.
Artist
Bio
Laurel Ptak works across artistic and curatorial boundaries to attend to the nuances of contemporary art. As a curator she is dedicated to working within small-scale and alternative arts institutions, collaborating closely with artists at pivotal moments in their careers to produce improbable projects that reach meaningful publics. Ptak has previously led the artistic direction of artist-founded institutions in New York City including Art in General and Triangle Arts Association (part of the global Triangle Network with sister organizations dotted around the world). Earlier in her career, she contributed to education and publication departments at MoMA PS1 and the Guggenheim Museum. Ptak has organized numerous group and solo exhibitions, performances, public programs, screenings, online projects, publications and more, both locally and internationally, at Anthology Film Archives (New York City), EFA Project Space (New York City), Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art (Tallinn), FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art (Prague), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), Performa (New York City), Swimming Pool (Sofia), Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm) and others. Together with artist Marysia Lewandowska she is editor of the book Undoing Property? which explores themes of immaterial labor and the commons, published by Sternberg Press. Interested in collective forms of curatorial practice, Ptak is a co-founder of Rethinking Residencies, a working group of fifteen New York–based artist residency programs, and Art + Feminism, a non-profit organization committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, equity and the arts in partnership with thousands of art institutions, civic organizations and universities around the world. Ptak holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MA from the Center For Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Currently she serves as Curator-at-Large at Lighthouse Works and teaches in the BFA Studio Art Department at New York University as well as the MA Curatorial Practice Program at the School of Visual Arts.