Carla Chammas was born in Beirut, Lebanon and immigrated to the U.S. during the civil war to go to college. She graduated with a degree in Art History and Political Science in 1982, attended Sotheby's Art Course in London and has worked at Christie's and two contemporary galleries in New York, Marisa del Re and Hirschl & Adler Modern. In the early 90s, along with two partners Richard DesRoche and Glenn McMillan, they opened CRG gallery in New York. CRG was in business for 25 years and represented artists from the Middle East, South America, and Europe.
Chammas was also one of the founders of Ashkal Alwan, a Lebanese association for Plastic Arts. She supports and promotes young Lebanese artists and is involved in social and cultural organizations.
In 2019, she co-curated the exhibition at the Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon, titled At the still point of the turning world, there is the dance. The show looked at the "golden age" of Lebanese culture and amongst the artists presented was Etel Adnan. Currently on view, she also co-curated the exhibition Creating Abstraction at Pace Gallery in London (through March 12, 2022). One of the artists highlighted in the exhibition is Saloua Raouda Choucair, one of the greatest modernists of the Middle East. Chammas works closely with the artist's estate.
She currently curates exhibitions and works as a contemporary art consultant.
Dawn Chan is a critic and writer in New York. Her reviews regularly appear in the New York Times as well as Artforum Magazine, where she worked as an editor for nearly a decade. She has also contributed to the Atlantic, Bookforum, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and The Village Voice, among other venues. Her writing has been anthologized in collections published by Whitechapel/MIT Press, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, ITI Press, and Paper Monument. Currently on the faculty of Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies, Chan has lectured at the Guggenheim Museum, NYU, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the recipient of a Warhol Arts Writers Grant, and a Thomas Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art.
Jina Khayyer is a writer, poet and journalist.
Born in Germany, of Persian descent, Khayyer studied painting at the Bauhaus in Dessau and journalism at the Deutsche Journalistenschule in Munich.
Khayyers’ genre-bending prose and poetry is known for challenging the concepts of origin, identity, heritage and gender, and in doing so exploring the question of How Not To Break?
Since the 1990s, Khayyers’ writing has frequently appeared in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Zeit Magazin, Zeit.de, Libération, Stern, Vogue, 032c, Purple Magazine, The Gentlewoman, Fantastic Man, Monopol and Apartamento.
She is the author of several books of autofiction and poetry. Her first book, ÄLTER ALS JESUS, Mein Leben Als Frau (Older than Jesus, My Life as a Woman,) a memoir, was released in 2015. In November 2021, her first collection of poetry, NOT DARK YET, but it’s getting there was published.
Khayyer also writes profiles on other artists, including Jenny Holzer, Etel Adnan, Simone Fattal, Elfie Semotan, Collier Schorr, Oda Jaune, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gilbert & George, and has hosted artist conversations for the Goethe Institute (Paris), Galerie Templon (Paris), Silencio (Paris) and C/O Berlin.
She is married to the painter Kate Groobey. They live and work in Paris and in the South of France.
www.jinakhayyer.com