MOMA Senior Curator to Deliver 2010 Windmueller Lecture at VCU

By Tom Gresham

Design visionary Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design of The Museum of Modern Art, will speak at Virginia Commonwealth University on April 21.

Antonelli is this year’s featured guest speaker in the Windmueller Lecture Series at the VCU School of the Arts. Antonelli’s lecture, “The Design Exhibitionist,” will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Grace Street Theater, 934 W. Grace St. Admission is free and open to the public. Seating is limited so attendees are advised to arrive early.

Antonelli is a recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s national design award, “the Design Mind,” and was named one of the 25 most incisive design visionaries by Time Magazine in 2007. Antonelli, a senior fellow with the Royal College of Art in London, has lectured worldwide on the influence of design, and she has served on several international architecture and design juries.

Antonelli will speak at VCU about the power of the curatorial method as a way to approach the contemporary world, discussing its influence in a range of fields. As curator of MOMA’s 2008 exhibition, “Design and the Elastic Mind,” Antonelli described her perspective on design: “Designers have the ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science and social mores and to convert them into objects and ideas that people can understand and use … Designers give life and voice to objects, and along the way they manifest our visions and aspirations for the future, even those we do not yet know we have.”  

The Windmueller Series was established through a gift from the estate of Otti Y. Windmueller. Windmueller received her bachelor of fine arts degree from VCU and taught fashion design for 29 years in the VCU School of the Arts. The Windmueller Series each year hosts prominent national experts who share their expertise in the arts with VCU students and the Richmond community. Past Windmueller speakers have included Paul Goldberger, Kevin Kling, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Lawrence Weschler and Lewis Hyde.

For additional information about Antonelli’s appearance, call 804-828-2787.