Conversation with Stephanie Manasseh
Curator
What are you excited about right now?
I am really excited about the direction my art fair, The Accessible Art Fair is taking. After many years of hard work trying to promote emerging artists without galleries I really feel that we are getting noticed from top players in the art world, such as Simon de Pury who sat on our jury this year and mentioned ACAF as one of the new models in the art world that is making waves at a recent conference in Zurich.
I am also excited that we have some great events planned in various parts of the world, but at this moment I will need to keep this under wraps! Watch this space!
Tell us as a woman, well known or not, whom you admire and why?
The woman in my life that I admire the most is my friend Tatjana Parac, who I call Tanja. Tanja, originally from Belgrade in Serbia, managed escape her war torn country and receive a scholarship at Berkeley, in California. Tanja studied Chemistry which at the time was unheard of for women and now is a leader in her field and is a professor and researcher at University of Leuven in Belgium. She managed to smash that glass ceiling and prove that you could be smart, nerdy, a successful woman in science and beautiful all wrapped into one. She still is the only woman in her department.
Which female artist, living or dead, would you like to invite to a fantasy dinner party and why.
It is really difficult for me to choose only one, so as this is my fantasy, I am choosing two!
I think the women I would most like to invite to a fantasy dinner party are probably Cindy Sherman and Frida Kahlo, two of the world's most influencial (female) artists. I remember first hearing about Cindy when I was at university (a long time ago) and have been intrigued by her ever since. Cindy is well known for assuming the personas for her photography, and has created a whole slew of characters over the years- I would be thrilled to meet the person behind the artist. As for Frida, I remember my mother taking me to see her exhibition at the museum when I was a child and feeling both troubled and exhilirated at the same time. I adore her work and never tire of looking at it. What an evening we would all have together!