NEWPORT, RI.- The Redwood Library and Athenaeum announces the appointment of Dr. Leora Maltz-Leca as Curator of Contemporary Projects. Maltz-Leca will be responsible for implementing a slate of exhibitions, presentations and special programs with an emphasis on global contemporary art. In keeping with its tradition of robust programming, this summer the Redwood will launch its initial Contemporary Art Lectures with Maltz-Leca presenting an in-depth analysis into the history of global contemporary art in the three-part series:

• Wednesday, June 21: Flashbacks to Modernism or Where Does Contemporary Art Come From & Where is It Going?

• Wednesday, June 28: Mapping the Spaces of Global Contemporary Art

• Wednesday, July 5: Keeping Time or Refusing It: Contemporary Art & the Politics of Time

“This is a significant addition to our staff and an important expansion of our programming, particularly as the Redwood assumes the multidisciplinary fullness of an atheneaum as a thinkspace treating the humanities in terms of both text and image, literature and art. Leora is one of the top specialists anywhere, with a deep understanding of the substantive issues framing contemporary art and the ability to communicate them to a broader public”, Redwood Executive Director, Benedict Leca commented.

Maltz-Leca serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the department of History of Art and Visual Culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she specializes in global contemporary art and theory. She is recipient of a 2016 CAA Millard Mess publication award, a 2011/2012 Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship, a 2011 Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writer's Grant and a 2010 Library of Congress Swann fellowship for her forthcoming book on William Kentridge, Process as Metaphor & Other Doubtful Enterprises (University of California Press, 2017). Her second book, Material Politics: On Matter and Meaning In and Out of the Postcolonies continues her meditations on studio processes and materials. She has written extensively on artists such as William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas, Robin Rhode, Pascale Marthine Tayou, David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Guy Tillim, Malick Sidibe and Paul Stopforth for such publications as Artforum, Frieze, Art Bulletin and African Arts. Maltz-Leca holds a Ph.D. in art history from Harvard University.

“Art in Newport is at an interesting juncture, and the Redwood is well placed to elicit dialogs between history and contemporaneity. What artists read is central to what they make, and I’m honored to join the oldest continually operating library in America as a place to think through and draw out these connections. As the studio edges ever closer to the library, I’m looking forward to initiating collaborations between cultural institutions in Providence and Newport, as well as with other Newport non-profits, as a means to engage Rhode Island’s long histories of globalism and cross-cultural exchange.”, MaltzLeca said.