Expert Series: Artist Allen Frame and Curator Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa

Hear about the experience of organizing Darrel Ellis: Regeneration, the first comprehensive museum exhibition of Ellis’s work, from curator Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa and artist Allen Frame. They will discuss Ellis’s artistic practice and the challenges of curating an exhibition focused on a relatively unknown artist whose legacy was at risk of being lost due to his AIDS-related passing at age 33 in 1992.

This drop-in experience is included with Museum admission and is free for Members. Come prepared for your visit by reserving tickets at the door or online.

The Expert Series welcomes renowned artists, scholars, and cultural activators to the Museum for expansive dialogues that dive deeper into an exhibition, artist, or theme.

About the Experts

Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa is chief curator emeritus at The Bronx Museum, New York, where he has organized several exhibitions, including: Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street (2022); Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch (2020, in collaboration with Andrea Andersson), Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect (2017, in collaboration with Jessamyn Fiore); Martin Wong: Human Instamatic (2015, in collaboration with Yasmin Ramirez); Paulo Bruscky: Art Is Our Last Hope (2014), and Joan Semmel: The Lucid Eye (2012). Dr. Bessa holds a PhD from NYU Steinhardt School of Education, and in 2005 he participated in the Museum Leadership Institute at the Getty Center.

Allen Frame is a photographer and writer based in New York and represented by Gitterman Gallery. He has released four books of photography: Whereupon (Palermo Publishing, 2023); Innamorato (Meteoro Editions, 2023); Fever (Matte Editions, 2021); and Detour (Kehrer, 2001). He is a winner of the 2017/2018 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and the 2019 CECArtslink Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia. His work was presented in the two-person exhibition Lost and Found at Soft Network in New York in October, and in the exhibition Mexichrome, which opened recently at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. He has been the curator of numerous exhibitions, including  Luxe, Calme, Volupté, an exhibition about the 1980s art scene in New York that he co-curated with Sergio Bessa at Candice Madey Gallery in 2023. He is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pratt Institute (MFA) and also teaches at the School of Visual Arts (BFA), the International Center of Photography in New York, and for Strudelmedialive.

Sponsored by:
Milwaukee Art Museum’s Contemporary Art Society and Photography Council