Wednesday Night: Laurel Ptak @ SAIC

Wednesday Night, April 8, Laurel Ptak (iheartphotograph) will be giving a Free Lecture at the School of the Art Institute. Lecture starts at 6pm in the Columbus Auditorium.

Laurel Ptak is an independent curator based in New York City. She has worked for numerous leading arts institutions including the Guggenheim Museum, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, and Art:21. She currently serves as Educational Programs Manager at the Aperture Foundation. Ptak is best known as founder and curator of the popular photography blog iheartphotograph.com. The website has become well known for showcasing visually and conceptually cutting-edge work by mostly young and unknown photographers hailing from all parts of the globe. Laurel Ptak's unique curatorial vision has also been applied to several "real world" projects including the exhibitions "www.iheartphotograph.com" at Higher Pictures in New York City in 2007; "Is it possible to make a photograph of New Jersey regardless of where you are in the world?" in 2008 at the Pierro Gallery (curated exclusively through digital means, featuring more than 1,000 images by 189 photographers from 18 different countries, with the ambition of "physicalizing a Google image search for the words New Jersey"); and "Young Curators, New Ideas" at the Bond Street Gallery in New York City in 2008.