Savita Apte - Chair
Savita Apte is an Art Historian specialising in Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art and has been actively involved in South Asian art since 1989. She holds a post-graduate diploma in Asian Art and a Masters in Post War and Contemporary Art. In 1995 she joined Sotheby’s as their consultant expert for Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art, for their auctions in London and New York and was instrumental in setting up the Sotheby’s Prize for contemporary Indian art. She is a director of Art Dubai and Asal Partners and is on the advisory board of Sovereign Art Foundation, and Bid and Hammer. Savita regularly lectures on South Asian art history and the market at Sotheby’s Institute London and Singapore, SOAS and Oxford University OUDCE and has two forthcoming publications on the subject. She is currently a Ph. D candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Antonia Carver
Based in Dubai, Antonia Carver is an editor of Bidoun magazine (www.bidoun.com), and managing editor of the imprint Bidoun Books. She is the Middle East correspondent for the Art Newspaper and Screen International, and contributes regularly to exhibition catalogues, books, magazines and newspapers on contemporary art and film in the region.
Publications include With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East (co-editor, with Shumon Basar and Markus Miessen, Dubai,
2007) and BLINK (editor, London, 2001). Antonia is a programmer for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Scotland, and a member of the Artist Pension Trust (APT) Intelligence network.
Daniela da Prato
Daniela da Prato is the founder of F&A Financial and Art Advisory Services, a firm based in Paris, specializing in the development and management of contemporary art collections for private clients and the corporate sector, and promoting emerging artists from the Middle East and Iran. A former investment banker,
Daniela da Prato began her career at CIC Paris and later joined LCF Rothschild to develop and run the Bank’s international privatisation and corporate finance activities. She holds a BA in Finance and Economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and is a member of the Société des Amis du MNAM-Centre Pompidou.
Ali Yussef Khadra
A keen collector of contemporary art, Ali Yussef Khadra started his career in the hospitality industry before turning his life-long passions for art and publishing into a profession.
In 2004 he founded the boutique publishing house, Mixed Media Publishing and launched its flagship title, Canvas – the premiere magazine for art and culture from the Middle East and Arab world. He has expanded the business to include art education, book publishing, art and luxury consultancy, and a creative event management service.
He is also the regional consultant for Christie’s and serves on the boards of several organizations, including Art Dubai.
Through Canvas, Khadra tirelessly strives to take Middle Eastern art to an international level.
Elaine Ng
Elaine W. Ng is the editor and publisher of Art AsiaPacific, a 15-year old magazine dedicated to contemporary art from the Asia-Pacific region and the Asian diasporas. She has curated programs and presented papers on contemporary art in Asia, Europe and the United States. In the late-90s Ms. Ng managed Videotage, one of Asia’s first non-profits for film, video and new media and participated in other projects including, assistant curator for Hong Kong’s participation in the 49th Biennale di Venezia (2001); curator of Gary Hill: selected works from 1976-2003 for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; jury member and president of the UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2003 at IAMAS, Gifu, Japan; editor of Dye-a-dia-logue with Ellen Pau published the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2004); and jury member for Ars Electronica’s Prix Ars in 2004, 2005 and 2007 in Linz, Austria. She is currently a contributing editor to Leonardo Electronic Almanac, published by MIT University Press, program advisor to the MA program for Exhibition Studies and Art Curatorship at the Hong Kong Art School and sits on the academic advisory board of the Asia Art Archive. She received her BA in painting and art history at the University of Michigan and MA in arts administration and cultural policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ms. Ng is currently based in New York City.
John Martin
John Martin studied at Camberwell School of Art and Edinburgh University before opening his first London gallery in 1992. In 1999 he helped establish ARTLONDON with Ralph Ward-Jackson, and continues to sit on the advisory committee for this event. John Martin founded the Gulf Art Fair together with Benedict Floyd. It was organized for the first time in March 2007 as the first art fair in the Gulf, since renamed 'Art Dubai', it is now an annual event.
Maya Rasamny
Maya Rasamny, a Lebanese/British mother of 3 who currently lives in London, has a background in Economics. Since completing a year long Modern & Contemporary Art course at Christie's Education in London, Maya has been heavily involved in the contemporary art world and is an avid collector herself.
Today, she dedicates most of her free time to the art world and keeps abreast of most exhibitions in London and Europe. She is a patron of the Tate Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and Outset Contemporary Art Fund, a philanthropic organisation dedicated to supporting new art. She believes that being passionate about art brings with it a certain responsibility to not only enjoy art but also to support artists and museum acquisitions, exhibitions, conservation and educational programmes.
Frederic Sicre
Mr. Frederic Sicre has over 16 years of experience in global issues, regional development agendas and community building. In the early 90's, he established the activities of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Africa and the Middle East. He then managed the Forum's Centre for Regional Strategies and was promoted to WEF Managing Director in June 2000. As Managing Director at WEF, he was responsible for the move of the 2002 Annual Meeting in Davos to New York City as a sign of support to New Yorkers after 9/11. In June 2003, he was responsible for the Extraordinary Annual Meeting in Jordan following the Iraqi conflict. Mr. Sicre has initiated dialogue and reconciliation initiatives during South Africa's transition to democracy and between Palestinians and Israelis. He has also initiated the first Africa and Arab World Competitiveness reports. He is a founding member of the Arab Business Council and editor of South Africa at Ten - a book celebrating the ten years of democracy in the country.
Mr. Sicre brings a vast network of decision makers from around the world in all fields of activity such as government, private sector, media, and culture.
Mr. Sicre holds an MBA from IMD, Switzerland, a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Villanova University, Philadelphia and is a fellow of Stanford University, Palo Alto. From 2002 to 2005 he served as a member of the international advisory board of Scripps Medical Foundation, San Diego, USA.
Lowery Stokes Sims
Lowery Stokes Sims is Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design where she co-curated the inaugural exhibition, Second Lives, for MAD’s 2008 re-opening in its new space on New York’s Columbus Circle. From 2000-2007 Sims served as executive director, president and adjunct curator for the permanent collection at The Studio Museum in Harlem. She was on the education and curatorial staff of The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1972-1999. A specialist in modern and contemporary art, Sims is known for her particular expertise in the work of African, Latino, Native and Asian American artists. Her work on the Afro-Cuban Chinese Surrealist artist Wifredo Lam was published by the University of Texas Press in 2002. Among the many exhibitions she organized at The Metropolitan Museum of Art were retrospectives of the work of Stuart Davis (1991) and Richard Pousette-Dart (1997). Sims has lectured internationally and guest curated exhibitions most recently at the National Gallery, Kingston, Jamaica (2004), The Cleveland Museum of Art and the New York Historical Society (2006). She served as general editor and essayist of the catalogue for the National Museum of the American Indian’s 2008 retrospective of Fritz Scholder. In 2003-04 Sims served on the jury for the memorial for the World Trade Center and between 2004 and 2006 served as the chair of the Cultural Institutions Group, a coalition of museums, zoos, botanical gardens and performing organizations funded by the City of New York. Sims was a fellow at the Clark Art Institute in spring 2007. In 2005 and 2006 she was Visiting Professor at Queens College and Hunter College in New York City and in fall 2007 Visiting Scholar in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Sims is on the board of ArtTable, Inc., the Tiffany Foundation, Art Matters, Inc. and The Alliance of Artists Communities.