Griff Williamsis an American painter, filmmaker, author and gallerist. In 1993, he founded Gallery 16
in San Francisco and has exhibited and published scores influential artists including Lynn Hershman Leeson, William Kentridge, bell hooks, Rex Ray, Margaret Kilgallen and Mark Grotjahn.
In 2021, Williams made an acclaimed feature film, Tell Them We Were Here, a documentary
about eight of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film was included in film festivals around the
world and was awarded best documentary at Newport Beach Film Festival and Nevada City Film Festival.
His recent books include The Gay Seventies: Hal Fischer is the first monograph to feature the
complete collection of works Hal Fischer produced in San Francisco’s Haight and Castro neighborhoods
in the 1970s. His book on the life and artwork of the late San Francisco artist Rex Ray including
essays by Rebecca Solnit was published by Chronicle Books in 2021.
Sequoia Milleris the Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto. He holds a PhD in the History of Art from Yale University; an MA in Design History from the Bard Graduate Center; and a BA in Cultural Studies from Brandeis University. Recent curatorial projects include Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects and Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me. Publications include Magdalene Odundo: A Dialogue with Objects (2024), Ceramic Art (2023); and The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art (2015). Prior to his academic and curatorial work, Sequoia was a full-time ceramist who exhibited and led workshops across the United States
Tanya Zimbardois a San Francisco-based curator and the assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her research on Bay Area Conceptual art and performance has informed such guest curatorial projects as Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 (Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture),Organic Logic (The 500 Capp Street Foundation), Equilibrium: A Paul Kos Survey (di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art), Public Works: Artists’ Interventions 1970s—Now (Mills College Art Museum), and Scoresfor a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert (Worth Ryder Art Gallery, UC Berkeley).
Renny Pritikinwas co-director of New Langton Arts in San Francisco from 1979 to 1986 and executive director from 1986 until 1992. He was chief curator at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from 1992 to 2004. He was director of the Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection at UC Davis from 2004 until 2012. He was chief curator of The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco from 2014 until 2018. Career highlights include a lecture series in Japanese museums as a guest of the State Department in 1995. In 2003 he received a Fulbright Fellowship to lecture in museums throughout New Zealand. Pritikin is the author of five published books of poetry, most recently Westerns and Dramas, published by the Prelinger Library, where he was poet in residence (2020).
Maria Porgesis a writer and artist. Since the early ‘90s, her reviews, articles, and interviews have appeared in many publications, including Artforum, Art in America, Sculpture, the New York Times Book Review. She has also authored more than 150 exhibition essays and book contributions. The recipient of a SECA award from SFMOMA, her studio practice focuses on sculpture and works on paper; over 25 solo shows of her work have included exhibitions at galleries, museums, and alternative spaces across the country. Porges received a BA from Yale University and an MFA from the University of Chicago and has twice been in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She is currently a full professor at California College of the Arts.