Photo: Chus Martinez by Christoph Buhler

● Program Overview

Visiting Artist & Curator Lectures

These aren't polished panel talks. They're live, candid conversations with world-class artists and curators who are generous enough to pull back the curtain on their practice, their thinking, and how they got where they are. The Q&A welcomes your questions to be answered directly. And if you can't make it live, every session is recorded and archived so nothing is ever out of reach.

● Program Overview

What You’ll Learn

  • How artists and curators develop their work over time

  • How different practices take shape across contexts and conditions

  • How exhibitions, projects, and ideas come together behind the scenes

  • How artists and curators navigate opportunities and challenges

Program Structure

Meets every other Wednesday. Invites a different artist or curator each month across two separate sessions. Hosted by TAAS Founder, Nato Thompson.

Each session includes a 45-minute lecture followed by a 15-minute Q&A, creating space for direct exchange with the speaker.

All sessions are recorded and archived for ongoing access.

● Program Overview

Select Past Speakers

Jeanne Cooney

Executive director, creative time

Suzanne Lacy

internationally exhibited visual artist, social activist, educator, writer

Jonathan Carver Moore

GALLERIST

Defne Ayas

curator, lecturer, editor & Senior Program Advisor and Curator-at-Large for Performa

Larry Ossei-Mensah

CURATOR & CULTURAL CRITIC

Diya Vij

CURATOR & COMmissioner of NYC department of public affairs

Tania Bruguera

internationally renowned contemporary artist and activist

Sasha Stiles

award-winning Kalmyk-American poet, artist, and researcher

Chus Martinez

writer, curator & Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW

Alexandre Arrechea 

renowned Afro-Cuban artist

Marisa Jahn

ARTIST & CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Miguel A. Lopez

WRITER & CURATOR

Guadalupe Maravilla

transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, & healer

Jill Magid

American artist, writer, and filmmaker

Kate Fowle

CURATOR, AUTHOR & Director of the Arts Program at the Heartland Foundation
● Program Overview

Frequently Asked Questions

  • TAAS is for artists, curators, makers, and doers at every stage of their artistic life. Many of our members already have undergraduate or graduate art degrees. We believe strongly that this mixed-level experience is an incredible opportunity.

  • The uniqueness of TAAS is that our instructors are often working artists and curators with complex schedules, therefore you’ll see amazing artists come, go and return from quarter to quarter.

  • TAAS is not accredited — intentionally. We believe the most valuable art education happens in dialogue with working artists and curators, not through institutional checkboxes.

  • TAAS operates on Zoom embedded in a networking software that operates as our digital campus. The platform includes a variety of messaging options, profile pages for artists to represent themselves and their work, and clubs in which they can host break-out sessions outside of classes.

  • The Alternative Art School uses Mighty Networks as our online campus and platform. This media-based learning environment allows artists to collaborate, upload their work, and share across vast distances.

  • TAAS is an online school and students need access to a dependable wifi network and a desktop or laptop computer with a working webcam and microphone. Some students find Direct Ethernet cables helpful to boost connectivity if their wifi networks are unstable.

  • While TAAS is not a non-profit, we have a fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, that accepts donations on our behalf and offers a tax-deduction for all donations. We certainly encourage those with means and a big heart to support this initiative (see “Support” tab to donate.)