KAWS is a Brooklyn-based contemporary artist who has achieved widespread recognition for his graphic style and iconic characters. Born in 1974, in Jersey City, New Jersey, KAWS received his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts New York in 1996. He began his career as a graffiti artist on the East Coast of the United States, where he developed some of the forms that would later become part of his signature iconography. Working in a wide range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and product design, KAWS’s practice transgresses borders between “high” and “low” culture, questions the conventional hierarchies of the art world establishment, and seeks to democratize the way art is experienced for a new generation. Fulfilling the promise of predecessors such as Duchamp and Warhol, KAWS has reinvented that legacy for the 21st century and taps into the zeitgeist of contemporary life.

Liz Munsell is a contemporary art curator with two decades of experience at major art museums, university galleries, and non-profits. Currently based in New York, she has held curatorial leadership roles at the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Harvard University. Munsell has organized dozens of exhibitions, performances, and commissioned projects with artists including Joan Jonas, Jeffrey Gibson, Bouchra Khalili, and Pedro Reyes. Her most recent exhibitions include the group exhibition of emerging artists “Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration,” at the Jewish Museum (2024); “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” at the MFA (2020-21) and “Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,” at the Brooklyn Museum and the MFA (2017-18).

In 2021, Munsell co-founded Museums Moving Forward — a research and advocacy organization dedicated to creating a more equitable art museum sector. She currently serves on MMF’s Editorial Council and on the advisory boards of foundations dedicated to supporting artists. Munsell is fluent in Spanish and spent four years in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar and graduate student researching public art. She holds a BA from Tufts University and a Masters in Cultural Studies from the Universidad de Chile.

Natasha Schlesinger is an award-winning art historian, art advisor and curator who has worked in the art field for over 25 years. Beginning as a specialist at Christie’s auction house in New York, in 2003 Schlesinger founded Artmuse to provide art guidance, curation and advisory services to private and corporate clients as well as collaborations with brands. She has served as the Art Curator of The Surrey Hotel and since 2018 Schlesinger has curated numerous group exhibitions and charity auctions at various galleries, the Baryshnikov Arts Center andCore Club. She frequently lectures, participates on panels and has taught at the graduate program of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and New School. In 2020 she co-founded a curatorial platform Space2Curate and in 2021 she has launched a new digital art marketplace called Artmuse Collector that bridges the gap between traditional artists and collectors and the digital art world.