Ron Platt is the Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art. As curator he develops and implements long term goals and objectives for the BMA’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, organizes and implements exhibitions, and oversees collections development. Prior to joining the BMA, Platt was Curator of Exhibitions at the Weatherspoon Art Museum (1999-2004), the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (1996-1999); and Assistant Curator at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center (1992-96).

Among the nearly fifty exhibitions and/or residencies Platt has organized include shows with Jim Hodges (which traveled to Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery; Austin Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland); Luca Buvoli; Yasumasa Morimura and Gajin Fujita; Sheila Pepe; Amy Pleasant, Dona Nelson; Tom Friedman (traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Aspen Art Museum; Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York); Inigo Manglano-Ovalle; Whitfield Lovell; and Maria Fernanda Cardosa, and an upcoming project with Dawoud Bey. Thematic group exhibitions include LA Tattoo: 1950-1990, for the Craft and Folk Art Museum of Los Angeles (2012); Borne of Necessity; Lab Results: Three Artists’ Residencies in the Sciences; and Face to Face: Recent Abstract Painting.

Platt’s related professional activities include serving as juror for “American Painting 2009” (also 2003), and for Magic City Art Connection, 2007; curator for Tattoos and Contemporary Culture for the Asheville Art Museum (2006); as panelist for Creative Capital’s Artists Grants and for the Altoids, “Curiously Strong Collection.” Platt is an inaugural member of the American Contemporary Curator’s Council (2001-), and served from 2000-2002 on the Étant donnés Artistic Committee.

Platt holds degrees from Lesley College, Cambridge, (MBA in Arts Administration); and the University of Maryland, College Park. (BA in American Studies)

John Ravenal is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Since coming to VMFA in 1998, Ravenal’s exhibitions have included Vanitas: Meditations on Life and Death in Contemporary Art; Outer & Inner Space, a history of video art; Robert Lazzarini’s first solo museum exhibition; and Artificial Light, displayed at VCUarts Anderson Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami.

From 1991-1998, Ravenal worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he was Associate Curator of Twentieth-Century Art. His exhibitions there included commissioned projects by Sherrie Levine, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long, and Rirkrit Tiravanija; a retrospective of paintings and drawings by Sidney Goodman; and the first United States museum exhibition by Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. Ravenal earned his MA and M.Phil. in Art History from Columbia University.

Dr. Jack Cowart, Executive Director, was previously Deputy Director/Chief Curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1992-1999); Head of Department of 20th Century Art at the National Gallery of Art (1983-1992); and held prior museum curatorial posts in St. Louis and Hartford. Receiving his Ph.D. in the history of art from The Johns Hopkins University (1972), Dr. Cowart is a widely published and recognized authority on Roy Lichtenstein and Henri Matisse as well as on other American and European 20th-century modern and contemporary art and artists. The French Ministry of Culture and Communication awarded him a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001.

Michael Rooks joined the High Museum as Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in January 2010. Besides his responsibilities at the High, Rooks was appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2010. Prior to joining the High Museum, Mr. Rooks held curator positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. At Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Rooks curated numerous monographic exhibitions including Roy Lichtenstein: Interiors and H. C. Westermann for which he co-authored Westermann’s catalogue raisonné. MCA exhibitions included solo shows and artist book projects by Gregg Bordowitz and AA Bronson. His thematic exhibitions at MCA include the first major response to the Iraq war in 2003 titled War What Is It Good For? As curator at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu Rooks initiated Hawaii’s first international artist project series with major outdoor works by Taiwanese artist Michael Lin and British artist Paul Morrison, and Rooks introduced new artists to the state of Hawaii through original and traveling exhibitions.