Public Conversation: Martin Puryear on Art, Form, and Connection

Martin Puryear was born in Washington, DC. Since his first solo exhibition in 1968, he has exhibited internationally and completed public commissions across Europe, Asia, and the United States. His work was featured in Documenta 9, and in 1989 he represented the United States at the São Paulo Bienal, where he received the festival’s Grand Prize. In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized a major survey of his work that traveled to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In 2015, the Art Institute of Chicago organized an exhibition of fifty years of his works on paper, which traveled to the Morgan Library & Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Puryear received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989, a National Medal of Arts in 2011, and represented the United States at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. 

Michael Rooks is known as an art curator dedicated to community building and engaging audiences across generations from every walk of life. He joined the High Museum of Art as Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in January 2010. In 2024, he was promoted to senior curator. In addition to his responsibilities at the High, Rooks served as commissioner and cocurator of Workshopping: An American Model of Architectural Practice at the US Pavilion, 12th International Architecture Exhibition, and La Biennale di Venezia (2010). He is also an independent writer.