Episode 7: Interview with Melissa Bianca Amore, an international curator, art critic and independent scholar based in New York.

©Photo courtesy of Chris Collie. Melissa Bianca Amore is an Australian/Italian international curator, art critic and independent scholar based in New York. Her primary area of exploration surrounds the study of phenomenology, the limitations of perceived space and interactive spatial aesthetics. A highly acclaimed critic and essayist, Amore has written for leading publications and authored exhibition catalogues since 2005.  Amore is currently a visiting critic and curator for selected organizations and academic institutions including Parsons School of Design, The New School University, New York; Residency Unlimited, New York and Art Omi Artists Residency, New York.Amore co-founded, alongside William Stover, a non-profit arts organization titled Re-Sited, which re-evaluates the architecture of “site” and the “conceptual space”- its materiality, particularities and relationship to the work of art. Re-Sited examines the spatial intersections between sculpture, architecture and space. The collaborative recently curated Traveling Spaces, a group exhibition that addressed ideas of “site” and “space” and questioned how we travel and move through space. The exhibition featured a series of site interventions and perceptual interruptions, which included works by Caroline Cloutier and Willem Besselink. In 2017, Re-Sited curated Sites of Knowledge at Jane Lombard Gallery, New York. Sites of Knowledge examined spatial semiotics and language as a visual structure of knowledge, and included works by Richard Artschwager, Henri Chopin, Sophie Tottie and Michael Rakowitz. Amore curated a solo exhibition titled ThreeFold, on Australian/American installation artist Natasha Johns-Messenger, at El Museo de Los Sures, in New York. ThreeFold was a large-scale site installation, an optical prism, predominantly made of mirrors and periscopic devices. Amore has also been the curatorial advisor for public art-work commissions both locally and in Australia, and continues today to advise for a private dealer based in New York City, alongside her curatorial projects.  In 2012, Amore was appointed the Creative Director and Senior Curator for a non-profit arts organization, NotFair, in Melbourne, Australia. NotFair is a curated art fair-launching emerging and undiscovered contemporary artists across the Asia Pacific Region. Amore curated a large-scale exhibition Bal Taschit Thou Shalt Not Destroy, in 2006, at the Jewish Museum of Australia. The exhibition featured over thirty-five artists who examined early scripture including, readings from the Torah, the Talmud and biblical prescriptions about structures of knowledge and the environment.  Amore held the position as Exhibition Manager and Artist Liaison at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, Australia for over seven years, where she managed Australia's most important contemporary artists. She received a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) in Art Criticism and Writing, at SVA, New York in 2014, and a Degree in Philosophy, History of Ideas, and a B.A in Creative Writing (Literature) and Art History (Minor) in 2005, Melbourne Australia, where she graduated with honors and also commenced a bachelor of psychology for two years.