Cristina Acidini received her Bachelor of Arts with honors in March 1977 from Florence University. In 1981, Dr. Acidini was a visiting member at SUNY College in Plattsburgh, New York and in 1997, as an Eisenhower Fellow, she visited more than 70 museums in the U.S., reporting her experience in a book. As a High Officer of the Italian Ministry for Art and Culture, she has been Deputy Superintendent of the Museum and Artistic Heritage State Board for Florence Area (1991-1999) and Responsible of the Italian Museum Standards Committee. From 2000 to 2008 she was Director of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, a State Institute specialized in research, conservation, and restoration of works of art. Playing a major role as an art and conservation expert and in accordance with her cabinet appointments, Dr. Acidini is a member of committees and working teams in Italy and abroad for the management of cultural events, symposia, and exhibitions. She carried out original research about Renaissance art and is author of books and essays. In February 2006, she was in Brussels as Temporary Independent Expert of the European Commission for Cultcom 2000. Since October 1st, 2006 she is in charge of the state museum system in the Florence area as Soprintendente of Polo Museale Fiorentino.

Bruce Altshuler is Director of the Program in Museum Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University. From 1992 to 1998 he was Director of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Long Island City, New York. Altshuler is the author of Biennials and Beyond: Exhibitions that Made Art History, 1962-2002 (2013), Salon to Biennial: Exhibitions that Made Art History, 1863-1959 (2008), The Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New Art in the 20th Century (1994) and the monograph Isamu Noguchi (1994), and editor of Collecting the New: Museums and Contemporary Art (2005) and Isamu Noguchi: Essays and Conversations (1994). He has lectured internationally and written extensively about modern and contemporary art, exhibition history, curatorial issues and the history of museums, including catalog essays for exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Japan Society, Fundacion Juan March, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Vitra Design Museum and Independent Curators International. Altshuler has 
been a member of the graduate faculty of the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies and the Board of Directors of the International Association of Art Critics/United States Section.

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi is Chairman of the Board of SNAM and Vice Chairman of the Board of Societe Generale. He is also Visiting Scholar at Harvard´s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and at the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome. He chairs the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Italian Chapter of the Alumni of the University of Chicago. From June 2005 to December 2011 he was a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank. During that period he acted as G7 and G20 Deputy for the euro area. October 1998 he became Director General for International Affairs in the Italian Treasury. He has been the Chairman of the Board of SACE Spa, and member of the Boards of Finmeccanica, MTS, the European Investment Bank, Morgan Stanley International. He holds a Bachelor´s Degree in Economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D from the University of Chicago. He is author of several articles and books on international and European monetary and financial issues. He has recently published “Austerity, European Democracies against the Wall” (CEPS, July 2013) and “33 false verità sull’Europa” (Il Mulino, April 2014). He is currently member of the A-List of Commentators for the Financial Times.

Claire Brandon is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary art and is nearing the completion of her dissertation, “Spaces of Art in the Exhibition Age: A Source of Urban Transformation in Italy, 1970-2013.” She is the recipient of several awards, most recently the Global Research Institute Fellowship at NYU (2014), the Gladys Krieble Delmas Grant for Research in the Veneto (2014 and 2013), and the Mellon Digital Tools Workshop Grant at NYU (2013). In 2008, Claire graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College, where she studied abroad at Université d’Aix-Marseille III, wrote her thesis on Sophie Calle’s “Prenez Soin de Vous” (2007), and received the Elinor Nahm prize in Italian Language and Literature. She has held internships at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (2007) and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (2009). In 2010, she co-founded the Colloquium for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Middle East and South Asia at the Institute of Fine Arts. She served as editorial and research assistant in Bice Curiger, ed., Illuminations/ Illuminazioni: Biennale Arte 2011 (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2011) and was an essayist in Sarah Urist Green, ed., Graphite (Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2013). In 2014, she was a fellow in the inaugural Center for Curatorial Leadership/ Mellon Foundation Seminar in New York. Claire is currently editing a catalogue raisonné of Shahzia Sikander’s work. One of their interviews on Sikander’s most recent animation, Parallax (2013), was published in Cecilia Andersson, ed., Shahzia Sikander / Parallax, Bildmuseet Umeå and Kunsthal Nicolaj Copenhagen (Bildmuseet Umeå, 2014).

Edwin Chan received his Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. After graduation, Edwin joined Frank O. Gehry & Associates in Los Angeles and has collaborated with Mr. Gehry as Design Partner on many of the firm’s most significant cultural and institutional projects, including the Opus Residential Tower in Hong Kong, China; an office building for Novartis International in Basel, Switzerland; The Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio; the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, opening in October, 2014. Chan has served as visiting professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and was appointed the Howard Friedman Professor of Practice at UC Berkeley in Fall 2012. Chan has been recognized with many awards and distinctions, including the honor of “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” from the Republic of France. In January 2012, he launched his independent architectural and design studio - EC3. Based in Los Angeles, EC3 is founded on the principle to Empower Cross-disciplinary Collaboration in Creativity.

Stefano Chiodi is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at Università Roma Tre. He has published essays on the contemporary artistic practices including La bellezza difficile (2008) and Una sensibile differenza (2006). He has edited several books, including Ai Weiwei, Il Blog (2012); Spazio (with D. Dardi, 2010); Marcel Duchamp. Critica, biografia, mito (2009); Achille Bonito Oliva, Il territorio magico (2009); Franco Cordelli, Il poeta postumo (2008); Annisettanta (with M. Belpoliti e G. Canova, 2007); Odilon Redon, A se stesso (2000). He has curated exhibitions in museums and public spaces, including Marina Ballo Charmet. Sguardo terrestre, MACRO, Rome 2013; Mircea Cantor, Sic transit gloria Mundi; Marcello Maloberti, Blitz; Vettor Pisani (con B. Pietromarchi), MACRO, Rome 2012; Monica Haller. The Veterans Book Project, Nomas Foundation, Rome 2011; ZimmerFrei. Campo largo, MAMbo, Bologna 2011; Giulia Piscitelli, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome 2011; Olaf Nicolai, Ferrara 2008; vedovamazzei, MADRE, Napoli 2006. He has organized symposia (Harald Szeemann in context, Venezia 2011; Le funzioni del museo, Roma 2009) and hosted cultural radio shows for Radio3 RAI. He is co-editor of www.doppiozero.com.

Bruce L. Edelstein is an art historian. At NYU Florence he is Coordinator for Graduate Programs and Advanced Research and serves on the Academic Advisory Committee. He is Affiliated Faculty in the department of Italian Studies at NYU. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1995 after completing a dissertation on the patronage of Duchess of Florence Eleonora di Toledo, a reflection of his broader interest in mechanisms of court patronage and the exercise of female authority in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy. He has held teaching positions at the Florida State University Florence Study Center, Syracuse University in Italy and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachussets During the academic year 2001-2002, he was a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti. In 2014, he was named Honorary Member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno di Firenze. His publications include articles on Eleonora di Toledo’s investment policy, the typology of the Albertian hortus, the hydraulic system of the lost Neapolitan villa of Poggioreale as a model for sixteenth-century Medici gardens, the iconography of Abundance in the courtly persona of Eleonora di Toledo and the mid-sixteenth-century appearance and function of the Camera Verde in the Palazzo Vecchio. At present, he is completing a book on the early history of the Boboli Gardens.

Francesco Garofalo is Professor of Design at the Faculty of Architecture in Pescara and previously taught at the Venice School of Architecture. He has written a guide to Italian Architecture, two books on Adalberto Libera and one on Steven Holl, which have been translated in the United States. In 2008, he published his first collection of essays Architettura scritta and was appointed curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He was the professional advisor and writer for the MAXXI Museum, the National Gallery of Modern Art extension, and the Pinacoteca di Brera masterplan. His firm, Garofalo Miura Architetti, completed two churches and several exhibition spaces in Rome. Current projects include the renovation of the Berenson Library at the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies in Fiesole and a museum in Sardinia.

Romy Golan is professor of 20th century art at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her recent publications include Muralnomad: The Paradox of Wall Painting, Europe 1927-1957 (Yale University Press, 2009); “Flashbacks and Eclipses in Italian Art in the 1960s,” Grey Room 49 (Fall 2012): 102-27; “The Scene of a Disappearance,” Giosetta Fioroni: L’Argento, The Drawing Center, 2013; “Slow Time: The Futurist Mural,” Italian Futurism: 1909-1944, Solomon Guggenheim Museum, 2014; “Campo Urbano,” in “Radical Pedagogies,” Biennale di Architettura, Venice, 2014; and “Vitalità del Negativo/Negativo della Vitalità,” forthcoming in October150 (winter 2014). She is currently completing a book on Italian Art in the 1960s structured around two non-linear forms of temporality: the flashback and the eclipse. 

Hou Hanru is a prolific writer and curator based in Rome, Paris and San Francisco. He is currently the Artistic Director of MAXXI (National Museum for 21st Century Art and National Museum of Architecture), Rome, Italy. He received degrees from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in the 1980s and moved from China to France in 1990. After working as an independent curator and critic based in Paris, he became Director of Exhibitions and Public Program and Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies, at San Francisco Art Institute from 2006 to 2012. Hou Hanru has curated and co-curated around 100 exhibitions for last two decades across the world including: “China/Avant-Garde" (National Museum of Art of China, Beijing, 1989), “Cities On The Move" (1997–2000), The 2nd Johannesburg Biennial (Hong Kong, etc.) (1997), Shanghai Biennale (2000), Gwangju Biennale (2002), Venice Biennale (French Pavilion, 1999, Z.O.U. -- Zone Of Urgency, 2003, Chinese Pavilion, 2007), Nuit Blanche (2004, Paris), the 2nd Guangzhou Triennial (2005), the 2nd Tirana Biennial (2005), The 10th Istanbul Biennial (2007), "Global Multitude" (Luxembourg 2007), "Trans(cient)City" (Luxembourg 2007), EV+A 2008 (Limerick), "The 10th Biennale de Lyon" (2009), "By Day, By Night, or some (special) things a museum can do" (Rockbund Art Museum, Rockbund, Shanghai, 2010), "Power of Doubt" (PhotoEspagna 2010, Madrid, Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2011), “Dirty Realism, Liu Xiaodong in Hotan” (organized by Today Art Museum, Beijing, Urumqi, 2012, Beijing, 2013), “Zizhiqu – Autonomous Regions” (Times Museum, Guangzhou, 2013), etc. “If you were to live here...” – The 5th Auckland Triennial, Auckland, New Zealand, May – August 2013. His books include “On the Mid-Ground” (English version published in 2002, by Timezone 8, Hong Kong, and Chinese version published in 2013, by Gold Wall Press, Beijing), “Curatorial Challenges” (conversations between Hou  Hanru and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, in “Art-It magazine” as “curators on the move”, Japan, 2006-2012, Chinese version, Gold Wall Press, Beijing, 2013).

Mario Mainetti graduated with a degree in Architecture from the Politecnico in Milan and started collaborating with Fondazione Prada in 2000, where he currently serves as head of research and curator. He contributed a number of publications and exhibitions for major artists, such as Marc Quinn, Enrico Castellani, Tom Friedman, Barry McGee, Giulio Paolini, Tom Sachs, Tobias Rehberger, and John Baldessari in Milan and Francesco Vezzoli, Thomas Demand and John Wesley in Venice. Furthermore, he contributed to the set-up of Steve McQueen’s exhibition in Milan, Nathalie Djurberg’s installation for Rem Koolhaas’ “Prada Transformer” in Seoul, and artist Carsten Höller’s “Double Club” in London. Recently, he has collaborated with Germano Celant as Associate Curator on the following exhibitions: “The Small Utopia: Ars Multiplicata”, focused on the production of artist’s multiples in the 20th century, “When Attitudes Become Form”, a reconstruction of the seminal exhibition curated by Harald Szeeman in Bern in 1969, and “Art or Sound,” an historical exploration of the relationship between musical instruments and works of art analyzed within a multisensory exhibition perspective.

Maria Grazia Messina is the Chair of History of Contemporary Art, University of Florence and the Head of the Doctoral School of History of Visual and Performing Arts, Universities of Florence, Pisa, and Siena. She was a member of the Scientific Committeee of the Fondazione Torino Musei from 2003 to 2013. She is now a member of the Scientific Committee of the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci Prato and of the Museo del ‘900, Milan.

Renato Miracco is an author of books, catalogues, and articles on a variety of cultural subjects and has curated more than 100 exhibitions. He has curated for London’s Estorick Collection, New York’s Metropolitan Museum’s Giorgio Morandi show, and in 2005 he was guest curator for Modern Italian Art at Tate Modern, London. He has directed New York’s Italian Cultural Institute for two years, he is a counsellor for the Scientific Committee of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies since 2006, and since 2010 he is the Cultural Attaché for the Italian Embassy in Washington DC. He is the supervising curator of all of the Embassy’s exhibitions in the United States. He organized the 2013 year of Italian culture in the United States, which included more than 300 events, as well as the Italy@150 program, for which he created a calendar of events known as “Italian Treasures in the U.S.”, organized in partnership with more than 80 American museums. He was instrumental in negotating a “Memorandum of Understanding on Archaeology” between the governments of Italy and the United States, and he recieved the Green Card for Exceptional Ability from President Obama. In 2013 Capital File Magazine has listed him as one of the most influential people in Washington DC.

Beatrice Trussardi chairs the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, a private foundation that organizes and produces major contemporary art exhibitions by internationally renowned artists. It is conceived like a nomadic museum which works specifically with forgotten and often inaccessible buildings, monuments, and landmarks around Milan, reopening and restoring them to the city and to art lovers. Over the last decade, under her leadership, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has become a unique model that is admired around the world. Beatrice Trussardi is active in national and international organizations and research groups. She is on the board of MAXXI - Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome, and is currently President of the Friends of Aspen at Aspen Institute Italy. In 2005, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of its Young Global Leaders, becoming Founding Curator of the Milan Hub for the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community in 2012. Since 2007, she has been on the Women’s Leadership Board of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Until 2014, she served the family company, Trussardi, with various positions and responsibilities, including ten years as its President and CEO. Her innovative business philosophy helped Trussardi Group grow into a leading player on the international scene, as well as a symbol of the quality, creativity, history and tradition, and future of Italian fashion. Born in 1971, Beatrice Trussardi earned her degree in Contemporary Art Business & Administration from New York University while working at some of New York’s leading museums, such as the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan, and the Museum of Modern Art.