Pilar Tompkins is curator of the Claremont Museum of Art located in Los Angeles County. In 2006 she was a founding director and curator of the MexiCali Biennial, a bi-national art exhibition and music event transcending the socio-political and physical constraints of the US/Mexico border. She currently sits on the program committee for Outpost for Contemporary Art, whose 2007-2008 cycle of video screenings, artist residencies, and exhibitions features artists from Eastern and Central Europe. Recent projects include Latitude: Patterns for Orchestrating Domain at LA Art Core in October 2007. In 2003-2004 she served as co-chair for the Los Angeles County Museum¹s Graphic Art Council Advisory Board.

Ms. Tompkins has a commercial gallery background and has held positions as director of leading contemporary spaces The Project, MC and Anna Helwing Gallery. She has worked with established artists from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia including Julie Mehretu, Aernout Mik, Paul Pfeiffer, Jose Damasceno and Mark Bradford. Ms. Tompkins received degrees in Latin American Art History and in Art from the university of Texas at Austin. She supplemented her education with studies in Italy at Studio Art Centers International, in Brazil at Universidade de São Paolo and Universidade Federal da Bahia, and in Mexico at Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende.

María Inés Rodríguez was born in Colombia. She is an independent curator currently working in Paris. Ms. Rodríguez studied Fine Arts at the University de Los Andes in Bogotá and did post-graduate work at the Ecole Superieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva. Among her most recent exhibition projects are the Bocas de Ceniza/ Juan Manuel Echavarria, at the Alliance Française, Bogota; 100% Colombia Urbaine, Paris; Moderno Salvaje – Alexander Apostol at the Commercial Gallery, San Juan; De lo mismo a lo de siempre: Informal Strategies to Appropriate Public Space at UNIA Sevilla, Espagne; From Representation to Action at ExTeresa, Mexico City; and Lost Illusions? at the V Biennal del Caribe, at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo.

An accomplished editor, Ms. Rodríguez has organized and participated in various conferences and exhibitions, such as Tropical Table Party, Santa Monica Art Center, Barcelona; Filière Papier, Filière Expo, CEC, Genève; Living-room, La Rebeca, Bogota; Yes, en cualquier lugar puede suceder {PR’02}, 8 signs – 8 days, M&M projects, San Juan.

In addition, she created Tropical paper editions in 2004, and published Instant City and Bogotham City-- newspapers exploring problems confronting the contemporary city. She contributes articles to magazines including A-42, Atlántica, Latinart.com, Les inrockuptibles, Beaux Arts Magazine and Art Press. Ms. Rodriguez is currently working on projects including Bermuda Triangle for the Ecole de Beaux Arts de Paris, Vassiviere, the Legend for the Center of Art and Landscape of Vassiviere, in France, and Silenciosamente for the Contemporary Art Center of Chacao in Venezuela.