Jared Pappas-Kelley

Who is Jared Pappas-Kelley?

Jared Pappas-Kelley is an American curator, researcher, and visual artist. He studied at The Evergreen State College, Goddard College and the European Graduate School where he served as Graduate Teaching Assistant for both Jean-Luc Nancy and Paul D. Miller while completing his PhD. Pappas-Kelley also studied with filmmakers Claire Denis and Barbara Hammer whom he sites as influences on his visual work. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Sylvère Lotringer, examines the inherent instability of art objects, investigating what he terms “the thing that is not a thing” through an examination of events such as the 2004 Momart warehouse fire and the objects stolen and subsequently lost or destroyed by art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Much of his current research focuses on ideas of this instability of the art object and the intersection between practice and theory, examining art as a method for understanding the object’s coming together through its undoing. Developing these themes, he is currently organizing a group exhibition that he is co-curating with Natasha Chuk entitled Solvent Forms.