Photograph: Lisa Predko
(Left to right) Dorin, Molon, Stewart, and Peters hanging out in Gallery 400 with an installation-in-progress by multimedia artist Edgar Arceneaux

Lisa Dorin
Assistant curator, contemporary art, Art Institute of Chicago
Dossier: Master’s degree in art history from Williams College, the alma mater of Dorin’s boss, James Rondeau; previously assistant curator of the Williams College Museum of Art
To watch: Chinese video artist and photographer Cao Fei; political drawings by African American Zoë Charlton
Contemporary art, defined: “Art [being made today] seems more fractured and less movement oriented. Individual [artists] are taking on the role of the movement.”

Dominic Molon
Pamela Alper Associate Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art
Dossier: Former MCA guard; returned as a curatorial assistant after completing his master’s degree at SUNY Stony Brook
To watch: Polish painter Paulina Olowska; Brooklyn video artist Slater Bradley
Contemporary art, defined: “Anything being made in the moment-and anything that relates to current practices in art. Andy Warhol has contemporary currency because his innovations and influence are still so strongly felt in a lot of new art.”

Lorelei Stewart
Director, Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago
Dossier: Studied at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College
To watch: L.A. artist Edgar Arceneaux; New York painter Cheyney Thompson
Contemporary art, defined: “Are we in an appropriation moment? Are we still re-evaluating modernism? I think some [new art] is trying to figure out what we’re doing, which can be a perfectly valid place to be. It’s not the definitive statement that’s interesting-it’s the exploration that’s interesting.”

Allison Peters
Director of exhibitions, Hyde Park Art Center
Dossier: Graduate work at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College
To watch: West Coast conceptual artist Stuart Keeler; Nigerian sculptor and performance artist Denenge Akpem
Contemporary art, defined: “Contemporary work is fragmented-artists are using man-made, commercial, or found objects to compose one big piece. It’s as if they are reflecting the broken nature of contemporary life-we’re constantly multitasking and playing different roles at a moment’s notice.”