On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, Mitchell/Riopelle: Nothing in Moderation, join AGO Assistant Curator of Modern Art Kenneth Brummel, art historian Ray Ellenwood, art advisor David Moos, and Joan Mitchell Foundation Director of Archives and Research Laura Morris in a conversation that will bring to light the artists’ rich dialogue around abstract painting, providing insights into their respective practices and oeuvres. 

Mitchell/Riopelle: Nothing in Moderation is the first exhibition devoted to an examination of the works Joan Mitchell (American, 1925–1992) and Jean Paul Riopelle (Canadian, 1923–2002) produced during their 24-year relationship together.

Kenneth Brummel is the coordinating curator of Mitchell/Riopelle: Nothing in Moderation and the Assistant Curator of Modern Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. A specialist in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American art, he has worked in curatorial capacities at the Cincinnati Art Museum, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He completed his graduate work at Harvard University and The University of Chicago, where he was a PhD student in art history.  His recent publications include essays on Joan Mitchell and Jean Paul Riopelle, Andy Warhol, and Anthony Caro.

Ray Ellenwood is Professor Emeritus of York University and author of Egregore: A History of the Montreal  Automatist Movement (Toronto:  Exile Editions, 1992; French translation by Jean Antonin Billard published by Kétoupa Édition in 2014).  Besides this book, he has written articles on the painters, writers, and dancer-choreographers, of the Automatist group, as well as translating texts by and on them, including their famous 1948 manifesto Refus global/Total Refusal.  Most recently, he has written "Masks, the North, and New Configurations," an extensive essay on Jean Paul Riopelle that will be included in Volume Five of the catalogue raisonné of Riopelle's work now being prepared for publication by Yseult Riopelle. 

David Moos is an art adviser based in Toronto, Canada. He received his M.A. and Ph.D in art history from Columbia University, New York. From 1998 to 2004, Moos was the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, where he organized the exhibitions Jonathan Lasker: Selective Identity (2000) and Radcliffe Bailey: The Magic City (2001), and the symposium “Relationships in Abstract Expressionism,” that examined creative dialogue among leading painters at mid-century and coincided with “The Paintings of Joan Mitchell,” a retrospective exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum. From 2004 to 2011, Moos served as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where he organized The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art, 1950-2005 (2005) and Julian Schnabel: Art and Film (2010). Moos is a past contributing editor to Art Papers and Art US.

Laura Morris is Director of Archives and Research at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, where she oversees the Foundation’s archival and artwork collections and provides research support to exhibitions, publications, and other projects focused on Mitchell. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and Simmons College, and studied painting at the Marchutz School of Fine Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France. Prior to joining the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Laura worked as an Archivist for the Harvard Art Museums, the Harvard University Archives, and the New York Public Library.

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