The Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art, established in 1994 by Madeleine Plonsker, Harvey Plonsker ’61 and their son, Ted Plonsker ’86, examines current issues in contemporary art.
Nestor Siré is a Cuban artist whose interdisciplinary work ranges across mediums such as video, public intervention, action art, installation, and multimedia. His practice grapples with questions of the social utility of art, the circulation of information, legal loopholes, memory and forgetfulness, alternative forms of economic production, and identity politics as they operate in the technological age. He has participated in the 12th Gwangju Biennale (South Korea), the Curitiba Biennia (Brazil), the Havana Bienal (Cuba), the Oberhausen International Festival of Short Film (Germany), and Asunción International Biennale (Paraguay), and his works have been shown at other venues including the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, UNAM Museum of Contemporary Art, México City, México, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, Argentina. Siré lives and works between Havana and Camagüey.
Neil Leonard is a sound artist, saxophonist, and composer who has performed and recorded with artists including Terence Blanchard, Juan Blanco, Joanne Brackeen, Richard Devine, Vijay Iyer, Phill Niblock, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner), Stephen Vitiello, Hal Wilner and Amnon Wolman. Leonard’s work with visual artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons spans twenty-nine years. Their collaborative performance, film, video and installations were featured by documenta 14, 11 Havana Bienal (Cuba), 49th and 55th Venice Biennale (Italy), and the Museum of Modern Art (NYC). His sound composition “Lavender Ruins” can be heard in Fujiko Nakaya’s large scale fog installation at Overlook Shelter in Franklin Park, Boston, MA. Leonard is the Artistic Director of the Interdisciplinary Arts Institute, at Berklee College of Music.
Miguel Nuñez has worked for 40 years as a pianist, composer, arranger and band director for some of the greatest Cuban musicians, including Chucho Valdés, Pablo Milanes, Silvio Rodríguez, Isaac Delgado (N.G la Banda), Leo Brower, Omara Portuondo (Buena Vista Social Club), Yoruba Andabo (leading Afrocuban folklore group in Havana). Nuñez also performed with Luis Represas (Portugal) Mafalda Veiga (Portugal) Fito Páez (Argentina), Mercedes Sosa (Argentina), Milton Nascimento (Brasil), Víctor Manuel (Spain), Soledad Bravo (Venezuela), Lucecita Benítez (Puerto Rico), Joan Manuel Serrat (Spain), Luis E. Aute (Spain), Joaquín Sabina (Spain). As a pianist/band director, Nuñez has toured in more that 30 countries including the USA, Puerto Rico, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Canada, Spain, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and Paraguay, among others.