A panel discussion considering the roles and responsibilities of museums as cultural dialogue takes on a new urgency in diverse national contexts. How do museums engage with and reflect the world they inhabit?  

Richard Armstrong has served as the Director of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum and Foundation since November 2008.  Armstrong works with senior staff to maximize all aspects of the Foundation’s operations: permanent collections, exhibition programs, acquisitions, documentation, scholarship, and conservation.  Previously, Armstrong was The Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, where he also served as Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art.  From 1981 to 1992, he was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he organized four Biennials, as well as several other exhibitions. 

Adrian Ellis is a global thought leader in international arts and culture whose work spans the fields of cultural strategy, policy, and economics. He is Founding Director of AEA Consulting, one of the world's leading arts, culture and entertainment consulting firms. Prior to founding AEA, he served as Executive Director of The Conran Foundation in London, where he planned and managed the creation of the Design Museum.

Tiffany Jenkins (@tiffanyjenkins) is an academic, broadcaster and columnist, and author of Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There. She has been a visiting fellow at LSE, Department of Law and was previously the director of the Arts and Society Programme at the Institute of Ideas. 

JJ Charlesworth (@jjcharlesworth) is an art critic, writer and commentator.  JJ studied fine art at Goldsmiths College, London, in the mid-1990s, before turning his hand to criticism. His writing on artists, reviews and commentaries on art, culture and politics have appeared in many publications including ArtReview, Art Monthly,Flash Art, Modern Painters, Time Out London, the Daily Telegraphand online platforms art-agenda and ArtNet News. Since 2006 has worked on the editorial staff of ArtReview, and is currently the magazine's publisher. He has lectured and taught extensively, and in 2016 completed his PhD - a study of art criticism in Britain during the 1970s.

Just economics and politics? Think again. While LSE does not teach arts or music, there is a vibrant cultural side to the School - from weekly free music concerts in the Shaw Library, and an LSE orchestra and choir with their own professional conductors, various film, art and photographic student societies, the annual LSE photo prize competition, the LSE Literary Festival and artist-in-residence projects. For more information please view the LSE Arts website.   

Founded in 1949, ArtReview (@ArtReview_) is one of the world’s leading international contemporary art magazines, dedicated to expanding contemporary art’s audience and reach. Aimed at both a specialist and a general audience, the magazine features a mixture of criticism, reviews, reportage and specially commissioned artworks, and offers the most established, in-depth and intimate portrait of international contemporary art in all its shapes and forms. 

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