Hilton Als is a theater critic for the New Yorker and the author of Women and Justin Bond/Jackie Curtis. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for creative writing in 2000 and has taught at Smith College, Wesleyan, and Yale University. Artist Kara Walker is known for her candid investigation of race, gender, sexuality, and violence through silhouetted figures. Walker was also the first artist to be featured in the museum's Hammer Projects series in 1999.