Christa Blatchford, Chief Executive Officer at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Meredith Johnson, Curator, Creative Time, and Risë Wilson, Director of Philanthropy, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, speak about their careers and experiences as producers, curators, and stewards of creative work and public engagement.
Members: $5 / Nonmembers: $15
TICKETS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR THIS EVENT.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Christa Blatchford is the Chief Executive Officer for the Joan Mitchell Foundation, overseeing the Foundation’s strategic vision and program administration across two sites, one in New York and one in New Orleans. Before joining the Joan Mitchell Foundation, she spent three years as a Program Officer at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), providing a variety of professional development opportunities for artists. She has also worked with a range of non-profit visual arts organizations including Eyebeam and Minetta Brook, where she contributed to critically acclaimed programs such as Robert Smithson’s Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Hunter College. An artist herself, Blatchford has exhibited her artwork throughout New England and has taught at Hunter’s undergraduate Art Department.
Meredith Johnson is Curator at Creative Time, where she has organized such projects as Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways, Pae White’s Self Roaming, and Stephen Vitiello’s A Bell for Every Minute, among many others. She spearheaded a series of artist chef collaborations in 2011 at Park Avenue, including interventions by Marina Abramović, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Janine Antoni, and Michael Rakowitz, and in 2012 co-curated a series of ten commissioned video works for MTV’s Art Breaks, presented by Creative Time, MoMA PS1 and MTV. Johnson has also led Creative Time’s advising on arts programming nationally in cities such as Louisville, Seattle, New York, Dallas, and Chicago. Previously, Johnson was a curator at Artists Space in New York and was the Assistant Director at Minetta Brook. Meredith holds a BA in Art from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and an MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts.
Risë Wilson is the inaugural Director of Philanthropy at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. In this role, she is leading the organization through a new phase of charitable giving that supports work at the intersection of art and positive social change. Before joining the Rauschenberg Foundation, she was Program Director for LINC, a 10-year initiative created to strengthen the support structure for individual artists. She has also held positions at the Ford Foundation, Parsons, ICP, and MoMA. Wilson is also the founder of The Laundromat Project, which mounts public art projects and other programs in local coin-ops to amplify the creative power available in places like Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and the South Bronx. A pioneer in “creative placemaking,” Risë has received many honors, including an Echoing Green fellowship. She holds a BA from Columbia University and an MA from NYU, where she studied the Black Radical Imagination. Every now and then she makes linocuts and serigraphs.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Colleagues and Friends Breakfast series invites established women in the art world to have conversations about their current positions, career paths, and professional relationships. The program is generously hosted by artnet at their headquarters in the Woolworth Building.
