Susan Sollins
Executive Director
Susan Sollins, Executive Producer and Curator of
Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century, has been well known in the field of contemporary art for more than 30 years for her innovations in public programming and museum education, and as a curator. In addition to her work for many art institutions as a curator and consultant, Sollins is the co-founder and Executive Director Emerita of Independent Curators International (ICI), a nonprofit organization that develops, organizes, and circulates traveling exhibitions of contemporary art presenting a broad range of recent trends and aesthetic concerns to viewers nationwide and abroad. During her 21-year tenure, ICI’s 75 exhibitions featuring more than 1,700 artists were seen at more than 360 institutions and alternative spaces in the US, Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Sollins was formerly the Visual Arts Consultant for Thirteen/WNET’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning arts magazine City Arts; serves on the Boards of the MacDowell Colony and ICI, and has been a panelist for the NEA, NYSCA, and New York’s Percent for Art program. Early in her career, Sollins was the Curator of Education (Chief, Museum Programs) at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, and Curator of its Discovery Gallery, which showcased contemporary art. In her private life, as the wife of the late composer Earle Brown she has been actively involved in the world of contemporary music for many years.
Eve-Laure Moros Ortega
Associate Director
Eve-Laure Moros Ortega, Series Producer of the
Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century television series, has worked in film and television for more than 15 years on documentaries and independent feature films. Prior to her work on
Art in the Twenty-First Century she worked on projects with Oscar-winning directors Deborah Dickson and Bill Fertik , MacArthur Fellow Yvonne Rainer, Amir Naderi, and Curious Pictures, among others. Moros Ortega holds a B.A. in Political Science and Art History from Barnard College, where she was awarded honors for her work on postmodern art, and an M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University. She has been a panelist for NYSCA, and is also the Producer/Director of
Made in Thailand, a documentary about women factory workers in Thailand who are struggling to form labor unions.
Made in Thailand, funded by the Soros Open Society Institute, the Jerome Foundation, and others, was nominated by the International Documentary Association as best documentary short, and is currently distributed by Women Make Movies, as well as through a grassroots outreach campaign funded by the Paul Robeson Fund.
Migs Wright
Associate Producer
Since joining Art21 in 1997, Migs Wright has worked on many facets of the Art21 organization. In addition to her role as Associate Producer of the
Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century television series, Wright also serves as President of the Art21 Board of Trustees. Her husband, Bing Wright, is a photographer; they have two sons.
Wesley Miller
Associate Curator
Wesley Miller is an artist in addition to his work for Art21. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Art from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University. His first museum exhibition, a public project titled
P.S., opened Fall 2001 at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT. In 2002, Miller attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture where he completed an installation,
Birds of Prey, for the L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, ME. He attended the Pilchuck Glass School in 2003. Before joining Art21 in 1999, Miller worked in museum education at the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, and in public relations, marketing, and development at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, TX.
Kelly Shindler
Director of Public Programs
Kelly Shindler graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining Art21 in 2003, she worked at the Shorts International Film Festival, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), as well as on a number of programs showcasing new and archival Central and Eastern European cinema. Outside of Art21, Shindler has curated film and video for Australia Cinematheque, Scandinavia House, the Sequences Festival in Reykjavik, CineWomen NY, and others. She is also a writer and the co-founder/curator of the Package Deals film series, whose programs have been seen in cinemas, artspaces, and film festivals in over thirty cities around the world.
Marc Mayer
Program Coordinator
Marc Mayer joined the staff of Art21 in May of 2008. Mayer has spent the last four years working in museum education, serving both youth and adult audiences. He was associate educator at the New Museum, integrating contemporary art into the high school curriculum. Previously he held a twelve-month internship in the education department at the Museum of Modern Art, assisting with adult and academic programs. He also worked for three years at a not-for-profit using new technology to bring mentors to underserved youth in New York City. Mayer earned his B.A. from Wesleyan University in American Studies concentrating in visual culture.
Joe Fusaro
Senior Education Advisor
Joe Fusaro received his Masters Degree in Education from the City University of New York and his Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from Hofstra University. He is an exhibiting artist, educator, and Visual Arts Chair for the Nyack Public Schools in New York since 2003. Prior to his work in Nyack, he was a teacher and staff developer in the New York City school system for 13 years. Fusaro is currently an adjunct assistant professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education, certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and has led staff development workshops in contemporary art education for the New York State Art Teachers Association and the National Art Education Association over the past four years. His recent exhibitions include solo shows at Kickstart Gallery in New York City and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Fusaro also exhibited in the December 2007
Postcards from the Edge group show at James Cohan Gallery, benefiting VisualAids.org, and was the summer artist-in-residence at Massachusetts College during 2005 and 2006.
Christopher DeWan
Web Manager
Christopher DeWan is happy to be responsible for Art21’s new media initiatives. He first began exploring the relationship between art and digital media while completing his M.F.A. at the California Institute of the Arts. He worked extensively with the arts communities of Los Angeles, where he co-authored a widely-acclaimed multimedia adaptation of the Oresteia, and helped create a city-wide festival of experimental theatre. Since, he has worked on interactive educational projects with organizations as diverse as the the Mark Taper Forum, Oxford University Press, and MIT’s Education Arcade. He continues to write about the collisions between new and old media on his blog,
TheUrbanSherpa.com, and elsewhere.
Nick Ravich
Production Manager
Upon graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1997, Ravich worked with filmmaker Errol Morris as a researcher, starting a ten-year career in documentary film and television production. Since that time, he has worked for various broadcast companies including the Discovery Channel, History Channel, and Comcast. Ravich has also worked on a number of award-winning PBS-broadcast arts and culture productions. Ravich worked as a researcher for Blackside’s
I’ll Make Me a World, and as a production coordinator for WGBH-TV’s
Greater Boston Arts.
Larissa Nikola-Lisa
Production Coordinator
Larissa Nikola-Lisa joined the Art21 team as the production coordinator in the fall of 2007. A documentary filmmaker herself, she has a special interest in personal storytelling and character-driven work. Her short documentary, “The Somerville Boxing Club” was awarded two EVVY awards from Emerson College, where she completed her master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts. For the past six years Larissa has worked as a media arts educator, professional video editor and freelance production assistant for numerous broadcasters, including The History Channel, The Food Network, and PBS.
Beth Allen
Director of Development
Beth Allen joined the Art21 staff in May 2006 after six years working in development and public programs at The Drawing Center, the Guggenheim Museum, and the American Friends of the British Museum. Allen earned her B.A. in History from Northwestern University and an M.A. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she worked on a dissertation about 1960s performance art. While in graduate school she worked for various scholars as a research assistant at The Getty Research Institute.
Katherine Payne
Development Coordinator
Katherine Payne attended the Monterey Academy of Oceanographic Sciences
(MAOS) in Monterey and studied at the University of California, Berkeley
majoring in Art Practice. During her time in the Bay Area she gained
valuable experience as an intern at Gallery Paule Anglim and the Richmond
Art Center, and developed an interest in nonprofit community art spaces.
Prior to joining Art21, she worked as a Corporate Art Consultant at MFI Art
Company.
Mary Cook
Executive Assistant
Mary Cook is an artist who graduated with a B.F.A in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco / Oakland in 2005 and a M.F.A in Painting in from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 2008. Mary has gained valuable experience in the studio and abroad from scholarships that she has received to work and study in Marseille, France, Sierre, Switzerland, and Venice, Italy. She has developed a particular interest in working for non-profit contemporary art institutions after interning at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art in San Francisco as well from experience as a curatorial research intern at Art21.
