Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative
Panel Biographies
2001
Anne Hawley (panel chair)
Director, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Boston, MA
Elizabeth Armstrong
Deputy Director of Art and Chief Curator, Orange County Museum of Art
Newport Beach, CA
Aaron Betsky
Director, Netherlands Architecture Institute
Rotterdam
Tom Eccles
Director, Public Art Fund
New York, NY
Karin Higa
Director of Curating and Exhibitions and Senior Curator of Art, Japanese American National Museum
Los Angeles, CA
Susan Miller
Executive Director, New Langton Arts
San Francisco, CA
Joyce Scott
Artist, educator, and independent curator
Hamza Walker
Director of Education, The University of Chicago's The Renaissance Society
Chicago, IL
Adam D. Weinberg
The Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art
Andover, MA
Anne Hawley (panel chair), was appointed Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, in 1989, and is the museum’s fourth director. Prior to this position at the Gardner, Ms. Hawley served in the public and the private non-profit sectors. She founded a non-profit cultural agency, the Cultural Education Collaborative, and brought entrepreneurial leadership to a state agency, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.
At the Gardner, she has brought these leadership capacities to the renewal of the museum through its artistic and scholarly programs as well as in the conservation of the building and collection. She inaugurated the Artist-in-Residency program which invites artists to live at the museum where they create and present new work, she established an innovative education program serving five schools in the immediate neighborhood, and she launched an annual scholarly symposia and exhibition program. Under her leadership the museum recently completed an ambitious $25 million Second Century Capital Campaign to raise funds for conservation programs designed to preserve the building and collection.
Anne Hawley received her B.A. from the University of Iowa, and her M.A. from George Washington University. Honorary Doctorates were conferred by Babson College, Lesley College, and Williams College. She received the Lyman Ziegler Award for Outstanding Service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; a Fulbright Fellowship to Argentina, and travel grants for study in France, the former Soviet Union, and Italy. In early 2000 she was invited by the United States Department of State to meet with museum directors in Milan and Rome, Italy. In late 2000, she was honored by the New England Society in the City of New York with the Reginald Townsend Award given for outstanding achievement in New England.
Currently, she is Vice Chairman of the Fenway Alliance of Boston, and is a director of the Massachusetts Women’s Forum, and Save Venice, Inc. She is also an accreditor for the Accreditation Commission of the American Association of Museums and serves on numerous committees for arts and culture including the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies Millennium Committee and the Boston 2000 Millennium Committee.
Return to Top
Elizabeth Armstrong has been appointed the Deputy Director of Art and Chief Curator at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California as of April 2001. Prior to assuming her new position, she joined the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego as Senior Curator in 1996. Her exhibitions for San Diego MoCA include "Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art" (2000); "Valeska Soares: Vanishing Point" (1999); "Marcos Ramirez ERRE: Amor Como Primer Idioma (Love as First Language)" which included a commission of public sculpture titled "Acorazado" (1999), and "David Reed Paintings: Motion Pictures" (1998). From 1986 to 1996, Elizabeth Armstrong was Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, where, among her other curatorial responsibilities, she also directed the museum’s print study center. At the Walker, she organized exhibitions such as "Peter Fischli and David Weiss: In a Restless World" (1996); "Robert Motherwell: Reality and Abstraction" (1996); "Paul Shambroom: Hidden Places of Power" (1995); "In the Spirit of Fluxus" (1993); "Jasper Johns: Printed Symbols" (1990); "First Impressions" (1989); "Frank Stella: The Circuit Prints" (1988); "Cross-References: Sculpture into Photography", and "Images and Impressionism: Painters who Print" (1984). Substantial publications accompanied most of these exhibitions.
Armstrong holds a B.A. from Hampshire College and an M.A. from U.C. Berkeley. She has served on numerous panels and juries including the National Endowment for the Arts, Tremaine Foundation, The Pace Roberts Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, and the Getty Grant Program, among others. She has lectured extensively on contemporary art, particularly printmaking. She received awards from the International Association of Art Critics for both the "Peter Fischli and David Weiss" exhibition and "In the Spirit of Fluxus" catalog, and is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship for Museum Professionals.
Return to Top
Aaron Betsky has been appointed the Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam as of April 2001. Prior to assuming his new position, he joined the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as Curator of Architecture and Design in February 1995, responsible for exhibiting and collecting designed artifacts and spaces, including those in the fields of architecture, urban design, landscape design, interior design, industrial design, furniture, and graphic design. In 1999, Betsky’s job expanded to curator of architecture, design and digital projects. He helped develop and implement plans for the Museum’s artistic efforts that involve digital media.
Betsky’s is curator of "Design Afoot: Athletic Shoes, 1995-2000", which explores the recent innovation in athletic footwear design. His most recent exhibitions include "Far Out: Bay Area Design, 1967-1973" (1999-2000), "Tiborocity: Design and Undesign by Tibor Kalman, 1979-1999" (1999), co-organized with Tibor Kalman; "Sitting on the Edge: Modernist Design from the Collection of Michael and Gabrielle Boyd" (1999); "Do Normal: Recent Dutch Design (1998); and Fabrications: Bodybuildings" (1998). In 1997, he mounted "Icons: Magnets of Meaning", a large exhibition of mass produced objects. He has also helped organize several dozen lectures, public symposia and competitions on architecture and design and served as chair of the Aspen International Design Conference. Betsky also worked on "01.01.01- Art in Technological Times", the major exhibition at SF MoMA charting the influence of increasingly present digital media and technology on contemporary art, architecture and design.
Betsky has taught and lectured extensively and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), and was a visiting professor at Columbia last spring. He is active as a writer on design and is a contributing editor of Architecture, Metropolitan Home, Blueprint and ID magazines. Mr Betsky has published eight books on architecture and design, including Violated Perfection: Architecture and the Fragmentation of the Modern (1990), James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmantism (1994), Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture and the Construction of Sexuality, and Queer Space: The Spaces of Same Sex Desire (1997). His latest book is Architecture Must Burn.
Betsky holds a B.A. (1979) and an M. Arch. (1983) degree from Yale University. He taught at the University of Cincinnati (1983-1985) before going to work as a designer in the offices of Frank Gehry (1985-1987) and Hodgetts & Fung Design (1987). In 1987, he set up his own design practice while teaching and writing in Los Angeles.
Return to Top
Tom Eccles, is the Director of the Public Art Fund in New York, a private, not-for-profit organization that commissions artists to do works in open spaces outside the museum environment, with the goal of presenting contemporary artists to the widest possible audience. Since joining the fund in 1993 and becoming Director in 1995, Eccles has helped many artists realize their visions in unconventional public-art spaces and increased the organization’s budget substantially.
Eccles’ first involvement with the Public Art Fund was as the curator of "Urban Paradise," for which ten artists designed garden environments around the city. Among the major works Eccles has helped bring about this past year are the colossal Jeff Koons canine topiary at Rockefeller Center and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov’s "Palace of Projects" at the Armory. Recently, the Fund also was responsible for presenting Tony Oursler’s "The Influence Machine" in Madison Square Park, Rachel Whiteread’s "Water Tower", Pipilotti Rist’s "Open My Glade" on the Panasonic Board in Times Square; Vanessa Beecroft’s "VB42:Intrepid", aboard the Intrepid Sea and Space Museum; a series of manhole covers by Laurence Weiner, and billboards by Barbara Kruger at the Port Authority and West Side Highway. Eccles also initiated "In the Public Realm", an annual program to which anyone may submit a proposal, and if selected, receive up to $25,000 to complete their public works. Christina Hill, Maria-Elena Gonzalez, and Alexander Brodsky are all alumni of this program.
Eccles, an Edinburgh native, studied philosophy at the University of Glasgow and then spent two years in Bologna studying with Umberto Eco. He taught moral philosophy at his alma mater and critical theory at the Glasgow Arts School. From 1989 to ’92, he worked as an independent curator in Glasgow. He helped create "Windfall", a show where 40 emerging artists took over a warehouse on the River Clyde. And he was also the development director for "Project Ability," which built a center (complete with dance studio, ceramics workshop, and gallery) for people with little access to the arts- from the severely disabled to low-income homemakers.
Eccles has lectured on public art extensively, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Cornell University, The Royal Institute of British Architects, London, and Brown University, among many other venues. He has written articles and reviews for Art in America, and is the founding editor of Alba Art Publications, and a co-founding editor of Discourse: Glasgow Journal of Philosophy and Aesthetics.
Return to Top
Karin Higa is Director of Curating and Exhibitions and Senior Curator of Art at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. She recently co-curated "Japanese and Japanese American Painters in the United States: A Half-Century of Hope and Suffering, 1896 to 1945" for the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Museum of Art, which traveled to Hiroshima and Oita, Japan. She was also the curator of "The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps 1942-1945", which was exhibited in Los Angeles, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, and New York. Among the other exhibitions which she has organized are "Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience", "Bruce and Norman Yonemoto: Memory, Matter and Modern Romance", and "Relics from Camp: An Artist’s Installation by Kristine Yuki Aono and Members of the Japanese American Community".
Karin Higa received her B.A. from Columbia University and an M.A. in the Art History graduate program at UCLA. She has taught in the Department of Art at UC Irvine, Otis Institute of Art and Design, and Mills College, as well as USC’s Public Art Studies Program and has been a Thesis Advisor for Bard Center for Curatorial Studies. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, she was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she co-curated "SITEseeing: Travel and Tourism in Contemporary Art" for the Museum’s downtown branch. She also served as an Associate Director of the Artist-in-Residence Program for the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Review Panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts Special Exhibitions and Visual Arts Organizations Panel. In 2000, she received the prestigious Curator’s Grant from the Peter Norton Family Foundation.
Among her publications are "What is an Asian American Woman Artist?" in Parallels and Intersections: A Remarkable History of Women Artists in California, 1950-2000; "Some Thoughts on National and Cultural Identity: Art by Contemporary Japanese and Japanese American Artists" for the Art Journal, and "Some Thoughts on an Asian American Art History" in With New Eyes: Toward an Asian American Art History in the West.
Return to Top
Susan Miller has been Executive Director of New Langton Arts in San Francisco since 1993. New Langton Arts is a non-profit, artist run organization whose mission is to cultivate experimental and innovative contemporary artworks in visual and media arts, music, performance, literature, and interdisciplinary projects while encouraging broad public appreciation and access to the art of our times.
At New Langton, Miller has organized numerous projects including an installation by Jessica Bronson, "Closed Circuit"; "Jim Pomeroy: A Retrospective"; "All of Me" (Alex Bag, Carter, Carolyn Castano, Eileen Myles, Steve Reinke, Tony Tasset, and Scott Trattner); "Alchemy" by Lyle Ashton and Thomas Allen Harris; "Soundculture 96: 3rd Transpacific Sound Art Festival"; "Of Sound Mind: artists projects that address mental illness"; "A Farewell to Bosnia: New Photographs by Gilles Peres"; "Amnesia"; "Black Box/White Box", and an annual "Bay Area Award Show". Miller’s publications include New Langton Arts: 1991-1997 and catalogs to accompany shows for "Pomeroy", "Alchemy", and "Black Box/White Box".
Prior to coming to New Langton Arts, Miller was the Program/Managing Director at the Capp Street Project, San Francisco from 1988-92, where she organized projects with artists such as Shu Lea Cheang, Mel Chin, and Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler.
Susan Miller holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from Colby College, Waterville, ME and an M.A. in Visual Criticism from the California College of Arts and Crafts. She has recently served as a panelist for SECA’s Alternative Spaces program and for the California Arts Council, Visual Arts Presenters.
Return to Top
Joyce Scott is an artist, educator, and independent curator who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work is multi-faceted, and includes fiber works, jewelry, sculpture, prints, performance, and installation; it examines various aspects of African-American life, history, and culture. Scott was recently the subject of a thirty-year survey at the Baltimore Museum of Art entitled "Kickin’ It with the Old Masters." She has also had one person exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia; the American Craft Museum, NY; Goya-Girl Press Inc.; San Francsico Art Institute; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, among others. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including "Glass Today," at the Cleveland Museum of Art; "Celebrating American Craft at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art; "Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists," at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art,Atlanta; "Breaking Barriers, Recent American Craft", at the American Craft Museum, NY, "Subversive Crafts," at List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA, and "Places with a Past: New Site Specific Art," Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, SC, among many others. As an independent curator, Scott has organized exhibitions such as "Stop Asking We Exist: 25 African American Craft Artists" for The Society of Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, and "A Fifteen Year Survey of Baltimore Art," for Artscape, MD.
Scott earned her BFA in Education from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and her MFA in Crafts from the Instituto Allende in Mexico. Scott has received numerous awards and fellowships including grants from Anonymous Was A Woman, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is in the collection of many major museums such as the American Craft Museum; the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; the Renwick Gallery, Washington D.C., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is a fellow of the American Crafts Council.
Return to Top
Hamza Walker has served as Director of Education since 1994 at The University of Chicago’s The Renaissance Society, a non-collecting museum whose mission is to promote developments in contemporary visual art through exhibitions and related events. He has programmed numerous lectures, readings, concerts and video screenings and serves as general editor of The Society’s publication program. He has also served on numerous panels, locally, nationally, and internationally and was the 1999 recipient of the Norton Curatorial Grant.
Prior to working at The Society, Hamza Walker worked for The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs where he served as a Public Art Coordinator. In that capacity, he facilitated the selection and installation of work for permanent public display. His projects include site-specific commissions by such artists as Kerry James Marshall, Kay Rosen, Dawoud Bey, Tim Rollins, and K.O.S., Neil Goodman, Richard Hull, and Mary Brogger.
Walker has written numerous reviews and has had articles featured in Trans, New Art Examiner and Parkett and recently co-edited the Raymond Pettibon Reader. He has written essays for catalogues and brochures for such artists as Thomas Hirschhorn, Giovanni Anselmo, Heimo Zobernig, Rebecca Morris, Michael Lash, Christoph Buchel, Juniper Tedhams and Jo Hormuth. For several years before its closing, he served on the board of Randolph Street Gallery and is currently on the boards of Noon, an annual publication of short fiction, and Lampo, a non-profit presenter of new and experimental music.
Return to Top
Adam D. Weinberg has been The Mary Stripp and R. Crosby Kemper Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts since January of 1999. At the Addison, he has organized exhibitions such as "Alex Katz: Small Paintings", "The Architectural Unconscious: James Casebere + Glen Seator"; "Between Image and Object: The Prints of Robert Mangold"; and "Tony Feher: Probably best seen in a dark room with the T.V. on" among others. Recent publications include Frames of Reference; Looking at American Art, 1900-1950, LeWitt’s Autobiography: Inventory of the Present, and Wendy Ewald, Secret Games.
Prior to coming to the Addison Gallery, Weinberg was the Senior Curator of the Permanent Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY from 1993-99. At the Whitney, he organized numerous exhibitions, including the installation of the museum’s first galleries devoted to the permanent collection in 1998. He also initiated and developed the exhibition series "Views from Abroad: European Perspectives on American Art" (1995-97) and "Collection in Context" (1993-98). He curated "Richard Pousette-Dart: The Studio Within" (1998) and co-curated "Edward Hopper and the American Imagination" (1995). He has curated numerous photography exhibitions. Weinberg was also the Artistic and Program Director at the American Center, Paris, France from 1990-92.
Adam Weinberg received his B.A. in Art History and Education from Brandeis University in Waltham, MA and his M.F.A. in Museum Studies and Photography History from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. Weinberg has served as a panelist for The Bunting Fellowship Program, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; The National Endowment for the Arts; Philadelphia Arts Commission; Seattle Arts Commission; Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities; Minnesota State Arts Board, among others. He is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors and a Board member of Minetta Brook, a public art foundation.
Return to Top |
