FELIPE BAEZA
Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1987, Felipe received his MFA from Yale in 2018. His paintings and printmaking focus on migration, displacement, and the examination of self. As a “Dreamer” and DACA recipient, he has mounted several critically acclaimed solo exhibitions at The Mistake Room, Maureen Paley, and Fortnight Institute. His work was recently acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and featured in both Desert X 2021 and the 2021 Prospect New Orleans Triennial.
SEBASTIAN ERRAZURIZ
Born in 1977 in Chile, Sebastian is an artist, designer, activist, and entrepreneur whose work blurs the lines between art, technology, and design. Fearless in his attack on systems, issues, institutions, and inequities, he is relentless in challenging viewers to reconsider the familiar. Sebastian tackles a mind-boggling scope of work ranging from giant public artworks to conceptual sculptures and experimental tech-art projects to traditional handcrafted furniture. He has received significant attention around the globe but is most recognizable for the public art installation he was commissioned to create in Times Square, which featured his face on a multitude of screens.
JENNA GRIBBON
Jenna was born in 1978 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Following her graduation from the University of Georgia, she moved to New York. She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2019 and has since had two solo shows at Fredericks & Frieser in New York. She also has had solo shows in Berlin at Gnyp and in London at MASSIMODECARLO. Jenna’s work was also featured in a two-person show with Sim Smith Gallery in London with the estate of legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda titled Agnes V par Jenna G. Jenna has upcoming solo exhibitions at the Collezione Maramotti in Italy and with MASSIMODECARLO in Hong Kong. Her painting titled What am I doing here? I should ask you the same can be seen at the Frick Collection at 945 Madison as part of Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters, where it hangs in place of Holbien’s Sir Thomas More.
Photo Credit: Nir Arieli
HILDE LYNN HELPHENSTEIN
An artist, Hilde received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has since worked a multitude of positions in the art world, ranging from a gallerina to gallerist. She closed her LA gallery after being bit by a tick and contracting a virus. With time to ponder the insanities of the art world, she created Jerry Gogosian, an internet platform that straddles the worlds of conceptual art, watchdog reporting, artist advocacy, and clickbait. Jerry Gogosian dispenses incisive critiques, brutal wit, and informed suggestions, which Hilde views as its own art project.
GISELA MCDANIEL
A Chamorro artist whose work is based on healing, Gisela is a survivor who weaves oil painting, found objects, audiovisual representations and motion sensor technology to share narratives about women who have survived sexual assault. Her work primarily features subjects who identify as indigenuous, multi-racial, immigrant, and of color, who she transforms into “deities.” Now living and working in Detroit, she holds a BFA from the University of Michigan. She recently joined Pilar Corrias in London and has already had solo shows there and at The Mistake Room, MOCAD, and the Dhaka Art Summit.
CHRIS WATTS
Born in 1984 and raised in North Carolina, Chris is an artist who describes his mixed-media compositions as windows that blur the distinctions between objective reality and constructed representation. Chris was dismissed from the MFA program at Yale after completing a single year of studies. He moved to New York City, where he works as a multimedia artist and had his first solo show at Monica King Contemporary in Fall 2020.
ANDREA BOWERS
Andrea is an internationally celebrated mid-career artist whose work includes drawings, videos, paintings, and installations. Recently, she quit teaching at the Otis College of Art and Design as a peaceful protest against a broken education system that leaves students with massive debt. A true activist, she is unwilling to separate political commitment from artistic practice, despite being a beloved professor since 2007. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1992.
VALERIE CASSEL-OLIVER
A highly respected curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Valerie is responsible for having organized numerous exhibitions that explore the intersections between race, culture, and art history. She was previously a program specialist with the National Endowment for the Arts, the director of the Visiting Artists Program (VAP) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a co-curator of the 2000 Whitney Biennial.
NICHOLAS CUEVA
Born in Dana Point, California, in 1983 with a rare heart condition, Nick has faced mortality head-on, having undergone several life-saving surgeries. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. He has developed a multifaceted practice that can be best described as eclectic. Nick has exhibited widely throughout the United States and is a beloved member of the Bushwick art community, where he makes art, curates exhibitions, and helps promote his fellow artists.
LISA CORINNE DAVIS
Lisa is an abstract painter who uses her work to explore themes of racial, social, and psychological. She received her BFA from the Pratt Institute and an MFA from Hunter College, where she currently teaches painting. She has also taught at Parsons School of Design, Cooper Union School of Art, and Yale University. Lisa has received numerous awards, including the 2001 Artist Biennial award from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts’ Visual Artist Fellowship, and two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. She divides her time between Brooklyn and Hudson, New York.
CHARLES GAINES
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1944, Charles is the first African American to be accepted into the MFA program at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Art and Design, which he accomplished in 1967. Today, he is considered one of the most influential artists and art teachers of our time. The subject of many exhibitions in the United States, Charles only recently received his first solo exhibition in Europe. Charles is the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1997, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013, and the CalArts REDCAT Award in 2018. In 2020, he established a CalArts Fellowship to support black students in the MFA art program that will be known as the Charles Gaines Fellowship.
CESAR GARCIA-ALVAREZ
Cesar is the founder, director, and chief curator of The Mistake Room, a non-profit contemporary art space in Los Angeles showcasing art, culture, and ideas from around the world. He is especially focused on making the arts more equitable and has organized exhibitions and projects featuring Felipe Baeza, Gisela McDaniel, Vivian Suter, Ed Clark, Oscar Murillo, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, among others. Cesar has served as curator of LAX-ART (2007-2012), a co-curator of the first Made in LA Biennial at the Hammer Museum (2012), and most recently, as a co-curator of the famed Desert X 2021 outdoor exhibition in the Coachella Valley.
MARC GLIMCHER
Marc is the president and CEO of Pace Gallery, which he has operated since 2011. The gallery was started by his father, Arne, in Boston in 1960. Marc is working to increase both the gallery’s global footprint and roster of artists. He is credited with the gallery’s expansion to Palo Alto, London, Geneva, Hong Kong, Seoul, East Hampton, Palm Beach, as well as the creation of the groundbreaking Miami experiential art space, Superblue.
ANDREW GORI
A writer, curator, and filmmaker, Andrew (in partnership with his wife, Ambre Kelly) is the co-founder of an edgy new democratic art fair named SPRING/BREAK. Unlike traditional fairs with strict barriers of entry ranging from cost to connections, New York-based SPRING/BREAK doesn’t charge participants booth fees, publishes art prices, encourages transparency, and prioritizes the inclusion of new voices.
MICHAEL GOVAN
Michael is the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and is frequently credited for bringing the LA visual arts landscape to the forefront of the global art scene. Michael aspired to become an artist before leaving the MFA program at the University of California at San Diego to work with his mentor, Thomas Krens, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. From 1994 to 2006, Michael was president and director of Dia Art Foundation, where he spearheaded the conversion of an old Nabisco box factory into the 300,000 square foot Dia Beacon museum in New York’s Hudson Valley.
DAVE HICKEY
One of the most iconic art critics of our time, Dave was a former professor of criticism for the MFA program in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico. The Bad Boy or Enfant Terrible of art criticism was heavily revered for his cunning wit and way with words, having authored countless books and critical essays throughout his life. Some of his notable pieces are featured in Rolling Stone, Art in America, Art News, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. Dave passed away on November 21, 2021.
AMBRE KELLY
Ambre, alongside her husband, Andrew Gori, is a founder of the groundbreaking SPRINGBREAK art fair, which offers a refreshingly honest and affordable alternative to traditional art fairs. She received her MFA in Italy in 2008 and has organized numerous large collectives, including the BOYFRIENDGIRLFRIEND domestic art show. She has also worked as the production designer and production artist for numerous films.
ANTON KERN
Anton is the founder of the Anton Kern Gallery, now headquartered in an exquisite six-floor mansion on 55th Street with three floors of exhibitions space for 34 contemporary artists from the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. He moved to New York from Germany in 1991 after completing school and working at Lempertz Auctioneers in Cologne. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, his gallery adheres to its original ethos of exhibiting young and emerging artists before introducing them to international collectors and institutions.
HELEN MOLESWORTH
Helen is the curator-in-residence for the Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, and as an impactful curator and writer, she shines a positive light on the arts through her wide-ranging works. She was the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles from 2014-2018 and the Chief Curator of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston from 2010-2014. She has organized many major museum and monograph exhibitions. She is also the author of numerous catalog essays, with her writing appearing in Artforum, Art Journal, Documents, and October. Helen is the recipient of the 2011 Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, as well as a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. Helen earned her Ph.D. at Cornell University.
ANNE PASTERNAK
Anne is the director of the Brooklyn Museum, where she has been bolstering the institution’s focus on visual arts since 2015. She has devoted more than 30 years of her career to engaging broad audiences with the limitless power of art to move, motivate, and inspire. A staunch advocate for the civic and democratic roles our cultural and educational institutions can play, for 20 years, Anne served as the president and artistic director of Creative Time, where she afforded artists opportunities to respond to political and environmental challenges, collaborating with hundreds of artists.
JERRY SALTZ
Jerry is one of the most recognized figures in the art world as a critic, author, and Instagrammer with more than 515,000 followers. Since 2006, Jerry has been senior art critic and columnist for New York Magazine and received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018. Jerry served as a visiting critic at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney Biennial. He is the recipient of three honorary doctorates, including one from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.
STEFAN SIMCHOWITZ
Hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa, and now based in Los Angeles, by his own admission, Stefan is a controversial and powerful player in the art world where he wheels and deals in a nontraditional hybrid practice as a dealer, advisor, and collector. Stefan firmly attests that the establishment actually fears he will disrupt an outdated system controlled by a tight network of critics, universities, museums, and galleries that collectively determine who does or does not succeed. Stefan is a graduate of Stanford University.
JAMES SALOMON
Raised in Westhampton, New York, James began his career with an internship at Galerie Maeght in Paris before working at Mary Boone Gallery for a decade and opening his own gallery in 2005 in East Hampton and then later in Chelsea. In the post-covid era, James is stepping back from the art world and working as a precious metals broker while also writing about art and working as a photographer.
JESSICA FREDERICKS & ANDREW FREISER
Husband-and-wife team, Jessica and Andrew opened their eponymous gallery in 1996 as one of the original galleries in New York’s Chelsea art scene. For over 25 years, they have championed artists early in their careers while presenting solo shows by such icons as Marilyn Minter, John Lurie, and John Wesley. In recent years they have become a bullhorn for women artists with notable discoveries including Cristina de Miguel, Jenna Gribbon, and MacArthur Fellow Mary Reid Kelley. Additionally, they teamed their artists with collaborators in a broad cultural context including a wide range of fashion houses, record labels, and musicians.