Conference Schedule

Lita Albuquerque is an internationally renowned installation, environmental artist, painter and sculptor. She has developed a visual language that brings the realities of time and space to a human scale and is acclaimed for her ephemeral and permanent art works executed in the landscape and public sites.

Albuquerque’s work questions our place in the enormity of infinite space and eternal time. Despite a rising flood of new data and interpretive theory, the most elemental concepts of an emerging scientific cosmology are simply not imbedded in everyday culture. Conversely, the meaning of this cosmology does not seem implicit in the science. Lita Albuquerque has not flinched from the scale of such a challenge. She is one of the rare artists and humanists who are responsible for thoughtfully and imaginatively placing the elemental concepts for a living, functional cosmology for 21st century culture within public consciousness.

Cultural Equity & Inclusion

Panelists:
Letitia Ivins, Creative Services Manager, Los Angeles Metro
Leslie Johnson, Director of Social Strategy, Innovation and Impact at Center Theatre Group
Betty Avila, Associate Director, Self Help Graphics & Art

Moderator: Leticia Buckley, Director of Communications and Marketing for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission

Leticia Buckley will lead a conversation about cultural equity and the complex challenge of determining effective approaches, appropriate questions and the areas of common ground that have potential in leading us toward more inclusive art policies and practices.

When Museums Change

Panelists:
John Echeveste, CEO of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes
Megan Steinman, Independent Curator and Director at The Underground Museum
Allison Agsten, Director of The Main Museum

Moderator: Selma Holo, Director, USC Fisher Museum of Art

As communities grow, change and evolve, cultural institutions have to change too. Museums may relocate, revise missions and/or reposition content or scope of programming. This panel, moderated by Selma Holo, will explore what happens to communities when museums change—what’s at stake?

Real Estate Development as Cultural Change Agent

Panelists:
Dan Rosenfeld, Urban Planner and Developer
Yuval Bar-Zemer, Developer
Samantha Harris, Landscape Architect, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, Partner

Moderator: Jonathan T D Neil, Director of Sotheby’s Institute of Art Los Angeles

Urban growth cannot happen without the financial and emotional investment of developers. Jonathan T.D. Neil will moderate this panel examining the role of real estate development, urban planning and landscape design in contributing to the conversation, for better or worse, around arts and equity.

The overall theme for the conversations will be community oriented, focused on what is happening outside institutional walls with or without the help/support/funding of institutions.

Public Art and Public Engagement
Felicia Filer, Director, Public Art Division at City of Los Angeles

Possibilities for Radical Museum Practice
Ciara Ennis, Director and Curator, Pitzer College Art Galleries

The Influence of Private Money on New Museums
Alma Ruiz, Independent Curator of Latin American Art

For this session, we invited 4 artists and 1 curator to present their responses to the impact of gentrification on their communities and artists’ practices within those communities. Each participant will have 6 minutes to present 10 images and their unique perspective.

Olga Koumoundorous, an American sculptor whose sculptures and installations address issues of real estate, gentrification and social justice.
Veronique d’Entremont, an artist whose current artwork, teaching, and research focuses on issues of displacement and under-recognized histories of different neighborhoods and sites around Los Angeles
Sandra de la Loza, and artist and founder and only official member of the Pocho Research Society of Erased and Invisible History (2001), a collaborative project working with artists, activist, and historians to investigate place and memory through public interventions.
Vida Brown, the visual arts curator at the California African American Museum.
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, an interdisciplinary visual artist, writer and performer. Her practice fluctuates between collaborations and participatory projects with alternative gallery spaces within various communities to projects that are intimate and based upon her private experiences in relationship to historical events and contexts.

Panelists:
Alexandra Grant, Artist
Joan Weinstein, The Getty Foundation Deputy Director
Danielle Brazell, General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs

Moderator: Sarah Conley Odenkirk, Associate Director Sotheby’s Institute of Art Los Angeles

Sarah Conley Odenkirk will moderate a conversation with Alexandra Grant (Artist), Joan Weinstein (Getty Foundation) and Danielle Brazell (General Manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs). We will explore the role of Artist, Private Foundation and Government in contributing to extra territorial work. Grant having created a work for the Guatemalan Biennial last summer, Weinstein as co-director of PST LA/LA, and Brazell as General Manager for LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs which produced CURRENT: LA last summer. These three will share their diverse perspectives on community engagement and institutional responsibility. Looking at expression happening outside of the institutional walls that each of these art world leaders work within, we will discuss what the future holds.