Back to all EventsLeading from the Front: Museums and Changing Social Dynamics
Friday, March 1, 6:00pm till 7:30pm
Amy Sadao is the Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director of ICA Philadelphia. Appointed Director in September 2012, Sadao has forged connections with institutions across the city, dramatically increased ICA’s budget and staffing, and directed an ambitious contemporary program extending equity to overlooked and underrepresented artists, ideas, and publics. Before assuming the directorship of ICA, Sadao served for ten years as Executive Director of Visual AIDS in New York City where she expanded the organization’s resources and public awareness of its mission utilizing contemporary art to provoke dialogue about HIV/AIDS and supporting HIV-positive artists. A mentor of artists and arts workers, Sadao has been notably honored for her work by ArtTable’s 2014 New Leadership Award; Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council, as a Women in the Arts Leader; and knighted by the Imperial Court of New York, the city’s oldest drag house, for her work as an AIDS and art activist. [Photo by Constance Mensh]
Martha Tedeschi is the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard Art Museums. Prior to her arrival at Harvard she served as Deputy Director for Art and Research at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also enjoyed a long tenure as curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings. A specialist in 19th-century British and American Art, Tedeschi has organized exhibitions and written in particular depth about the art of James McNeill Whistler, Winslow Homer, and John Marin and has frequently collaborated with conservators and conservation scientists. She received her BA from Brown University, her MA from the University of Michigan and her PhD from Northwestern University. Tedeschi was a 2012 Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership and served on the board of the Association of Art Museum Curators (2015/16). She is also a past president of the Print Council of America (2009-2013). She has a keen and abiding interest in the training and preparation of curators, conservators, and arts leaders and is a strong advocate for object-based learning for all audiences and for building a more inclusive pathway into museum professions.
Richard Aste is the Director of the McNay Art Museum. Aste joined the McNay Art Museum in 2016 as the Museum’s third director and its first Hispanic director. Aste is a third generation South American with roots in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. He received his BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; an MA in the History of Art from Hunter College in New York, where he co-curated his first exhibition; and a Ph.D. in the History of Art from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He taught art history at Hunter College and worked as an Old Master specialist in Christie’s New York, London, and Rome as well as a sales associate at Wildenstein & Co. Aste assumed his first full-time curatorial role as Associate Curator of European Art at the Museo de Arte de Ponce. In 2010 he joined the Brooklyn Museum, where his global, transatlantic approach to the arts of Europe and Latin America informed numerous exhibitions. He has reinstalled the entire permanent collection of modern and contemporary art under these guiding principles, providing multiple entry points for San Antonio’s incredibly diverse community (currently 65% Hispanic and 8% African American). Under his leadership, the McNay is now bilingual onsite and online. It has acquired major contemporary artworks by women and artists of color.
Location
Board of Officers Room, Park Avenue Armory643 Park Avenue, NYC
Panelists
Amy Sadao
Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director, ICA Philadelphia
Martha Tedeschi
Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, Harvard Art Museums
Richard Aste
Director, McNay Art Museum
Moderator
Sarah Douglas
Editor in Chief, ARTNews