Visiting Curator Christina Linden, from Pittsburgh, PA and Oakland, CA
Moderator Sarah Kabot, Associate Professor and Chair of the Drawing Department at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio. Photo by Robert Muller.
Panelist Elizabeth Carney, assistant curator at the Akron Art Museum
Panelist Christina Vassallo, Executive Director of SPACES, Cleveland, OH
“Breaking Through: Curators Strategize with Artists”
Cleveland Sculptors Network Panel with visiting curator Christina Linden, Elizabeth Carney, Christina Vassallo, and moderator Sarah Kabot
The fourth panel for the Cleveland Sculptors Network/Getting There from Here
Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Networking begins at 6:30 p.m., panel discussion begins at 7 p.m., and networking continues at 8 p.m.
Location: Café 55 of the Goldhorn Brewery (1361 East 55th Street, Cleveland, Ohio), at the south end of the building beside the Goldhorn Brewery)
Parking available at the south end of the building and in the back.
Event is free and open to the public.
For selected sculptors who apply:
Expanded Media Master Reviews & Collective Discussion with Christina Linden
Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Location: The Sculpture Center (1834 E. 123rd Street, Cleveland, Ohio)
Breaking Through, the 4th panel for the Cleveland Sculptors Network, focuses on various strategies for sculptors and other artists of our region to reach audiences, galleries, not-for-profit exhibition spaces, contemporary art centers, museums, sculpture parks, and other venues for showing their art beyond our region. Panelists include The Sculpture Center’s visiting curator Christina Linden, an independent curator and lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University who recently relocated from Oakland, CA; Elizabeth Carney, assistant curator at the Akron Art Museum; and Christina Vassallo, executive director of SPACES in Cleveland, OH; with moderator Sarah Kabot, chair of the Drawing Department, associate professor, and Motto chair at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Suggested reading: “Does Personality Matter?”
The Sculpture Center’s visiting curator Christina Linden is an independent curator based in Pittsburgh, PA, who teaches critical theory at Carnegie Mellon University. Until recently, she worked as associate curator of painting and sculpture at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA), where she continues to work on a large-scale exhibition project focusing on LGBTQ+ history, culture and art in California. Recent projects at the OMCA have included an exhibition with Math Bass & the Imperial Court of SF and a Roy De Forest retrospective. These follow on exhibitions with Jedediah Caesar, Michelle Dizon, Judy Chicago and Marion Gray. She also co-curated Prospectus: Ben Kinmont with Frank Smigiel at SFMOMA and Living As Form at Kadist. Her published writing has appeared in Art in America, Art Practical, Fillip, and Modern Painters, and she has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, California State University East Bay, and Bard College. She holds a M.A. in Curatorial Studies from Bard College and a B.A. in Art History from New York University.
Moderator Sarah Kabot’s work has been shown nationally and abroad, at institutions including The Suburban (IL), the Akron Museum of Art (OH), the Museum of Contemporary Art (OH), the Drawing Center (NY), The Sculpture Center (OH), the Peabody Essex Museum (MA), Denny Gallery (NY), and Tegnerforbundet in Oslo, Norway. In 2013, Sarah completed two large public art commissions in Ohio. Honors include residencies at Dieu Donne Papermill (NY), a Swing Space residency through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NY), the Headlands Center for Art (CA), and UCross (WY). Her work is in the public collections of the West Collection, the Cleveland Clinic, and Progressive Insurance. Sarah has been the recipient of several grants and prizes including the Cleveland Arts Prize Mid-career in 2017, the 10th semi-annual Dave Bown Prize, a 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowship, and 2015 and 2010 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards. Additionally, her work has appeared in Sculpture Magazine, the New York Times online, and the Village Voice. She is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Drawing Department at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio.
Elizabeth Carney is currently the assistant curator at the Akron Art Museum, where she organizes and oversees exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Among her exhibition projects are Serial Intent, Turn the Page: The First Ten Years of Hi-Fructose, PULP, Staged, and John Pearson: Intuitive Structures. She received her M.A. in Curating the Art Museum from The Courtauld Institute of Art (London, England) after earning her B.A. in Art History from Case Western Reserve University and trained in various art media at the University of Cincinnati. Elizabeth’s past curatorial projects include organizing the exhibition Portrait of the Artist As… at The Courtauld Gallery in London, and internships at Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, and Cleveland Public Art. Elizabeth is among the Visual Arts jurors of the Cleveland Arts Prize 2017–18. Her research interests include peripheral aspects of art-viewing experiences, such as installation practices, photographic reproduction of art, and the history of museums.
Christina Vassallo is the Executive Director of SPACES, where she oversees operations and provides creative direction to one of the longest running alternative art organizations in the country. Her most notable SPACES initiatives so far include launching a $3.5 million capital & endowment campaign, spearheading a renovation and relocation project, expanding outreach initiatives, shaping SPACES’ participation in Front International, and curating The First 100+ Days and The People’s Museum of Revisionist Natural Itstory—group exhibitions that provided artists new frameworks for responding to timely issues of local and international significance. Christina is an ex oficio board member of the Contemporary Art Society in Cleveland and a committee member of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture’s Support for Artists Planning Team. She was just named one of Crain’s Cleveland’s 40 Under 40 in 2017. Until recently Christina was based in New York City, working as an independent curator and also as Executive Director of Flux Factory, where she set the course for a thriving institution comprised of an international artist residency program, acclaimed exhibitions program, and innovative educational initiatives. Additionally, she curated exhibitions for Jersey City Museum, NURTUREart, Lafayette College, and New Haven University. Christina previously served as Associate Director of Kinz, Tillou + Feigen Gallery and as Assistant Curator at American Federation of Arts. She holds a B.A. in art history and an M.A. in nonprofit visual arts management from NYU.
About the Cleveland Sculptors Network Panel/Master Reviews
In 2016, The Sculpture Center and the commercial Cleveland gallery 2731 Prospect (closed April 30, 2017) formed the Cleveland Sculptors Network/Getting There from Here as a venture to increase the reach and connectivity of sculptors in Northeast Ohio and our greater region. We are hosting a series of evening panel discussions with a social gathering and Master Reviews & Collective Discussion the following day. The moderated panel discussions focus on selected contemporary issues in sculpture, issues facing artists living and working outside major metropolitan cities, and strategies to have sculptors’ work shown beyond our region. The panelists include a mid-career sculptor from outside our region by invitation and one or two regional sculptors. These panels are open to everyone who is interested — the public, sculptors, artists of all media, academics and students.
On the following day after the panel, the visiting sculptor holds a private Master Review & Collective Discussion with an intimate group of 5 to 6 selected sculptors of Northeast Ohio and our greater region. This is a group critical feedback discussion of the work presented by the selected artists, intended to foster ongoing ties of the sculptors with the visiting artist and among the regional sculptors for future interactions.
Visiting sculptors to date have been Nathalie Miebach (November 2016), Luca Buvoli (April 2017), and Steve Locke (June 2017).
The Cleveland Sculptors Network is generously funded in part by the Callahan Foundation.
