2018 Fundraiser Special Guests
2018 Fundraiser | Buy Tickets | Special Guests | Silent Auction
Meredith Johnson is VP of Arts and Culture at The Trust for Governors Island, where she oversees public programming, cultural partnerships and public art commissions for the 172-acre pubic space at the center of New York Harbor. Recent projects include an exhibition of two immersive works by Jacob Hashimoto in 2018, and a commission by David Brooks titled Rock, Mosquito & Hummingbird in historic Fort Jay in 2017.
Prior to this role, Johnson was a curator at Creative Time from 2007-2016, where she curated such artworks as Duke Riley’s Fly By Night at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways on the High Line, Stephen Vitiello’s A Bell for Every Minute on the High Line, and Pae White’s Self Roaming in Miami Beach. In 2012 Johnson co-curated a series of ten-commissioned video works by artists such as Andrew Kuo, Tala Madani, Divya Mehra, and Mickalene Thomas, presented by Creative Time and MoMA PS1 for MTV’s Art Breaks series. She organized the Creative Time Art Basel Miami Beach Oceanfront Nights Program in 2010, in partnership with the MOCAD in Detroit, Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, 032c in Berlin, and Tramway in Glasgow, which included artworks, films, performances, and talks by over 42 artists. Johnson also led Creative Time’s strategic advising on arts programming nationally in such cities as Louisville, KY; Seattle, WA; New York, NY; Dallas, TX; and Chicago, IL.
Previously, Johnson was a curator at Artists Space in New York and was the Assistant Director at Minetta Brook, a public art organization that presented projects like Robert Smithson’s Floating Island to Travel Around Manhattan Island and Watershed: The Hudson Valley Art Project. Currently based in Brooklyn, NY, Johnson received her BA in Art from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and her MA in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts.
Gabriel de Guzman is Curator & Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon, where he organizes group and solo exhibitions that feature emerging and under-recognized mid-career artists whose work often explores critical, socially relevant issues. His present exhibition, EMPATHY (November 17–December 30, 2018), addresses the current divisive political climate, featuring artists who reveal a capacity for empathy, creating work that reflects on other’s experiences and values across social, political, and cultural divides. Before joining Smack Mellon’s staff in 2017, de Guzman was the Curator of Visual Arts at Wave Hill, organizing the Sunroom Project Space series for emerging artists and thematic group exhibitions in Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery. As a guest curator, he has presented recent exhibitions at BronxArtSpace, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Rush Arts Gallery, En Foco at Andrew Freedman Home, Carriage Barn Arts Center, the Affordable Art Fair New York, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), and the Bronx Museum’s 2013 AIM Biennial. Prior to Wave Hill, he was a curatorial assistant at The Jewish Museum (until 2010), where he coordinated exhibitions on Louise Nevelson, Harry Houdini, Joan Snyder, and Andy Warhol, as well as Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider. His writings have been published in catalogues for Wave Hill, the Bronx Museum, Dorsky Gallery, BronxArtSpace, the Arsenal Gallery at Central Park, The Jewish Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, NoMAA, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, and the spring 2017 issue of Nueva Luz: Photographic Journal. He earned an M.A. in art history from Hunter College and a B.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.
