AAMC & AAMC Foundation Adds Five Trustees to its Board

New York, NY, August 13, 2020 — The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) & AAMC Foundation has appointed five new Trustees At Large who will join the board as of January 1, 2021. The new Trustees bring a depth and range of knowledge and expertise as art advisors, directors, curators, and gallerists. The new Trustees include:

• Myrtis Bedolla, Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis and Former Board Member, Association of African American Museums
• Wendy Chang, Director, Rennie Collection 
• William C. Gautreaux, Managing Partner, MLP Holdings LLC
• Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Deputy Director for Collections and Research and Chief Innovation Officer, Royal Ontario Museum (as of September 2020)
• Filiz Çakır Phillip, Curator, Aga Khan Museum

“It is a pleasure to welcome five new appointees to the AAMC & AAMC Foundation Board,” noted Marianne Lamonaca, Independent Curator, and President, Board of Trustees, AAMC & AAMC Foundation, “Each has demonstrated a strong commitment to the curatorial field and brings a wealth of experience. I look forward to working with each to further our mission and strategic plan pillars of inclusion, access and advocacy.”

Concluding their service on the Board of Trustees at the end of 2020 are Catherine L. Futter, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, Brooklyn Museum; Benjamin Hickey, Curator of Exhibitions, Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum; and Jen Mergel, Independent Curator. 

Newly Elected Trustees

 Myrtis Bedolla, Founding Director, Galerie Myrtis and Former Board   Member, Association of African American Museums possesses over   30   years of experience as an advisor to private collectors, and public   and   private institutions in the acquisition and deaccession of fine art;   and   provides professional curatorial services, lectures and   educational   programming to corporate, civic and arts organizations.   Bedolla is the   recipient of the Foreign Language and Area Studies   (FLAS) Fellowship, African Language Institute, Shona Language and Culture, from Michigan State University; holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland, University College, and received her curatorial training at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, and earned an on-line certificate in Cultural Theory for Curators from the Node Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin, Germany. Bedolla is a member of ArtTable and a board member of the Association of African American Museums.

 Wendy Chang has been Director of the Rennie Collection since   2006 and is founding director of Rennie Museum. She formalized   operations of the   collection and established all aspects of the   museum’s operations. Under   her stewardship, the museum has   staged an array of complex exhibitions   with artists such as Martin   Creed, Lara Favaretto, Mona Hatoum, and   Kerry James Marshall. To   advance the museum's mandate of providing   accessibility to arts and   culture, she developed its internship, education, and engagement programs; while also serving as catalogue series editor, overseeing all facets of the publication program.  Prior to her current position Wendy worked extensively with leading institutions and collections worldwide, spending nearly fifteen years producing projects and presenting exhibitions with a diverse group of artists including John Baldessari, Glenn Brown, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Juan Munoz, Shirin Neshat, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Wall, Christopher Williams, Christopher Wool and Andrea Zittel.

 William C. Gautreaux, Managing Partner, MLP Holdings is active as a   Chair or Trustee for numerous non-profit and charitable organizations   including, William Jewell College, Greater Kansas City Community   Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of   Contemporary Art, and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. Bill has   a bachelor’s degree in History from William Jewell College with Honors at   Oxford University. Bill has many hobbies including being an avid golfer   and cyclist. He is a dedicated Art collector and promoter of the Arts.

 Lynda Roscoe Hartigan begins as Deputy Director for Collections and   Research and Chief Innovation Officer at the Royal Ontario Museum in   September 2020. From 2003 to 2016, she was the first Chief Curator at   the Peabody Essex Museum and Deputy Director and Chief Curator from   2016. From 1978 to 2003 Lynda rose from curatorial assistant to Chief   Curator at Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her curatorial areas of   expertise are in American art, especially by self-taught, black, and   modern artists, and fashion and design. She has devoted her career to advancing the capacity of curators to communicate transformative potential of creativity in people's lives.

 Filiz Çakır Phillip has been Curator at the Aga Khan Museum since   2013. She holds a Dr. Phil. from the Institute of Art History at Freie   Universität Berlin. Dr. Çakır Phillip is a scholar and specialist in Islamic   Art with extensive curatorial and research experience. She was   instrumental in the opening of the Aga Khan Museum in 2014, which she   joined from a position as Curator at the Museum für Islamische Kunst in   Berlin. She was Senior Fellow at Excellence Cluster TOPOI and Research Fellow at both the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz — Max-Planck-Institut and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Dr. Çakır Phillip has curated numerous exhibitions and is the author of books, such as Enchanted Lines: Drawings from the Aga Khan Museum Collection (2014), Iranische Hieb-, Stich- und Schutzwaffen des 15. bis 19. Jahrhunderts (2016) and Arts of the East: Highlights of Islamic Art from the Bruschettini Collection (2017).

About AAMC & AAMC Foundation 
Founded in 2001, the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) & AAMC Foundation advances the curatorial field through forward-looking leadership in development and educational opportunities for learning and connecting at every stage of a curator’s career. In partnership with more than 1,300 members, we serve as a resource for the profession’s best practices, codes of conduct and ethical standards. We provide a platform for the exchange of a broad range of information on critical issues driving the field, including diversity and inclusion, digital innovation, artistic voices and histories, and marketing and audience engagement. Our members include independent curators and staff members from 500+ art organizations and museums in eighteen countries, ranging from leading national institutions to community-based art organizations. Through our work we serve members, professional colleagues, and the public, and our outreach reflects diverse perspectives within the field, often examining strategic directions of curatorial practice and art organization management. With a network spanning the globe, we are an ambassador and advocate for all art curators and the leading champion of their significant contributions.

CONTACT
Judith Pineiro, Executive Director, judith.pineiro@artcurators.org