The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts today (April 25) announced four appointees to its board who come from the arts, higher education and law.
Ryan Dennis, the chief curator and artistic director of the Center for Art and Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, will be joining the foundation’s board, as will Guadalupe Maravilla, an artist, choreographer and healer.
Dennis is the co-director of A Movement in Every Direction, an exhibition currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and previously served as the curator and programs director of Houston’s Project Row Houses, a community art platform.
Meanwhile, Maravilla’s work has been shown and performed at the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. He also has an upcoming installation which will be shown at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art this May.
Sarah Conley Odenkirk, another new board member, is currently co-head of art law at New York law firm Cowan, DeBates, Abrahams & Sheppard, where she became a partner after serving as associate director of the art and business program for Sotheby’s Institute of Art at Claremont Graduate University.
Also joining the board is Paula Volent, currently the vice president and chief investment officer at Rockefeller University. She previously worked as a paper conservator at various U.S. institutions before moving into endowment management with positions at Bowdoin College and Yale University.
The appointees join a board of art industry heavyweights
The foundation was established after Warhol died in 1987, when his will called for the creation of an organization focused on advancing the arts. In addition to preserving and researching Warhol’s body of work, the Warhol Foundation awards $15 million in grants annually to arts-centered organizations. Since its inception, it has given $280 million to more than 1,000 organizations in the U.S. and donated around 52,000 works to hundreds of institutions worldwide.
“We are extremely fortunate to welcome these four accomplished individuals to the Foundation’s board,” said Joel Wachs, the foundation’s president, in a statement. “They have made exceptional achievements in their fields and will significantly contribute to the Foundation’s role as a leader in supporting artists and artist-centered organizations.”
The new appointees will join a board made up of art industry experts such as Anne Pasternak, director of the Brooklyn Museum, and Naomi Beckwith, deputy director and chief curator at the Guggenheim.