Board of Trustees

Sasha Chavchavadze
Artist, Brooklyn, NY

Sasha Chavchavadze is an artist whose multimedia work explores forgotten history and its effect on memory and place with a focus on forgotten women and Cold War history. Her collaborative public art projects connect art to other disciplines and to the community. She is the founder of Proteus Gowanus, an award-winning interdisciplinary exhibition/event space that was a cultural hub in Brooklyn, NY for ten years. Her other community-based art projects include: Footnote Project Space; SALLY Project; Battle Pass Collective; D’Amico Gowanus Laboratory; Museum of Matches; and Carnival of Connectivity.

Chavchavadze’s paintings, drawings, and installations have been exhibited widely, including: Katonah Museum of Art (NY); Luise Ross Gallery (NY); Cooper Union Gallery (NY); Rotunda Gallery (NY); Kentler International Drawing Space (NY); Arkansas Art Center (Little Rock); State Museum of Georgian Literature (Tbilisi); National Parliamentary Library of Georgia (Tbilisi). Her public projects have been presented at TEDxGowanus, at the Museum of Modern Art and on BRIC TV. Excerpts of Chavchavadze’s visual work and writing have been published in Cabinet, Bomb, Marginalia and NYFA Current magazines, and as a book (Museum of Matches, Proteotypes 2011).

Charlotte Cohen, Secretary
Executive Director, the Association for Public Art, Philadelphia, PA

Charlotte Cohen is Executive Director of the Association for Public Art in Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest public art organization that commission, preserves, interprets, and promotes public art through exemplary and innovative programs and advocacy efforts.

Most recently, Charlotte served as Interim Executive Director at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, PA.

As Executive Director at Brooklyn Arts Council (2015–2022), Charlotte designed, implemented, and advanced the strategic agenda, leadership, and vision of Brooklyn’s foremost nonprofit cultural organization supporting artists.

Previously, she served as Fine Arts Officer at U.S. General Services Administration where she oversaw the federal government’s Fine Arts Collection in the Northeast and Caribbean region, working with commissioned artists and managing the historic collection in public buildings. She directed the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program managing dozens of public art projects across the five boroughs, working closely with artists in all stages of their careers and from across the globe. She was project director at the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service, and program director and curator at Maryland Art Place, a contemporary art center in Baltimore, Maryland.

Charlotte has taught at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. 

Daniela Kostova
Artist and Co-Founder, Bulgarian Artists in America, New York, NY

Daniela Kostova is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, installation, video, and performance. Her practice addresses issues of geography and cultural representation, the production and crossing of socio-cultural borders, and the uneasy process of translation and communication.

In 2019, Daniela’s piece “Future Dreaming” wrapped the Ringturm building in Vienna, Austria in one of the biggest public art displays in Europe. In 2016, she had her first solo show in NYC as A.I.R. Gallery Fellow and was a resident at the Center for Art and Urbanism (ZK/U), Berlin. Her work is exhibited at venues such as Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NY), Queens Museum of Art (NY), Kunsthalle Wien (Austria), Institute for Contemporary Art (Sofia), Centre d’art Contemporain (Geneva), Antakya Biennale (Turkey), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, (Torino), Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), and many others. Daniela’s work is reviewed in New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, FlashArt, Art in America and is featured at Open Art Files, Artqol, Artfare, and Artsy.

Daniela currently serves as the Director of Curatorial Projects at Radiator Gallery, Artist Mentor at NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Program, and Trustee of CEC ArtsLink.

Jane Lombard, Chairman Emerita
Jane Lombard Gallery, New York, NY

Jane is the owner of Jane Lombard Gallery with a focus on socio-political art. She serves on the Boards of the Vera List Center for Arts & Politics at the New School in NYC and Protocinema in Istanbul, Turkey. Jane joined the Board of CEC ArtsLink in 1972. 

Marc Mewshaw
Executive Director, Hewnoaks Artist Residency, Lovell, ME

Marc Mewshaw is a writer, freelance journalist and arts administrator who serves as the Executive Director of Hewnoaks, a transdisciplinary artist residency located in rural western Maine that serves 60 artists per year. Prior to this, he worked in a leadership role at Civitella Ranieri, a private foundation that operates an artist residency in a 15th-century castle in Umbria, Italy. He also brings 15 years’ experience as an arts funder with a particular focus on international cultural exchange, having served as an officer of the Kirby Family Foundation since 2007. His cultural reportage, travel writing and book reviews have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, the Atlantic, and the Sunday Telegraph, and his essays have been widely anthologized.

Clyde E. Rankin III, Chairman
Baker & McKenzie, New York, NY

Clyde E. Rankin III is a member of Baker McKenzie North America Transactional Practice Group based in the New York office and is Chair of the North America Projects Practice. Mr. Rankin is fluent in French. He has been named one of the Best Lawyers in America from 2006 – 2021 and is highlighted in Legal 500 US 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2017-2021 for his work as an advisor to sponsors in project finance and renewable energy. He has also been named a New York Metro Super Lawyer from 2014-2021. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie in 2005, Mr. Rankin served as the ninth chairman of Coudert Brothers LLP.

 

Amei Wallach
Author, filmmaker and art critic, New York, NY

Amei Wallach is a filmmaker, art critic, journalist, and author. Her documentaries about artists include Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine (2008), Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here (2013), and Taking Venice: The Rauschenberg Factor. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, Art in America, and numerous other publications. Ms. Wallach served as president of the U.S. Section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA/USA) in 2000 – 2005.

Photo by Grace Roselli

Lilly Wei
Author and art critic, New York, NY

Lilly Wei is a New York-based independent curator, writer, journalist and critic whose area of interest is global contemporary art, in particular emerging art and artists, writing frequently on international exhibitions and biennials. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications world-wide and she is a longtime contributor to Art in America, a contributing editor at ARTnews, and a former contributing editor at Art Asia Pacific in the United StatesThe author of numerous catalogues and monographs, she has curated exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia. Her most recent curatorial project is Without Borders: The Paintings of Brian Maguire at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington D.C. Wei lectures frequently on critical and curatorial practices and sits on the board of several not-for-profit art organizations. She has an MA in art history from Columbia University, New York.

ADVISORS

Norton Batkin
Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Iara Boubnova
Art critic and curator, Sofia, Bulgaria
Valerie Cassel Oliver
Curator, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Allen Frame
Artist, Brooklyn, NY
Branko Franceschi
Director, The Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb, Croatia
Mariam Ghani
Filmmaker, Brooklyn, NY
Kendal Henry
Director, Percent for Art Program, Department of Cultural Affairs, New York, NY
Chrissie Iles
Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Emilia and Ilya Kabakov
Artists, Mattituck, NY
Viktor Misiano
Curator and art theorist, Moscow, Russia, and Ceglie Messapica, Italy
Meredith Monk
Singer and musician, New York, NY
Shirin Neshat
Artist, New York, NY
Fairouz Nishanova
Director, Aga Khan Music Initiative, Trust for Culture, Geneva, Switzerland
Terry Riley
Composer, Richmond, CA
Jane Safer
Museum consultant, New York, NY
Kenny Savelson
Executive Director, Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, NY
Aneta Szylak
Curator, Gdansk, Poland
Adam Weinberg
Director, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY