The
Speakers

• 

  Rhiannon Giddens

  Musician

  The acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Giddens co-founded the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, and she has been nominated for six additional Grammys for her work as a soloist and collaborator. She was most recently nominated for her collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other (2019). Giddens’s forthcoming album, They’re Calling Me Home, is a twelve-track album, recorded with Turrisi in Ireland during the recent lockdown; it speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical “call home” of death, which has been a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis.

  Giddens’s lifelong mission is to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins. Pitchfork has said of her work, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration,” and Smithsonian Magazine calls her “an electrifying artist who brings alive the memories of forgotten predecessors, white and black.”

  Among her many diverse career highlights, Giddens has performed for the Obamas at the White House, served as a Carnegie Hall Perspectives curator, and received an inaugural Legacy of Americana Award from Nashville’s National Museum of African American History in partnership with the Americana Music Association. Her critical acclaim includes in-depth profiles by CBS Sunday Morning, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and NPR’s Fresh Air, among many others.

  Giddens is featured in Ken Burns’s Country Music series, which aired on PBS in 2019, where she speaks about the African American origins of country music. She is also a member of the band Our Native Daughters with three other black female banjo players, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah, and co-produced their debut album Songs of Our Native Daughters (2019), which tells stories of historic black womanhood and survival.

  Named Artistic Director of Silkroad in 2020, Giddens is developing a number of new programs for the organization, including one inspired by the history of the American transcontinental railroad and the cultures and music of its builders. She recently wrote the music for an original ballet, Lucy Negro Redux, for Nashville Ballet (premiered in 2019), and the libretto and music for an original opera, Omar, based on the autobiography of the enslaved man Omar Ibn Said for the Spoleto USA Festival (premieres in 2022).

  As an actor, Giddens had a featured role on the television series Nashville.

• 

  Agnes Gund

  Founder, Art for Justice Fund

  Agnes Gund is president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and chair of its International Council. She is also chair of MoMA PS1. Ms. Gund joined the MoMA Board in 1976 and served as president from 1991 until 2002.

  Ms. Gund is founder and chair emerita of Studio in a School, a non-profit organization she established in 1977 in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools.

  A philanthropist and collector of modern and contemporary art, Ms. Gund serves on the boards of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, and the Morgan Library & Museum. She is co-founder and chair of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, as well as an honorary trustee of the National YoungArts Foundation, Independent Curators International, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.

  A civic leader and staunch supporter of education, environmental concerns and social justice, Ms. Gund has served on the boards of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Barnes Foundation, Chess in the Schools, the Frick Collection, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the New York City Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among others. In June 2017, she launched the Art for Justice Fund in partnership with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to support criminal justice reform in the U.S.

  Ms. Gund earned a B.A. in History from Connecticut College and an M.A. in Art History from Harvard University. She holds honorary doctorates from Bowdoin College (2012), the CUNY Graduate Center (2007), and Brown University (1996), and was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts (2016). Ms. Gund received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton (1997), the J. Paul Getty Medal (2018) and the inaugural Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award (2020).

• 

  Catherine Gund

  Governing Board, Art for Justice Fund

  Founder and Director of Aubin Pictures, Catherine Gund is an Emmy-nominated producer, director, writer, and activist. Her media work focuses on strategic and sustainable social transformation, racial justice, arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive justice, and the environment. Her films have screened around the world in festivals, theaters, museums, and schools; on PBS, the Discovery Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Gund is the director of Aggie (Sundance, Doc Fortnight), a stunning journey with powerhouse art maverick Agnes “Aggie” Gund who sold a Roy Lichtenstein painting to end mass incarceration through her Art for Justice Fund fueling artists and activists working at the forefront of the movement; Dispatches From Cleveland (CIFF, MSPIFF), a five-chapter documentary that looks at the police murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice and shows how people joined together to vote out the prosecutor who didn’t have their backs; Chavela (Berlinale, Hot Docs, Ambulante), a documentary about the life of the iconic Latin American gender-ending diva, Chavela Vargas; America; Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity; What’s On Your Plate?; Making Grace; and Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance. 

  In addition to numerous direction credits, Catherine’s producing credits include Primera (directed by Vee Bravo and in post-production), a feature documentary that tells the story of activists on the frontlines of the Chilean uprising; Peculiar Silence: A Day in Angola (a work-in-progress directed by Cinque Northern), a short documentary that tells the story of how a 2020 performance of the acclaimed play “A Peculiar Patriot” by performer and playwright Liza Jessie Peterson was censored in America’s largest plantation prison, Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary; America (directed by Garrett Bradley), a short documentary that explores the intersection of race, history, and visual storytelling through a series of 12 silent, black and white, 35mm films; A Touch of Greatness (directed by Leslie Sullivan); Motherland Afghanistan (directed by Sedika Mojadidi); and On Hostile Ground (directed by Liz Mermin and Jenny Raskin).

  Gund currently serves on the boards of Art For Justice, Art Matters, Baldwin for the Arts, and is the Chair of The George Gund Foundation. She co-founded the Third Wave Foundation which supports young women and transgender youth, and DIVA TV, an affinity group of ACT UP/NY. She was the founding director of BENT TV, the video workshop for LGBT youth. She was on the founding boards of Bard Early Colleges, Iris House, Working Films, Reality Dance Company, and The Sister Fund and has also served for MediaRights.org, The Robeson Fund of the Funding Exchange, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, and the Astraea Foundation. An alumnus of Brown University and the Whitney Independent Study Program, she lives in NYC with her four children.

• 

  Rujeko Hockley

  Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art

  Rujeko Hockley is an assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the curator of the mid-career survey Julie Mehretu, which opened in March 2021, and co-curated the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Additional projects at the Whitney include Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Determined (2017) and An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017 (2017). Previously, she was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she co-curated Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014) and was involved in exhibitions highlighting the permanent collection as well as artists LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Kehinde Wiley, Tom Sachs, and others. She is the co-curator of We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 (2017), which originated at the Brooklyn Museum and travelled to three U.S. venues in 2017-18. She serves on the Board of Art Matters, as well as the Advisory Board of Recess.

• 

  Helena Huang

  Project Director, Art for Justice Fund

  Helena Huang is project director for the Art for Justice Fund. Established by art philanthropist Agnes Gund and administered by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the $100 million five-year fund is dedicated to ending mass incarceration in the United States through criminal justice grants in support of high-impact programs in the justice sector and the arts. The Ford Foundation is responsible for the Fund’s grant-making strategy, which focuses on bail reform, sentencing reform, reducing structural barriers to reentry for people coming home from prison, and narrative change through art. 

  Helena has held leadership positions in both the foundation and advocacy world. She was a program manager for two national philanthropies for nearly 10 years: at the Open Society Foundation (1997-2002) and the JEHT Foundation (2002-06) where she worked in support of grassroots advocacy, fellowship programs, and public-private partnerships addressing criminal justice reform. Later, she co-founded and directed Oregon Voice, a state civic engagement organization that helped to pass the first automatic voter registration law in a US state. Before joining Ford in 2017, Helena served as senior director of Philanthropy and Communications for the State Voices Network in Washington, DC where she raised funds for state-based policy advocacy campaigns.

  Helena holds an MPA from the Columbia School of International Affairs and a BA from Cornell University.  

• 

  Pamela Joyner

  Collector and Philanthropist

  Pamela J. Joyner has nearly 30 years of experience in the investment industry. She is the Founder of Avid Partners, LLC where her expertise has been the alternative investment arena. Currently, Ms. Joyner is focused on her philanthropic interests in the arts and education.

  Ms. Joyner is a Trustee of The Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Trust, SF MoMA and the Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Joyner also serves on the board of the Art & Practice Foundation.

  Previously, Ms. Joyner’s philanthropic involvements have included serving as: a member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities; a Trustee of Dartmouth College; a Trustee of the New York City Ballet; a Trustee and Co-Chair of the San Francisco Ballet Association; as well as other arts and educational organizations.

• 

  Emily-Jane Kirwan

  Executive Director, Marian Goodman Gallery

  Emily-Jane Kirwan is an Executive Director at New York’s Marian Goodman Gallery, which was founded in 1977 and is frequently recognized by Forbes, and others as one of the most influential galleries in the world. The gallery represents luminary artists amongst them: Julie Mehretu, Gerhard Richter, Rineke Dijkstra, Tacita Dean, Cristina Iglesias, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Turner Prize recipient and Oscar winning artist and film maker Steve McQueen.
  Emily-Jane is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin in The History of Art & English Literature, and of University College Dublin in Arts Administration. She worked in the late 1990’s – 2001 in local government arts development in Dublin as the Arts Officer for South Dublin County Council (and oversaw a groundbreaking per cent for art scheme “In Context”, which introduced wider disciplines such as literature, music and the visual arts into the formerly traditional commissioning process of public art.) Having a great interest in collaborations and understanding between artists and the community, while acknowledging the growing refugee and asylum-seeking population of the locale, she initiated the first Intercultural Arts Day in South Dublin County, to celebrate difference and foster understanding.
  Moving to New York in 2001 Emily-Jane has worked in the contemporary gallery sector for both Pace Gallery and presently at Marian Goodman. Working with artists on gallery and major museum exhibitions, project & career planning, and sales, with a particular focus on museum acquisitions and the philanthropic and strategic goals of the artists.
  She is fortunate to work with Julie Mehretu, but also previously with Kiki Smith, James Turrell, Robert Ryman, John Baldessari, Tony Feher. Emily-Jane is involved with the Irish Arts Center in New York City which honored her in 2019; she is an ardent supporter of ICI (Independent Curators International). She has the distinction of having been appointed the Commissioner of the Irish Pavilion for the 2011 Venice Biennale.

• 

  Julie Mehretu

  Artist

  Named as one of the 100 most influential people of 2020 by Time Magazine, Julie Mehretu, (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) lives and works in New York City. She received a B.A. from Kalamazoo College, Michigan, studied at the University Cheik Anta Diop, Dakar Senegal, and received a Master’s of Fine Art with honors from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1997. She has since received many prestigious awards including the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005, the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award in 2015, and the Liberty Award for Artistic Leadership, New York in 2018. In 2017, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Julie Mehretu is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery.

  Mehretu’s touring retrospective has recently opened at The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, as its third venue, following the inaugural opening in November 2019 at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, and the second presentation at The High Museum, Atlanta, will continue later in 2021 to The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The retrospective was curated by Christine Y. Kim of LACMA, in association with Rujeko Hockley of The Whitney Museum of American Art. A substantial catalogue was published by Prestel in 2019 to accompany the retrospective. Julie Mehretu’s work has been exhibited extensively in museums and biennials including at the Carnegie International (2004–05), Sydney Biennial (2006), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), Sharjah Biennial (2015), Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2017), Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, UK (2019); and the 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (2019)

• 

  Sherril Roland

  Interdisciplinary Artist

  Sherrill Roland is an interdisciplinary artist who creates art that challenges ideas around controversial social and political constructs and generates a safe space to process, question and share. He was born in Asheville, NC, and received an MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Inspired by his prison experience for a crime he did not commit, he founded The Jumpsuit Project to raise awareness around issues related to mass incarceration. Roland’s socially-engaged art project has been presented at Open Engagement Chicago, Oakland City Hall, and the Michigan School of Law. Last year, he was the Southern Arts, South Arts Grand Prize winner, and Art for Justice Grantee. He is a 2021 Creative Capital Awardee.

• 

  Syrita Steib-Martin

  Founder & Executive Director, Operation Restoration

  As Founder and Executive Director of Operation Restoration, Syrita Steib creates opportunities for formerly incarcerated women, eradicating the roadblocks she faced when returning to society after incarceration. After serving nearly 10 years in prison, she was released into a community vastly different than the one she left. Despite her academic accomplishments while incarcerated, Syrita was denied admission at the University of New Orleans due to the criminal history question. She reapplied, unchecked the box, was granted admission, and went on to earn her B.S. from Louisiana State University. Steib wrote and advocated for Louisiana Act 276, which prohibits public post-secondary institutions from asking questions relating to criminal history for purposes of admissions. 

  Syrita has continued to work with advocates on the ground in five states to pass legislation to ban the box in college admissions. Syrita has also helped draft and pass legislation in other states to support currently and formerly incarcerated women, including Louisiana. As a policy consultant for Cut50’s Dignity for Incarcerated Women campaign, she worked tirelessly on the passage of the First Step Act. Syrita regularly speaks at conferences across the nation about the experiences of incarcerated women. She has served as co-chair of the healthy families committee for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s transition team; was appointed to the Executive Board for Dillard University’s new Center for Racial Justice; was appointed by the governor to the Louisiana Justice Reinvestment oversight council; and was the vice chair of the Louisiana Task Force on Women’s Incarceration. She also helped create and was featured in the Newcomb Art Museum’s Per (Sister) exhibit, which shared the stories of currently and formerly incarcerated women. Syrita was selected to participate in the 2019-2020 Unlocked Futures cohort and is a 2020 recipient of the Rubinger Fellowship.

• 

  Darren Walker

  President, Ford Foundation

  Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $13 billion international social justice philanthropy. He is a member of Governor Cuomo’s Reimagining New York Commission and co-chair of NYC Census 2020. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.

  Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs. In the 1990s, he was COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Harlem’s largest community development organization.

  Darren co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and has served on the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. He serves on many boards, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the High Line, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. In the summer of 2020, he was appointed to the boards of Square and Ralph Lauren. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is the recipient of 16 honorary degrees and university awards, including Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal.

  Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first Head Start class in 1965 and received BA, BS, and JD degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been included on numerous leadership lists: Time’s annual 100 Most Influential People, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Ebony’s Power 100, and Out magazine’s Power 50. Most recently, Darren was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator.

Founding &
Major Donors

Phil and Shelley Fox Aarons

Laura and John Arnold

Mara Burros Sandler

Katie and Paul Buttenwieser

Tony and Robyn Coles

Edith Cooper and Robert Taylor

Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman

Alva Greenberg

Greenleaf Trust

Agnes Gund

Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Tom Lentz

A.C. Hudgins

Pamela Joyner and Alfred Giuffrida

Jo Carole Lauder

Daniel S. Loeb

Donald Marron*

Musa and Tom Mayer

Raymond J. McGuire and Crystal McCrary

Madeline Nelson

Clarence Otis, Jr. and Jacqueline Bradley

Pete Peterson* and Joan Ganz Cooney

Present Progressive Fund at Schwab Charitable

Madeleine Rudin

Laurie M. Tisch

Maria H. Tuttle

Walton Family Foundation

* Denotes our donors who have passed away

Governing
Board

• Agnes Gund

  Founder & Board Chair

• Ava DuVernay

  Film Director & Founder

  ARRAY

• Melissa Berman

  President & CEO

  Rockefeller Philathanop Advisors

• Sonia L. Lopez

  Philanthropic Advisor

  Office of Agnes Gund

• Catherine Gund

  Film Director & Founder

  Aubin Pictures

• Darren Walker

  President

  Ford Foundation

Attendees