Thank you for joining ArtTable’s 2024 Annual Benefit & Award Ceremony in honor of Storm Ascher. Featuring a discussion between Storm Ascher and Zoe Lukov and remarks from ArtTable Fellowship Alumna Nadia Estrada, the evening brought together ArtTable members and supporters dedicated to advancing the leadership of women and nonbinary leadership in the visual arts. 

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who attended and contributed to the event’s success. We are grateful to our Benefit co-chairs Sanford Biggers and Amy Sherald, and to all our host committee members. 

There is still time to give. You may do so here if you would like to make a fully tax-deductible contribution.

Sanford Biggers & Amy Sherald

Member
Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers

Community
Bloomberg Philanthropies

Leadership
Negin & David Ascher

Executive
Nevada Museum of Art
Imperfect Family Foundation

Member Friend
Gianna Drake-Kerrison
Kent Kelley
Dr. V. Joy Simmons

Delphine Daniels & Nuria Richards

Storm Ascher is an independent curator, writer, and founder of Superposition Gallery and The Hamptons Black Arts Council. She has a BFA in Visual & Critical Studies from the School of Visual Arts (2018), an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute and Claremont Graduate University (2020), and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree for Art & Style 2022.

Storm founded Superposition Gallery in August 2018. She started her curatorial projects with a mission to subvert gentrification tactics used in urban development through art galleries. She refers to her gallery as “a socially conscious approach to contemporary art with a focus on borrowed space”. Superposition Gallery has drawn in exhibition participation from over 100 artists of different cultural backgrounds and multidisciplinary practices, such as Layo Bright, MR. WASH, Derrick Adams, Ludovic Nkoth, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, Tariku Shiferaw, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Nate Lewis, Marcus Leslie Singleton, Helina Metaferia, and Muna Malik. By starting a nomadic gallery model without a brick and mortar address, the gallery has continued to grow its community outreach through site specific iterations of borrowed space in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and internationally. Storm has fostered partnerships with various institutions and brands who look to the Superposition program for partnership activations— launching spaces around the world.

In 2023, Storm founded the Hamptons Black Arts Council—a 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization based in New York State — which is dedicated to upholding the legacy of Black art institutions on the East End of Long Island. Storm’s development of the Hamptons Black Arts Council focuses on Advocacy, Acquisition Development, and Infrastructure and Operations. Storm’s curatorial work and community involvement through HBAC has increased awareness of Black art organizations through public programming, education, and networking; grown the contemporary collections of artwork by artists of diverse backgrounds through exhibitions and fundraising; and maintained their museum galleries and staff retention through fundraising. Recent exhibitions through The Hamptons Black Arts Council mission include Tariku Shiferaw’s first museum solo show Making Space: One of These Black Boys at the Southampton African American Museum, as well as Spectrum of Echoes, an exhibition in partnership with UBS which included works by Sanford Biggers, Tomashi Jackson, Che Lovelace and more.

Storm worked at various galleries and institutions prior to starting her curatorial program and organizations, such as LAXART under Hamza Walker, David Lewis Gallery, Marciano Foundation, and Spruth Magers. She has curated for the Eastville Museum in Sag Harbor, Phillips New York, Phillips Los Angeles, Southampton African American Museum, UBS Global Art, and OOLITE Arts in Miami.

She is on the Advisory Board of Inversion Art, which invests in and stewards visual artists who are at an inflection point in their careers. She is also on the board of Rose House Residency, an artist incubator program in a Victorian home in Cobleskill, NY, and the Core Committee of The Circuit, a Black arts coalition. She is on the steering committee of the Art Basel Women’s Wealth Summit with Unlocked Foundation and UBS Women’s Wealth Segment, which has a mission to close the gender pay-gap across industries.

Storm was awarded the Alumni Scholarship award at The School of Visual Arts in 2018 for her thesis documentary and paper #gentrify2017 and delivered the valedictorian speech at her graduation from SVA at Radio City Music Hall, along with artists Maya Lin and Milton Glaser. She has contributed extensively as an independent writer and art critic to Cultured Magazine—most notably her profile of artist Wangechi Mutu and curator Claudia Schmuckli for their museum presentation at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Other writing contributions include TiltWest, The Brilliance of the Color Black Through the Eyes of Art Collectors, Widewalls, Galerie Lelong, and more. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, W Magazine, Hyperallergic, CULTURED, Artsy, The Miami Times and others. She was recently named in The New Generation of Black Women Gallerists by Artsy and the Dan’s Papers Power List of the East End.

ArtTable’s New Leadership Award recognizes an emerging professional who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and made considerable contributions to the visual art field in the earlier stages of their careers. This award was first introduced as part of ArtTable’s 25th anniversary celebration in 2005. This past year’s award was Seven Square Inches of Water, a limited-edition artwork by Maya Lin created to benefit the “What Is Missing?” project.

Past awardees include Niama Safia Sandy, Storm Ascher, Deana Haggag, Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, La Tanya S. Autry, Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Erin Christovale, Lauren Haynes, Jami Powell, Alexandra Chang, Naima J. Keith, Lauren Cornell, Sara Raza, Naomi Beckwith, Amy Sadao, Sarah Douglas, Cecilia Alemani, Shamim Momin, Christine Y. Kim, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Andrea Barnwell, Melissa Chiu, Fairfax Dorn and Virginia Lebermann, Ellen Haddigan, Bronwyn Keenan, Sheri L. Pasquarella, Maura Reilly, Natasha Schlesinger, Laura Hoptman, Marysol Nieves, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, and Olga Viso.