April 23 | 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Often described as a point of momentum while simultaneously bringing feelings of uncertainty, mid-career can be a complicated stage of professional life. Increased responsibility, visibility, and leadership opportunities can coexist alongside stalled advancement, burnout, or unclear next steps.
Moderated by ArtTable’s Lila Harnett Executive Director Jessica L. Porter, this panel brings together New York City-based visual arts professionals for a candid discussion about the challenges and unique opportunities of being mid-career. Panelists will share how they have navigated changing roles, institutional dynamics, compensation, sustainability, and the pressure of wondering, “what’s next?”
Our panelists will discuss practical strategies for avoiding burnout, advocating for oneself, defining success, and building community.
Join us for networking and refreshments from 6-6:30pm, with the panel discussion beginning at 6:30pm. There will be additional time for networking following the panel.
Scroll down to learn more about our panelists!
Program Admission:
- ArtTable Members – $25 in-person / $15 virtual
- ArtTable Member Guest – $30 in-person
- General Admission – $35 in-person / $20 virtual
Not a member? Join today!
All program registration fees go toward event expenses and administrative costs for the organization.
Meet Our Panelists
Baseera Khan is a New York-based visual artist interested in materials, color, and their economies. From public art installation to sculpture, painting to performance and music, Khan collages the effects of these relationships to labor and family structures, religion, and spiritual well-being. Khan has performed and exhibited at several locations in the past years, sharing this diverse practice. “Painful Arc II, Shoulder High,” a public art commission for High Line Art, NYC, was installed from 2023-24, and “New Leaf,” a permanent public art commission for Help USA, Brooklyn, NY, was installed in 2025. Khan has had several solo institutional exhibitions such as Mass Art Museum, Boston, Massachusetts (2026), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2023), Brooklyn Museum, NY (2021-22), and a solo touring exhibition at Moody Arts Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX, and Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, OH (2022-23). Khan mounted recent international solo exhibitions at Niru Ratnam Gallery, London, U.K. (2025), and 10 & Zero Uno in Venice, Italy (2024). Several recent group exhibitions are the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2026), Sargent’s Daughters, NYC (2026), Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University, NJ (2025), 12 Gates, Philadelphia, PA (2025), Patel Brown, Toronto, Canada (2025), Ruttkowski;68, NYC (2025), North Carolina Museum of Art, NC (2024).
Lisa Kim is the inaugural director of the Ford Foundation Gallery. She has led the development of the gallery’s exhibitions and public engagement programs since 2018. Prior to her appointment, Kim was director of cultural affairs at Two Trees Management Company, where she fostered artistic and creative community development. She also served as the director of the New York City Percent for Art Program and oversaw the exhibitions, collections, construction, and expansion for Gagosian Gallery in New York. Kim holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Barnard College and a Master of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. She serves on the advisory board of A.I.R. Gallery and is a member of the board of directors of ICOM-US.
Judith Pineiro is a cultural strategist, recruiter and search leader, and certified transformational leadership coach with more than 30 years of experience across the nonprofit and for-profit arts sectors. As Founder of Judith Pineiro Consulting, she helps cultural organizations strengthen structure and strategy, lead recruitment and hiring searches for executive, curatorial and development roles, and advance leadership and career development.
Previously, she served for over a decade as Executive Director of the Association of Art Museum Curators and its Foundation, where she led two strategic plans, increased funding sixfold, expanded international engagement, and elevated the organization’s policy and advocacy voice. Her earlier leadership roles at Christie’s, Affordable Art Fair U.S., and the Museum of Arts and Design reflect deep experience at the intersection of market and mission.
She holds an MA in Art History and dual BAs in Art History and Journalism from Rutgers University, is an ACC-certified Transformational, Career, and Leadership Coach (ICF), and holds a SHRM Talent Acquisition certification.
Jessica L. Porter (she/her) joined ArtTable in July 2018 as the executive director after a 4 year term on the Board of Directors and 8 years of membership. Prior to this role she was the executive director of New York Artists Equity Association, Inc (NYAEA) a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1947 by artists and art patrons with the mission to promote opportunities for artists. It operates Equity Gallery, an art space located on the Lower East Side of New York City.
Since 2001, Porter also maintained Porter Advisory, working with organizations and other galleries as an independent curator, creating exhibitions in alternative spaces and exposing emerging artists to unique opportunities. From 2006 to 2017, Porter founded and directed Porter Contemporary, a Chelsea art gallery, where she was responsible for the overall strategy, business development and market growth, marketing and communications as well as talent acquisition and development of the gallery.
Lise Ragbir the CEO and Co-Founder of VERGE— a talent and recruiting agency dedicated to supporting an evolving workforce, and equipping galleries, museums, and cultural institutions, with the resources to ensure that talent is not only recruited, but retained. From her time as a Smithsonian Institution Fellow, to her work as a grant maker with foundations such as the Wallace Funds, to directing the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas, Lise has dedicated her 20-year career to creating access to a range of art experiences. She is the co-editor of Collecting Black Studies: The Art of Material Culture (2020), and her essays about race, identity, immigration, and cultural representation have appeared in Hyperallergic, Frieze, Artnet, The Guardian, Time Magazine, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other publications.
ArtTable’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
ArtTable’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Dr. Tania Aparicio (she/her) is a full-time lecturer in the Arts Administration Program at Teachers College-Columbia University. Using ethnographic and archival methods, her research has focused on the study of cultural production, cultural organizations, and cultural workers–with particular attention to the dynamics of inequality in art worlds. In particular, she has conducted a comparative investigation of the effects of unionization in arts organizations and how it shapes racialized and gendered relations in the workplace. Her research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, Fulbright Program, Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, and Janey Program in Latin American Studies. At The New School she completed her doctoral degree thanks to a Dean’s fellowship and a dissertation award.
Partner LaKeisha M.A. Caton is a member of Pryor Cashman’s Labor + Employment and Litigation Groups, and combines her comprehensive litigation background with a focus on employment-related matters to bring results to clients across the globe. Having represented both management and executives in discrimination and harassment cases, LaKeisha brings her extensive knowledge of the law as well as her familiarity with the strategies often adopted by the opposition to every engagement. She leverages her comprehensive experience with federal, state, and local discrimination law and her background in litigation and dispute resolution to achieve favorable outcomes on behalf of her clients.
Gillian is a sociologist of inequality, art, and work. In 2018, she received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she wrote a dissertation focused on understanding how gender and ethno-racial inequality shape the work experiences of cultural entrepreneurs, especially chefs, under the direction of two of the leading scholars in feminist theory and work. Alongside her dissertation research, Gillian worked closely with several campus offices to conduct program evaluation research related to sexual harassment and sexual violence prevention education on campus. After completing her PhD, she was a Dean’s Fellow at NYU, where she continued her research focused on inequality and artistic labor and completed several consulting projects for the university focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion recruitment and retention efforts at the university.
Marysol Nieves is Vice President and Senior Specialist, Latin American Art at Christie’s, New York where she has worked on several important consignments, including, the sale of the world auction record for the category, Diego Rivera’s The Rivals as well as the 2022 sale of The Embroiderer, a rediscovered masterpiece by Rivera acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She has also been instrumental in bringing such previously under recognized women artists to the auction market as Zilia Sánchez and Olga Albizu. Prior to joining Christie’s in 2011, Marysol was an independent curator and art advisor working with institutional, corporate, and private clients. Additionally, she has held various positions in the museum and for-profit art sectors, including Vice President and Specialist, Latin American Art, Sotheby’s, New York; Senior Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan; Director of Visual Arts, Americas Society, New York; and Senior Curator, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York.
Gabriela Palmieri is the Founder and Principal of Palmieri Fine Art, Inc., a bespoke full-service Art firm based in New York City. Prior to establishing PFA, Inc., in 2016, Ms. Palmieri led a distinguished 17-year career at Sotheby’s, where she rose to Chairman of Contemporary Art, Americas, and was recognized as one of the most respected in the auction industry as a leading specialist in Post-War Art.
Since 2021, E. Carmen Ramos is chief curatorial and conservation officer at The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. There she leads the curatorial and conservation teams as they serve the nation and beyond through collections development, ground-breaking scholarship and exhibitions, and art conservation. Ramos most recently served as acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where she built one of the largest collections of Latinx art at a museum of U.S. art. She organized award-winning exhibitions at SAAM including ¡Printing the Revolution!, Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, and Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography. Before prior to the Smithsonian, she was a curator at the Newark Museum and worked on early DEAI initiatives at The Brooklyn Museum. She holds a MA and PhD in art history from the University of Chicago.
Rada Akbar, born and raised in Afghanistan, is an activist and artist who uses her art to speak out against misogyny and oppression. Her work consists of a mixture of wearable monuments, performance, photography and installation pieces. It has been displayed in numerous national and international exhibitions. In 2015, she received an honorable mention in the UNICEF Photo of the Year Award. In 2020, her art exhibit called Abarzanan—Superwomen—which celebrates pioneering Afghan women, was featured in the New York Times, and in 2021 she received the Prince Claus Seed Award, MujerHoy awards and BBC 100 Women.
Barbara Pollack is the co-founder of Art at a Time Like This Inc., a platform for free expression for artists at times of crises. An independent curator and writer, Pollack will be lead curator for the exhibition, Mirror Image: A Transformation of Chinese Identity, opening at the Asia Society Museum in June. In 2021, she organized Lu Yang: DOKU—Digital Alaya at Jane Lombard Gallery. Since 1994, Pollack has written extensively for a broad range of arts publications and catalogues and monographs and is also a professor at the School of Visual Arts. 
Julie Trébault is the director of the 
Anne Verhallen is the co-founder of Art At A Time Like This, launched in 2020 in response to the global health crisis. The non-profit arts organization supports artists working in response to crisis and current events by presenting their work online and in the public space.
Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and community organizer specializing in Native American and Indigenous arts and culture. Her work in these areas focuses on amplifying the under-recognized presence of native peoples in the arts, sciences, and the public arena. Erin earned an M.S. in Art, Culture, and Technology from MIT and an M.P.A. in Tribal Governance from Evergreen State College. She also studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts. In recent years, her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at Boston’s Urbano Project, the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica, The Museum of Northwest Art, and the International Space Station. Public commissions have come from the Tufts University Art Galleries, the Minnesota Historical Society, the City of St. Paul, and the City of Seattle. Also in the public realm, Erin was named artist-in-residence with the City of Boston (2020-2021) and co-founded, “Centering Justice: Indigenous Artists’ Perspectives on Public Art,” with the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art Team.
Shannon O’Loughlin is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and the Chief Executive and Attorney for the oldest non-profit serving Indian Country – the Association on American Indian Affairs. Throughout its 99-year history, the Association has provided national advocacy on watershed issues that support sovereignty and culture, while working at a grassroots level with Tribes. The Association’s vision is to create a world where diverse Native American cultures and values are lived, protected and respected.
Shannon has been practicing law for more than 20 years and is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. In 2013, she was appointed by Secretary of the Department of the Interior to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Review Committee. In 2015 she was appointed by President Barack Obama as the first Native American to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee within the State Department. Shannon received a B.A. in American Indian Studies from California State University, Long Beach. She then received joint M.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of Arizona in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy.
Malynn Wilbur-Foster is a Squaxin Island tribal member, raised among her people near the Skokomish and Squaxin Island reservations where she has lived most of her life. She works in a variety of media , including weaving, painting, jewelry, and carving both stone and wood. Malynn is always looking for new ways to tell the stories of her people fusing tradition and technology.
Since 1998, her work has been shown in galleries and featured in
books. It has also entered collections of the Seattle Art Museum, Burke Museum, and Washington State History Museum. Additionally she has collaborated on a number of commissioned works in the Seattle area, with family members and friends. 2020 brought a significant new commission: Malynn is now collaborating with Tamela LaClair and Kimberly Deriana, as a team, known as the MTK Matriarchs.
They have been selected as the artists for the Salish Steps, part of the Seattle project re-imagining the city’s waterfront. Representing both local tribes and Urban Natives, they are working with the design team, developing a permanent artwork to elevate the importance of indigenous culture and history to this very public site. Malynn has received grants for her achievements in both art and for being an indigenous knowledge keeper.
Thank you to ArtTable members Cathie Behrend, former Deputy Director of New York’s Percent for Art Program and founder of VenturesinVision, and Lori Shepard, Independent art advisor, for organizing this program series.
