June 22 | 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
In a lively slide lecture, the veteran reporter and former longtime ARTnews editor reflects on her career and the future of art media – a story of personal growth and re-invention against the backdrop of vast changes in the art and publishing industries. From Artforum fact-checker to influential art journalist to her current status as educator and popular Instagrammer, Robin Cembalest has built a reputation as a respected art-world chronicler and mentor. In her talk, she recounts how she learned to embrace risk, put herself out there, and grow into her roles as gatekeeper and gate-opener.
Cembalest, the former longtime executive editor of ARTnews, has written for newspapers and magazines internationally, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice, the New York Observer, El País, most of the major art magazines, and many other publications. On the occasion of her newly released, freely accessible archive of more than 150 articles, the program will explore how her personal and intellectual interests have evolved alongside broader transformations in the art world over the past four decades.
Program Admission:
- ArtTable Members – $20 in-person / $10 virtual
- ArtTable Member Guest – $25 in-person
- General Admission – $30 in-person / $15 virtual
Not a member? Join today!
All program registration fees go toward event expenses and administrative costs for the organization.
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.