Speakers

• Tom Finkelpearl

  Tom Finkelpearl is Cultural Affairs Commissioner of New York, a position he has held since spring 2014. Prior to his appointment, Tom was the President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum for 14 years, and the Deputy Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center during its merger with The Museum of Modern Art. Most recently, he authored What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation.

• David van der Leer

  David van der Leer is Executive Director at Van Alen Institute, a New York–based independent nonprofit that researches and shapes discussions about how design influences the public realm. Previously an associate curator of architecture and urban studies at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, he was the co-curator of the mobile BMW Guggenheim Lab. In 2012, David co-curated the American Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale.

• Holly Block

  Holly Block is Executive Director of The Bronx Museum of Modern Art. Co-commissioner of the American Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. Previously, Holly was the art director of Art in General, a nonprofit organization, founded in 1981, that is famed for assisting artists early in their careers with the production and presentation of new work.

• Anne Pasternak

  Anne Pasternak is President and artistic director of Creative Time, the New York City arts organization that creates unconventional opportunities for artists to activate and engage urban spaces. Under Anne’s leadership, Creative Time has produced such renowned projects as Tribute in Light, the twin beacons of light that illuminated the former World Trade Center site six months after 9/11; and Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a restaging of Samuel Beckett’s play in the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans.