AAMC Foundation is pleased to be hosting the inaugural In Conversation program, which will be a discussion among leading figures involved in the protection and preservation of cultural heritage sites and artifacts aimed at informing and engaging curators and those interested in their role on ways they can have an impact on this issue.
The discussants include Emily Rafferty, emerita president the Metropolitan Museum of Art who is active with U.N. cultural heritage efforts; Lisa Ackermann, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of World Monuments Fund, a leader in preservation efforts around the globe; Ian Wardropper, Director, The Frick Collection, museum director and curator whose expertise includes many areas related to cultural heritage; and Edward Bleiberg,Curator, Egyptian, Classical, & Ancient Near Eastern Art; Managing Curator, Ancient Egyptian, African, & Asian Art whose areas of responsibility include many closely involved in present day conflict and looting; and Sandra L. Cobden, SVP, General Counsel, Dispute Resolution & Legal Public Affairs, an expert on legal issues relating to the preserving cultural heritage. Helen C. Evans, President AAMC and AAMC Foundation and Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will moderate the discussion that will address what curators can do regarding cultural preservation in areas of current conflict as well as globally.
AAMC Foundation's regional programming series, In-Conversation, collaborates with our leadership, and prominent voices within local communities for dialogues on pressing issues within the curatorial profession, museum network, and broader visual arts world. Through hosting regional programming AAMC & AAMC Foundation will further our initiatives of advocacy and diversity, connect members in regional areas, and support our overall mission. Each evening series includes a discussion and reception. Our current locations tentatively include NYC, June 2016; Boston, September 2016; Washington, DC, October/November 2016; Los Angeles, winter, 2017; and Toronto, summer, 2017.
Registration closes on Monday, June 27th.
$20 for AAMC Members; $25 for Non-Members. To learn more about AAMC Membership, you may visit our Join page here.
Lisa Ackerman is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of World Monuments Fund, an organization founded in 1965, which has assisted in the conservation and documentation of more than 600 cultural heritage sites in 100 countries. Ms. Ackerman holds an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute. Previously Ms. Ackerman served as Executive Vice President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to European art and architecture from antiquity through the early 19th century. Ms. Ackerman holds an MS degree in Historic Preservation from Pratt Institute, an MBA from New York University, and a BA from Middlebury College. She serves on the boards of Historic House Trust of New York City, and New York Preservation Archive Project. She previously served on the boards of US/ICOMOS, St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts, Partners for Sacred Places, and the Neighborhood Preservation Center. In 2007 she received Historic District Council’s Landmarks Lion award. In 2008, Ms. Ackerman was named the first recipient of US/ICOMOS’s Ann Webster Smith Award for International Heritage Achievement.
Egyptologist Edward Bleiberg joined the Brooklyn Museum in 1998 from the University of Memphis, Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology, where he had been Director and Associate Professor. A Pittsburgh native, he graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. After graduate work at Yale University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Bleiberg received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books and articles on ancient Egyptian economy, Egyptian coffins, and the Jewish minority in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. Exhibitions that Dr. Bleiberg has organized for Brooklyn include Jewish Life in Ancient Egypt, Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire, and To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum, and Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies from ancient Egypt.
Sandra has been a New York-based litigator for more than twenty years. She has worked at Christie’s for over seven years, managing Christie’s disputes, legislative interests and government affairs. She also is an adjunct law professor at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, where she teaches art law and two separate clinic courses. Prior to joining Christie’s, she worked at Debevoise & Plimpton for almost 15 years on a number of major corporate litigations, including numerous regulatory investigations, complex class actions, and international and domestic arbitrations. In addition, she served as Executive Director to Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation, General Counsel to the Comfort Diner Restaurant Group, and a law clerk to Judge Harold Ackerman of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Helen C. Evans, president of the AAMC & AAMC Foundation, is the Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A graduate of Tulane University with her PhD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, she held fellowships at the Museum before becoming as assistant curator in 1991. Her three major exhibitions on Byzantium in 1997, 2004 and 2012 were declared exhibitions of the year by NYTimes, Apollo Magazine, and/or The WSJ. One won the Barr Award from the CAA and best catalogue from ARLIS/NA; another, the Iranian Ministry of Culture’s World Book Award. She installed the Museum’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Byzantine Art in 2000, the first permanent galleries for Byzantine art in a major international museum, and their further expansion in 2008. She has advised on museum projects in Bulgaria and Georgia, mentored interns, taught at various universities, and most recently was a Getty fellow.
Recognized nationally and internationally for her leadership and communication skills, Emily Kernan Rafferty served for 40 years at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as chief fundraiser and for ten years as President. She oversaw the administration of an institution employing 2,300 people, the Museum’s financial and legal issues, its revenue sources, security, and government relations. Ms. Rafferty’s global experience in some 50 countries on behalf of the Museum included interactions with presidents, prime ministers, and ambassadors. In the United States, she worked with officials on initiatives regarding funding, sponsorship, lobbying on not-for- profit issues, cultural property, international loans, and federal indemnity for artworks.
She is Chair of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Chair of NYC & Company, a Board member of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, and Senior Adviser for Heritage Protection and Conservation for UNESCO. Crain’s New York Business named her one of New York City’s 100 most influential women from 2009 through 2013, and in Fall 2015 she was elected to their Hall of Fame.
As principal of Emily K. Rafferty & Associates, she advises many organizations. She is a member of the Economic Club and the Council on Foreign Relations. She was recently appointed Russell Reynolds Associates’ Senior Director in the firm’s Nonprofit and Board Effectiveness Practices.
A graduate of Boston University with a degree in the History of Africa and the Middle East, Ms. Rafferty has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, and is a frequent speaker on the arts, culture, and the not-for-profit sector.
Ian Wardropper has served as the Director of The Frick Collection since the fall of 2011. After completing his Ph.D. at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, he was curator and later head of the department of European Decorative Arts, and Sculpture, and Ancient Art at The Art Institute of Chicago for nineteen years, until returning to New York in 2001 as Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has organized over twenty exhibitions in his specialties of European sculpture, earlier decorative arts, and twentieth-century design and decorative arts. He has taught art history at six universities and published numerous books, catalogues, and articles. His most recent publications include European Sculpture, 1400-1900, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, Limoges Enamels at The Frick Collection, and Director’s Choice: The Frick Collection.
The program is organized and presented by the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), AAMC Foundation, and the US committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOMUS). We are grateful to Christie's for their support of our joint program, and to The Frick Collection for so generously hosting.The information presented here is subject to change without notice. The organizers assume no responsibility for any errors that may appear here, and in no event shall the organizers be liable for incidental or consequential damages arising from use of this document or other program-related material. This document and parts thereof must not be reproduced or copied without the organizers providing written permission, and contents thereof must not be imparted to a third party nor be used for any unauthorized purpose.