September 5, 2023 | 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Welcome to ArtTable’s 2023 Annual Leadership Series panel discussion on Tuesday, September 5 in New York City! “The Future of Gender Based Organizations” engages the arts and business communities in a critical examination of how organizations dedicated to addressing existing gender-based disparities in wages and opportunities can continue to research, advocate, network, and address inequities—particularly as the culture moves forward into a more evolved understanding of gender identity. In the panel discussion, we will consider the value and meaning of gender-based organizations, their changing roles, purposes, and goals, and the context and consequences of leading such organizations in a changing political and cultural moment. The program will continue to establish ArtTable as an advocate for equality within and beyond the art community. Our panel features: Alyssa Nitchun, Executive Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art; Subha V. Barry, President of Seramount; Alicin Williamson, Chief Diversity and Culture Officer, Yahoo!; and Jessica L. Porter, Lila Harnett Executive Director of ArtTable. Sociologist Dr. Gillian Gualtieri will moderate this important discussion. We’ll open with time to network and socialize over refreshments and light bites.
This signature ArtTable program was initially launched in 2016, and since its inception, the series has been featured during Armory Show week, fostering engaging conversations among prominent women-identifying and nonbinary professionals. It has provided a platform for these influential voices to discuss the most pressing and relevant topics within our industries. We are proud to partner with the Women’s Forum of New York, a leading organization that is similarly committed to equity, advocacy, and community engagement. Women’s Forum Members can register here.
The program will be moderated by Dr. Gillian Gualtieri, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Barnard College, with panelists:
- Subha V. Barry | President of Seramount
- Alyssa Nitchun | Executive Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
- Alicin Williamson | Chief Diversity and Culture Officer of Yahoo!
- Jessica L. Porter | Lila Harnett Executive Director of ArtTable
Admission:
- ArtTable & Women’s Forum Members – $35
- Non-members/Guests – $45
Not an ArtTable member? Join today!
This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
About the Speakers
Subha V. Barry is a C-suite leader and an Advisor who brings a unique perspective on the alignment of corporate culture to talent strategy and business results. As a transformational change agent, she has a proven record of identifying and accelerating new business creation, driving sales, and increasing profitability. She is president of Seramount, now part of EAB. Seramount is a strategic professional services firm dedicated to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Here, she drives the firm’s vision, strategy, and business development.
Prior to Seramount, Subha was SVP and Chief Diversity Officer at Freddie Mac, where she served on the firm’s management committee and led their Foundation. During her 20+ years at Merrill Lynch, Subha was a Managing Director and the company’s first Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion, driving strategy, infrastructure and execution with a lens on both global and local community.
She has taught Gender Policy at Columbia University and speaks passionately about the ability to drive innovation by embracing diversity and creating a culture of inclusion. She serves on a number of boards aligned with her passions—education, cancer research, and women’s advancement.
A native of India, Subha holds a BA from Bombay University and an MBA and MS in Accounting from Rice University. She enjoys golfing, reading poetry and rallying for social change. She has two grown children and lives in Naples, Florida and New Hope, PA with her husband.
Alyssa Nitchun is Executive Director of The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (LLMA), where she oversees the Museum’s many initiatives and long-term growth. Alyssa was the first queer woman to be selected by the Board to lead LLMA and in her two years as Director, she is already ushering the Museum into the future, building a queer, revelatory, radically affirming art Museum, that centers people and collective meaning making. Prior to her appointment at LLMA, Alyssa had a career in cultural consulting and nonprofits, spending time advising artists and cultural institutions on realizing thought-provoking projects in the Middle East and Europe.
Alyssa also served as Acting Executive Director at the public art organization Creative Time, where she spent nearly seven years working in development, communications, and team management. She previously oversaw Institutional Giving for the public media organization, StoryCorps and was the Director of Development for the CUNY Graduate Center’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. Alyssa has held multiple creative positions in the worlds of art, fashion, and music, and received an MA in Gender Politics with a focus in Queer theory from New York University. In her current role at The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Alyssa is expanding the Museum’s purpose beyond its position as an art museum, into a hub for community and creative expression, actively shaping a better future for LGBTQIA+ people with artists leading the way.
Alicin Reidy Williamson is a global diversity and strategy executive. Her experience includes being a Managing Principal at strategic policy firm, The Raben Group, SVP of Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility for MTV Networks and Viacom, Chief Inclusion Officer at Endeavor and she now serves as Chief Diversity and Culture Officer at Yahoo!. In her current role, Alicin leads global diversity and inclusion, employee engagement and culture for the company. In her partnerships, she’s developing the external relationships that will increase Yahoo’s diversity footprint as a thought leader in this space. Alicin currently sits as a board member of The Dalton School, She Should Run, March on Washington Film Festival and is an advisor for the Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judges and chairs a joint collaboration of veteran service organizations, Hire Heroes and Operation Homefront.
Jessica L. Porter is ArtTable’s Lila Harnett Executive Director. She joined ArtTable as the executive director in 2018, after 4 years on the Board of Directors and 8 years of membership. Porter is responsible for developing the long-range strategy of ArtTable, providing leadership and oversight in fundraising to meet financial goals, and directing communications and brand management. In 2020, she was the first to assume the name of ArtTable’s founder as the Lila Harnett Executive Director.
Prior to this role, she was the Executive Director of the New York Artists Equity Association, Inc (NYAEA)—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1947. In 2001, Porter launched Porter Advisory, working as an independent curator, creating exhibitions and advising artists on career advancement. From 2006 to 2017, Porter founded and directed Porter Contemporary, a Chelsea art gallery, where she was responsible for strategy, business development and market growth, marketing, communications, and talent acquisition. Porter has spoken on CNBC about art collecting and investment in emerging artists, to the Harvard Business Women’s Association about starting an art collection, and has participated in panel discussions on topics including art and music, women in the art industry, art and social justice, contemporary visions of Picasso and art collecting. Porter has served as part of the Leadership Advisory Board for the Girl Scouts of Greater New York’s annual Women of Distinction Fundraiser. She also enjoys coaching little league softball and supporting girls in sports. Porter has a Bachelor’s in Art History and French Language and Literature from the University of Delaware and a Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland.
Gillian Gualtieri, PhD, is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Barnard College, where she teaches classes in the sociology of art, race and ethnicity, gender, organizations, and culture. Previously, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University and a postdoctoral fellow at New York University. In 2018, Gillian received her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Gillian has published research on symbolic compliance and sexual harassment on college campuses (in Sociological Forum), inequality in the art world (Poetics; SNAAP Report), and racial and gender inequality in fine dining (Social Problems; Poetics). Gualtieri is the lead researcher on ArtTable’s 2023 Survey on Working in the Arts. Gilliangualtieri.com
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.
Grey (moderator) is a multimedia artist who identifies as AfroIndigenous, genderfluid, and queer. She’s currently known for making art pieces and installations in solidarity with the trans community as well as being the lead singer of the band God Save The Club Kids.
Philo Cohen is the founder and Editor-in-Chief at Speciwomen, an online archive and independent publishing initiative aiming to change the representation of womxn and femmes in the arts. Cohen lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2020 with a BA in Visual Studies and Comparative Literature.
Opashona Ghosh (b. Kolkata 1987) is an artist and facilitator, based in London. Graduate of Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts, London). Their work explores feminist approaches to mental & sexual health, and club culture, locating the intersections of body, community & ritual. They curate FEMME NEW WORLD, an intersectional panel exploring migrating femme landscapes. Currently, they are co-publishing HONEY with Bahraini-British writer and editor Nadia Jones, a zine meditating on the experience of friendship. (
Anne-Sophie Guillet 
Alyssa Nitchun