The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. has announced the appointment of Deborah Willis, as board chair and the election of three new board members, Johanna Burton, Paul Chan, and Kemi Ilesanmi.
The Foundation’s board consists of a diverse group of 18 leaders in the field of visual arts that include artists, curators, scholars, and art professionals from across the country. Willis succeeds Paul Ha who recently completed his term of distinguished service, while two other board members conclude their tenures, Ruby Lerner, Founding Director of Creative Capital, and Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum.
“Under the guidance and expertise of the board, the Warhol Foundation remains at the forefront of supporting artists and artist-centered organizations,” says Joel Wachs, President of the Warhol Foundation, “Deb Willis’ exceptional dedication as an artist, curator, historian, and educator positions her as an exemplary candidate for chair of the board. Additionally, the three newly appointed board members are all outstanding figures in the visual arts and will be instrumental in reinforcing the foundation’s dedication to supporting artists and their communities nationwide.”
Deborah Willis, Ph.D, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and has an affiliated appointment with the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, Africana Studies, where she teaches courses on Photography & Imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the author of The Black Civil War: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship, Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present; and co-author of The Black Female Body A Photographic History; Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery; and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs (both titles an NAACP Image Award Winner), and others. Willis has curated numerous exhibitions, co-organized thematic conferences exploring imaging the black body in the West, and her own work has been exhibited widely.
Johanna Burton is the Maurice Marciano Director of The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles where she has spearheaded initiatives to support artists, audiences, and staff, as well as deepening the museum’s commitment to the environment and sustainability. She has over 20 years of experience in the contemporary art field, having held leadership roles in major museums and prominent institutions for over a decade including Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, Director of the graduate program at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Associate Director and faculty member of the Whitney Independent Study Program, and the Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum in New York. She has published extensively and her writings have appeared in publications such as Artforum, October, Texte Zur Kunst, and others. She was a 2019 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellow.
Artist, writer and publisher, Paul Chan lives and works in New York, NY. A traveling survey of his recent practice entitled “Breathers” was organized by the Walker Art Center and shown at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. He has solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art at VCU, M+ in Hong Kong, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and the Serpentine Gallery in London, among others. His work is in the collections in many international museums including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Hirschhorn Museum, MoCA Los Angeles, and many others. He was named a 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and the recipient of the 2014 Guggenheim Foundation Hugo Boss Prize. He founded Badlands Unlimited (2010-2018) a press devoted to publishing artist writings and writings about art in paper and digital forms.
Kemi Ilesanmi is Founder and Principal of KGI Projects which is dedicated to supporting and building Black and Brown arts leaders, institutions, and networks in the United States and Africa. For over 25 years, she has held roles as a pioneering nonprofit leader, foundation officer, and museum curator. For a decade, she served as founding executive director of The Laundromat Project, a community-based arts organization in New York City that grew tenfold under her leadership. Prior to that, Kemi held key roles at Creative Capital and the Walker Art Center. Along with recognition from the Metropolitan Museum and New York Times, Kemi serves on several boards and is a graduate of Smith College and New York University.
The Foundation is honored to welcome these exceptional individuals to the board of directors, and to have Deborah Willis serve as board chair. They join a group of accomplished individuals whose dedication and accomplishments make an invaluable contribution to the foundation’s commitment to supporting organizations that bolster artists and promote a diverse range of artistic practices across the country.