Writers & Contributors

Nicole J. Caruth (Writer and Columnist, “Gastro-Vision”) is a freelance writer and curator based in Brooklyn. A regular writer for this site since 2008, she also frequently contributes to …might be good, a contemporary art e-journal produced by Fluent~Collaborative. Her writing has been published by the Studio Museum in Harlem; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Archives and Informatics; CUE Art Foundation; the Center for Book Arts; The Laundromat Project; ArtPrize; Brooklyn Fine Arts Magazine, NYFA Current, Nka, and Gastronomica. Visit Caruth’s personal blog, Contemporary Confections, a blend of contemporary art and sweets.

Rachel Craft (Flash Points Editor) is the Communications and Web Manager for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. In addition to managing the institution’s website and online exhibition catalogues, she helped start a collaborative blog with the neighboring Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis called 2buildings1blog, and initiated many program-based blogs, designed to showcase the behind-the-scenes workings of the Pulitzer. Most recently, she’s worked on St. Louis Art Map, a city-wide visual arts blog developed with representatives from museums and non-profit-spaces around St. Louis.

Joe Fusaro (Columnist, “Teaching with Contemporary Art”) received his Masters in Education from the City University of New York and his BFA from Hofstra University. He is an exhibiting artist, educator, and the Visual Arts Chair for the Nyack Public Schools in New York since 2003. He was also a teacher and staff developer in the New York City school system for 13 years. Fusaro is an adjunct instructor for NYU’s Graduate Program in Art and Arts Professions, certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and has led staff development workshops and teacher training for education associations, museums, and school districts around the country. His recent exhibitions include solo shows at Kickstart Gallery (NYC), the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Garnerville Arts Center (NY).

Georgia Kotretsos (Columnist, “Inside the Artist’s Studio”) is a visual artist based in Athens, Greece. She holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2004) and a BFA from The Durban Institute of Technology in South Africa (2000). Kotretsos is the co-founder of the Boots Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis MO, USA and the founder and editor-in-chief of Boot Print, a publication dedicated to contemporary art, which is published by Boots. She also writes for Highlights Magazine in Athens, Greece. Kotretsos has exhibited her work in South Africa, the United States, and Europe.

Marc Mayer (Writer) joined Art21 in May of 2008 and is currently Manager of Education and Outreach. Prior to that, Mayer spent four years working in museum education, serving both youth and adult audiences. He was associate educator at the New Museum, integrating contemporary art into the high school curriculum, and held a twelve-month internship in the education department at the Museum of Modern Art, assisting with adult and academic programs. He also worked for three years at a not-for-profit using new technology to bring mentors to underserved youth in New York City. Mayer earned his B.A. from Wesleyan University in American Studies concentrating in visual culture.

Richard McCoy (Columnist, “No Preservatives”) is Associate Conservator of Objects & Variable Art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art where he conserves artworks across all areas of the collection. His research extends beyond the technology and structure of artworks to include artistic intent and execution as it relates to the preservation of contemporary art. His current research includes the investigation of interior channels in African Songye power figures.

Wesley Miller (Writer, Video Producer) is the Associate Curator at Art21 where since 1999 he has had a guiding hand in all five seasons of the Peabody Award-winning television series for PBS, Art in the Twenty-First Century (2001-2009), as well as the online Exclusive video series (2008-10). He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Art from Sarah Lawrence College (2000), an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University (2002), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2002) and the Pilchuck Glass School (2003). Before joining Art21, Miller worked at the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston and at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Miller has served as a guest lecturer, critic and panelist at institutions such as MoMA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University, Artecinema, Penn State, Brooklyn Museum of Art, SUNY Stonybrook, and the School of Visual Arts, among others.

Jonathan Munar (Writer/”Art 2.1” Editor) is the Web Manager at Art21, where he manages the Art21 Web presence, edits the “Art 2.1” column on the Art21 blog, and oversees the organization’s social media initiatives. Before joining Art21 in 2008, Jonathan was the Website Technology Manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In various roles throughout his career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jonathan was deeply involved in all aspects of maintaining and advancing the museum’s Web and new media initiatives, including the technical, the managerial, and the conceptual. Jonathan holds a B.A. in computer science from Fordham University.

Kelly Shindler (Blog Founder and Editor) has worked at Art21 since 2003, where she is presently Director of Special Projects. She is also a curator and writer, as well as a dual Master’s candidate in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism/Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Shindler has curated film and video for Australia Cinematheque, Oulu Music Video Festival in Finland, Scandinavia House, Sequences Festival in Reykjavik, CineWomen NY, and others. She is the co-founder/curator of the Package Deals film series, whose programs have been seen in over thirty cities around the world. Shindler holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lily Simonson (Columnist, “Looking at Los Angeles”) is an artist based in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. in Art from UC Berkeley and an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from UCLA. Her work has been exhibited nationally and in Europe. In addition to blogging for Art21, her art and writing has been featured in a diverse range of media outlets including Ms. Magazine, The Census of Marine Life Annual Highlights Report, LA Weekly, The Washington Academy of Sciences Peer Review Journal, and MTV. Simonson has taught painting, drawing, and art history at The Public School/Telic Arts Exchange, Stanford University, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and CSU Pomona. Visit www.oldgenres.com.

Ben Street (Columnist, “Letter from London”) teaches Art History to teenagers at a school in central London. He is a freelance lecturer and storyteller for the National Gallery and is a former schools and family educator at the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He writes about new and old art for anyone who’ll have him. The collected works are available here.

Hrag Vartanian (Writer) is a New York-based writer and critic who has a passion for art blogging. He is the editor of Hyperallergic.com and blogs regularly at HragV.com. He is also a board member of the Triangle Arts Association, which is headquartered in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY.

Catherine Wagley (Columnist, “Looking at Los Angeles”) is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles. She primarily writes about art, architecture, and visual culture and is currently exploring decadence and empathy in contemporary photography. She justifies her obsession with primetime TV by calling it “research.”

Guest Bloggers
Since February 2008, the Art21 blog features guest writers, each contributing to the site for a week or two. Following are all of the guest bloggers that have participated to date:

Naomi Beckwith
Karen Johanne Bruhn
Elijah Burgher
Sharon Butler
Audrey Chan
Jennifer Coates
Mary Cook
Seth Curcio
John d’Addario
Adrian Duran
Bryce Dwyer
Kristin Farr
Rosana Flouty
Daniel Fuller
Eva and Franco Mattes
Paul Ha
Dehlia Hannah
Marc Herbst
Kemi Ilesanmi
Lila Kanner
Merrily Kerr
Quinn Latimer
Emily Liebert
Victoria Lichtendorf
Amy Mackie
Thomas Micchelli
Arezoo Moseni
Maria Nicanor
Monika Navarro
Nicholas O’Brien
Kat Parker
Laurel Ptak
Daniel Quiles
Tim Ridlen
Erin Riley-Lopez
Paul Schmelzer
Sarah Sliwa
Julia Steinmetz
Julie Thomson
Nathan Townes-Anderson
Max Weintraub