Announcement

VERA LIST CENTER FOR ART AND POLITICS AT THE NEW SCHOOL ADDS SEVERAL KEY POSITIONS TO ITS TEAM AND LAUNCHES ITS FIRST ACADEMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

We are thrilled to announce that the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School has expanded its team to fill several recently created positions: Tabor Banquer has joined as our first Director of Strategy and Advancement; Re’al Christian has joined as our new Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives; Regan de Loggans joins us as the inaugural Borderlands Curatorial Fellow for 2021–2022; and Camila Palomino is our new Curatorial Assistant. They complement the current team, Senior Director and Chief Curator Carin Kuoni, Curator Eriola Pira, and Assistant Director of Operations Adrienne Umeh. With the expansion of the VLC staff, we will move forward with clarity, distinction, and an even greater capacity for curatorial, editorial, and community-driven work as we prepare to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the VLC later this year.

The Vera List Center has also launched its first Academic Advisory Council, an interdisciplinary group of faculty experts from across The New School charged with providing guidance and insights as the Center builds out its free educational programming, especially the highly regarded Vera List Center Seminars and Fellowships. We are pleased to welcome council members Shana Agid, Rich Blint, Jaskiran Dhillon, Andrea Geyer, Toya Lillard, Jessica Masters, Shannon Mattern, Ricardo Montez, Radhika Subramaniam, Deva Woodly, and Jeffrey Zeigler. The inaugural VLC Academic Advisory Council is chaired by Carin Kuoni and Jeannine Tang, Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies.

“It’s both humbling and exhilarating that we’ve been able to assemble such a stellar team,” says Carin Kuoni. “The times are calling for it: as democratic institutions crumble and social life transforms, the need for new forms of sociality is urgent. Art has always been political, but never have there been so many artists who are deeply engaged with their communities and leading the way towards more expansive notions of political empowerment. The VLC’s long-term support of research-driven artists is perfectly complemented by our intellectual home, The New School. As we enter the 30th anniversary of the VLC’s founding with our exceptional, new colleagues, we have become a formidable force helping advance the understanding and impact of these courageous artists.”

This growth has been made possible by generous support from several major individual and institutional donors, including gallerist and VLC board member Jane Lombard, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Kettering Fund, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and the Sigrid Rausing Trust.

The staff expansion also complements the recent expansion of the 20-person advisory Vera List Center Board to include five new board members who joined in 2020: Linda Earle, Professor of Practice in Arts Management/Art History at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture; Pia Infante, Trustee and Co-Executive Director of The Whitman Institute and an alumna of The New School; Louis Massiah, a documentary filmmaker and the founder/director of Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia; Alan Michelson, an internationally recognized New York-based artist, curator, writer, lecturer and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River; and Naeem Mohaiemen, an artist and educator whose work combines essay, film, photography, and installation to research socialist utopias, incomplete decolonization, shifting borders, unreliable memory, and family histories. These five new members contribute to the dynamic and diverse board chaired by James Keith Brown that will guide the VLC through these critical times and into the future.

Meet the new VLC team members, and start getting to know them!

TABOR BANQUER, Director of Strategy and Advancement
Tabor Banquer joined the VLC’s team in January 2022 as the inaugural Director of Strategy and Advancement, a role he helped create with the intention of amplifying the VLC’s core capacities in the areas of strategic planning, fundraising, communications, marketing, public relations, and partnerships. In his prior role as a Senior Director of Development at The New School, he oversaw the comprehensive fundraising programs for Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the VLC. At the VLC, he has raised more than $6.8 million to enhance and expand the center’s work with artists and public programming. He has been responsible for significantly increasing funding from individuals, including the endowment of the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, as well as from foundations including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and many others. Before joining The New School in 2012, he held fundraising positions at the Jewish Guild for the Blind, ICD-International Center for the Disabled, and Met Council, one of New York City’s leading multi-service anti-poverty organizations. Tabor is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and lives in Brooklyn. He holds an MS from Columbia University and a BA from Louisiana State University.

Tabor is currently reading the collected ghost stories of Edith Wharton. Up next: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans. About his new appointment he observes, “I am endlessly inspired by the VLC staff, the advisory board, the fellows, and the entire network of individuals and organizations who make the Center’s work possible. The type of artistic practice we support helps us grapple with complexity, face difficult truths, and—most profoundly—presents pathways for evolution, for healing, and for joy.”

RE’AL CHRISTIAN, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives
Re’al Christian joined the VLC in August 2021 as the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives, a role in which she collaborates with the VLC team, artist fellows, and writers to manage, develop, and expand the Center’s publishing and communications profiles. She is also a Contributing Editor at ART PAPERS and an independent writer whose work explores issues related to identity, diasporas, media, and materiality. Her essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, Art in Print, and BOMB Magazine. She has written exhibition and catalogue texts for CUE Art Foundation, DC Moore Gallery, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., and Performa. As a graduate curatorial fellow at the Hunter College Art Galleries, she has worked on exhibitions including The Black Index (2020–22) and Life as Activity: David Lamelas (2021), as well as their accompanying publications (both HGAG & Hirmer Verlag, 2021). She has also led and participated in public conversations on art, criticism, and social justice with ART PAPERS, Dieu Donné, the Rubin Foundation, and Smack Mellon. Re’al received her MA in Art History in fall 2021 from Hunter College. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Art History and Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University.

Re’al is currently reading Everything and Nothing, a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Broges, and enjoying new artist books including The Clearing by JJJJJerome Ellis. “There are so many possibilities for what publications can look and feel like,” says Re’al. “I’m excited to meld traditional formats with new media and experimental approaches as we build our editorial projects, and to continue collaborating with an inspiring network of artists, writers, and scholars.”

REGAN DE LOGGANS, Borderlands Curatorial Fellow
Regan de Loggans (Mississippi Choctaw/ K’iche’ Maya descendant) (they/themme) is a two-spirit agitator, art historian, curator, and educator based in Brooklyn on Canarsee land. They join the VLC as the first Borderlands Curatorial Fellow, a one-year appointment that is part of the Borderlands Initiative, a joint project between the VLC and the Tempe, Arizona-based Center for the Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. Their work relates to decolonizing, Indigenizing, and queering institutions and curatorial practices. They are a member of the Indigenous Kinship Collective: NYC. They have staged actions at The Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial, the American Museum of Natural History, and on the MTA subway system in response to continued settler colonialism and institutionalized racism and violence.

Their intention within the Borderland Curatorial Fellowship is to explore Indigneous futurism within contemporary art, and how science fiction lends alternatives to sustainable and fruitful futures for their people and the land. They believe that through the exploration of new realms, fantastical and unknown arts, and ancestral knowledge, a new future can be forged. Regan observes: “I’m excited about participating in the growing discourse around Indigenous futurism in contemporary art practices by supporting the community exploration of reopened creative realms. And excited to support likeminded individuals and artists through their own explorative journey.” Regan is currently reading A Short History of the Blockade: Giant Beavers, Diplomacy, and Regeneration in Nishnaabewin by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and watching a lot of Rick and Morty.

CAMILA PALOMINO, Curatorial Assistant
Camila Palomino is an independent curator and researcher from New York City. She joins as a part-time—soon to be full-time—Curatorial Assistant to support the development of programs, fellowships, and exhibitions while assisting internal research initiatives within the VLC. Camila is currently the 2021–2022 Curator in Residence at Abrons Art Center and the 2022 In Practice Curatorial Fellow at SculptureCenter. Previously, she was Assistant Curator at ACUD Gallery, a project space in Berlin, and has held curatorial positions and contributed research to exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, The Drawing Center, and the forthcoming 58th Carnegie International. Camila is a curatorial consultant at Amie Gross Architects on a project that commissions artworks by Queens-based artists for new affordable housing buildings in the borough. She has also been a visiting lecturer in The Photography Program at Bard College. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Camila is currently reading Theory of the Gimmick by Sianne Ngai and Speedboat by Renata Adler. She is excited about learning with and supporting the ever-expanding circuit of collaborators within the VLC’s orbit.

VERA LIST CENTER ACADEMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL: 2021–2022

• Shana Agid, Dean, School of Art, Media, and Technology; Associate Professor, Arts, Media, and Communication, Parsons School of Design
• Rich Blint, Assistant Professor of Literature; Director, Program in Race and Ethnicity; Affiliate Faculty, Gender Studies, Eugene Lang College
• Jessica Masters, Assistant Director, Curricular Affairs, Provost’s Office
• Jaskiran Dhillon, Associate Professor, Global Studies and Anthropology, Schools of Public Engagement
• Andrea Geyer, Associate Professor, New Genres, School of Art, Media, and Technology, Parsons School of Design; 2006–2007 VLC Fellow
• Carin Kuoni (co-chair), Senior Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics; Assistant Professor, Visual Studies, The New School
• Toya Lillard, Part-time Lecturer; School of Drama, New School College of the Performing Arts
• Shannon Mattern, Professor, Department of Anthropology, New School for Social Research
• Ricardo Montez, Associate Professor of Performance Studies, Schools of Public Engagement
• Radhika Subramaniam, Associate Professor of Visual Culture, School of Art and Design History and Theory, Parsons School of Design
• Jeannine Tang (co-chair), Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies; Interim Director, Visual Studies, Eugene Lang College
• Deva Woodly, Associate Professor of Politics, New School for Social Research
• Jeffrey Zeigler (associate member), part-time Assistant Professor, Mannes College of Music, New School College of the Performing Arts

ABOUT THE VERA LIST CENTER
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School is the preeminent research center for public scholarship on art, culture, and politics and the creation and presentation of visionary, politically engaged art projects. We are: A vibrant locally, nationally, and internationally connected hub for art that advances equity, inclusion, and social justice; a forum for rigorous study, research, and teaching on the significance of art in advancing political empowerment, relationality, and reciprocity; and a venue to support, present, and commission visionary projects. Together, our mission is to foster vibrant and diverse communities of artists, scholars, and policymakers who take creative, intellectual, and political risks to make the world more joyful and more just.