Fall 2024 New Members
AICA-USA is excited to warmly welcome the newest members to our community!
CHRISTOPHER ALESSANDRINI
Christopher Alessandrini is a writer based in New York, where he currently works as a managing editor and producer in the Digital Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His writing on art has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, Interview, and elsewhere. His short story "Maverick Road" was published in Five Stories for Philip Guston (2024).
Alessandrini co-produced The Met's film program, and in February we have"Long Films for Long Nights: Vampires!"about the visual vocabulary of vampires in early cinema. We plan to show Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) and Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray (1932). The program is free with museum admission, though registration is recommended.
JOSÉ ANTONIO ARELLANO
José Antonio Arellano is an Associate Professor of English and Fine Arts at the United States Air Force Academy. Some of his recent essays appear in Race in American Literature and Culture, The Cambridge Companion to Race and American Literature, and post45.org. Arellano is an art critic who writes for publications, including the Denver-based art magazine DARIA and Southwest Contemporary. His short book Race Class: Reading Mexican American Literature in the Era of Neoliberalism, 1981-1984 is under contract with the Cambridge University Press Elements Series.
Website: joseantonioarellano.com
Intagram: @jose.antonio.arellano
KIM CÓRDOVA
Kim Córdova is a Mexican American writer, artist, and independent curator. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including ArtForum, e-flux (Criticism, Journal, and Art&Education), deAppel, frieze, SFMoMA Open Space, October Journal, the New York Times, and Momus where she was the Mexico City Contributing Editor (2016-2020). She is an Eisenhower Fellow, a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow, and a recipient of an Andy Warhol Art Writer grant in the short-form category.
Córdova holds a master's from Harvard and is a graduate of post-graduate studio art program at Soma in Mexico City. She received her BA from CCS at UCSB.
Instagram: @thisiskimco
Threads: @thisiskimco
X: @thisiskimco
LinkedIn: Kim Córdova
DAVID GIBSON
David Gibson is a seasoned arts professional with experience as a writer and curator. He has developed a critical acuity between an understanding of theory and the real lives of professional working artists. He has written for Zingmagazine, Performing Arts Journal, C magazine, Art Notes, Flash Art, and Frieze to name a few. Though not actively curating since 2017, he still curates online exhibitions on his website, and is open to random local opportunities for hire.
He has written on art since 1996, with reviews and articles in Cover Arts, NY Soho Arts, Zingmagazine, PAJ, C magazine, Flash Art, Art Notes, Vellum Artzine, Artillery Magazine, Playspace, and Frieze. Since 2021 he has published his email newsletter The Other Side of the Desk. He writes about contemporary art and artists, writers and books, and does interviews with curators and publishers, plus a monthly report on news and events.
Website: https://www.gibsoncontemporary.com
Substack: @theothersideofthedesk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GibCon
Instagram: @davidgibsonwriting @gibsoncontemporary
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gibsoncontemporary/
JEREMY LYBARGER
Jeremy Lybarger is a writer and art critic in Chicago. His work has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Frieze, The New York Times, The New Republic, and many other publications. In 2024 he received grants from the Graham Foundation and the Robert B. Silvers Foundation for Midnight Tremor, his book-in-progress about the late Chicago artist Roger Brown. He is on X at @jeremylybarger and his website is www.jeremylybarger.com.
FARON MANUEL
Faron Manuel is the Founder and Principal Curator at One Contemporary Gallery in Atlanta, GA. He formerly served as a grant manager in the curatorial department of the High Museum of Art and as director of the BAIA Foundation. Faron was presented with the Hammonds House Honors Award for Curatorial Excellence in 2019, and currently serves as a Board Member and Resource Specialist for the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative.
Instagram: @FaronManuel @One.Contemporary
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faron-manuel-82581159/
JENNIFER PIEJKO
Website: jenniferpiejko.com
Instagram: @jenniferpiejko
SHANTAY ROBINSON
Shantay Robinson is a Museum Correspondent for Smithsonian Magazine, Resident Scholar at Black Art in America, and regular freelance contributor to ARTnews. She has also written for Burnaway, Arts ATL, Nashville Scene, ARTS.BLACK, AFROPUNK,Sugarcane Magazine, Washington City Paper, and Number, Inc. She has published scholarly articles in Teaching Artist Journal and International Review of African American Art.
In 2015, Robinson was a participant in the inaugural class of Burnaway Magazine’s Art Writers Mentorship Program and in 2017, she was chosen for the CUE Art Foundation’s Art Critic Mentoring program.
In 2019, she was a panelist at Prizm Art Fair during Miami Art Week. In 2020, she served as visual arts judge at Shreveport Regional Council’s Critical Mass 8 Art Competition. And in 2022, she moderated a panel on the African American Quilting Tradition for Africa International House in Chicago.
In 2024, she earned her doctorate in Writing and Rhetoric from George Mason University. She currently teaches writing at Howard University and George Mason University.
Website: www.thethirdeyesite.com
Instagram: @thethirdeyesite
JASON ROSENFELD
Jason Rosenfeld, Ph.D., is Professor of Art History at Marymount Manhattan College, New York, and a Senior Writer and Editor-at-Large at The Brooklyn Rail where he writes widely about contemporary art and museum exhibitions. He is the co-author of the monograph on Cecily Brown published by Phaidon Press, Ltd. (2020). He was co-curator of Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain, London, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, the Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo, and the Palazzo Chiablese, Turin (2012–14); and co-curator of John Everett Millais at Tate Britain, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, and the Bunkamura Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2007–08). He is the author of John Everett Millais (Phaidon, 2012), Lund Humphries Press will publish his monograph on Shahzia Sikander in 2025.
CAROLYN SCHLAM
Carolyn Schlam is an award winning painter, sculptor, and published author of four books on art which include THE CREATIVE PATH: A VIEW FROM THE STUDIO ON THE MAKING OF ART (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018); THE ZEN OF ART: WIITH NOTES ON THE ART OF LIFE (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2024); and THE JOY OF ART series of books comprised of THE JOY OF ART: HOW TO LOOK AT, APPRECIATE, AND TALK ABOUT ART (Skyhorse, 2020) and the sequel MORE JOY OF ART: KEYS TO APPRECIATING ART (Skyhorse, 2025). THE JOY OF ART has been translated into several languages.
Carolyn's artwork has been exhibited in many museums, art galleries and publications, both interiors and covers. Her artwork is found in a number of collections including The Smithsonian Museum. She resides and has her studio in the Hudson Valley of New York.
On January 14, 2025, Carolyn Schlam's latest book, MORE JOY OF ART: KEYS TO APPRECIATING ART, the sequel to the popular book THE JOY OF ART, will be released by the publisher.
Website: http://www.carolynschlam.com
RACHEL TONTHAT
Rachel TonThat is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working with narrative structures around themes of possible futures, memory, and space-time. She is part of the art book duo, Oreades Press, and was a curator of the Zurich art space, Egg. In 2022, she was selected for the inaugural She Who Has No Master(s) writing mentorship through the Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network and completed her MA Fine Art at Zurich University of the Arts. Her work has been supported by the ZHdK International Project Fund, the city of Zurich, Canton St. Gallen, the AAPI Commission of Massachusetts, and New England Foundation For the Arts. She lives in Salem, MA.
Website: racheltonthat.com