Katherine Gressel, Independent curator, artist and writer 57:16
A native New Yorker, Katherine Gressel began her artistic and curatorial career responding to changes in the city. She dove into curation whole-heartedly when she found it combined many of her interests and now she finds herself a curator/educator/administrator who makes a living as an artist. How did she flip the script? During her conversation with The Remix, Katherine discussed her role at Old Stone House (the sight of the Battle of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War) where she facilitates site-specific projects to make local history relevant to a contemporary and globally-minded general audience. She talks programming; community work; the challenges of working in a multi-purpose space; funding as an independent curator; how she loves to start every project with a space and a community rather than a specific topic; catalyst vs curator; grad school; and painting commissions. She talks about her deliberate effort to blur the lines between the different facets of her life and make them sustainable as a whole.(Shout out to Natalia Nakazawa in this episode!)
*****NOTE: Since this podcast was recorded, Katherine and the Old Stone house received the big NYSCA grant she mentions! Congrats, Katherine and Old Stone House! Check out their website theoldstonehouse.org and @oldstonehousebklyn for their 2020 schedule.*****
Katherine Gressel is a New York‐based curator, artist, and writer focused on site‐specific art. Since 2016 she has served as the inaugural Contemporary Curator at the Old Stone House & Washington Park (OSH), a nonprofit historic house and community center in Park Slope, Brooklyn. At OSH she has focused on how contemporary artists can help make local and national history relevant, and how OSH's unique space can inspire and incubate emerging artists. Katherine first started organizing exhibitions at OSH in 2009 with her original Brooklyn Utopias series exploring artists' visions for ideal cities.
In addition to organizing over ten major exhibitions to date at the Old Stone House, Katherine has curated for FIGMENT, No Longer Empty, St. Francis College, and Brooklyn Historical Society, and was the 2016 NARS Foundation emerging curator. She was selected for the 2015 Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive in New Orleans. Katherine's exhibitions have been recognized by the New York Times, Time Out New York, Hyperallergic, News 12 Brooklyn, and DNAInfo. She has written and presented on public and community art issues for Createquity, Americans for the Arts, and Public Art Dialogue, among others. Katherine also served as Programs Manager at Smack Mellon Gallery from 2010-2014, and has worked and consulted for diverse nonprofits. She earned her BA in art from Yale and MA in arts administration from Columbia.
