Dexter Wimberly tells The Remix the dramatic story of how he went from a car accident on New Year’s Eve to founding his own company to becoming an independent curator and the founder of Art World Conference. We delve into how each decision was conscious, yet without a roadmap. From organically curating the artists he had admired over the years to curating Derrick Adams’s first solo museum show in New York City at the Museum of Art and Design (all in less than ten years), Dexter talks about the decisions he’s made, the artists with whom he’s worked, and the mentors he’s had along the way--from family and friends to historical figures. He talks generosity, impact, family, and the future. At the end it gets real: what does being an independent curator really mean?  Dexter Wimberly is an independent curator and entrepreneur who has organized exhibitions and developed programs with galleries and institutions throughout the world, including The Third Line in Dubai; Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco; and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, and Hyperallergic; and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Wimberly is the Founder & CEO of ART WORLD CONFERENCE. He is also a Senior Critic at The New York Academy of Art.  artworldconference.com @dexterwimberly @artworldconference

The Remix welcomes Yulia Topchiy, Natasha Becker, and Paola Gallio, the amazing co-founders of Assembly Room, who staged 12 exhibitions, 16 performances, and monthly curatorial meetups in the gallery’s first year. They share their origin story—an arranged marriage—and how they fill a void for independent women curators. They didn’t think there was a need for another gallery so they created space and a home for independent curators: a commercial gallery with a nonprofit soul. The reasons why they made that choice includes finances as well as freedom, flexibility, and ownership over mission. They walk us through their Open Call platform, the gallery space vs the project space downstairs, what they’re looking for in a proposal, and their interest in mentorship, collaboration, and family. Toward the end of the conversation, their kinship with artist-run spaces becomes clear and there are shout outs to Spring Break, Pioneer Works, Canada gallery, A.I.R. gallery, and others who paved the way for their new model. We end on day jobs and dreams for the future. Picture utopia on a beach. Assembly Room is an art gallery and space for independent women curators to achieve success through community. We believe in coming together to collaborate, break the rules, defy the status quo, and create compelling art, exhibitions, and experiences.Assembly Room’s three founding curators are: Natasha Becker, Paola Gallio, Yulia Topchiy. assemblyroom.nyc @assemblyroomnyc

Francisco Correa Cordero started as an aspiring artist, working at many of our favorite institutions. He stopped making his own artwork in favor of creative collaboration and curating for love. Seriously. An experiment and act of affection turned into a career, a gallery, and a devoted following. Francisco speaks frankly about day jobs; how he can handle projects concurrently in the US and abroad; the importance of old friends and collaboration; and an ongoing struggle with time management. Does he want Lubov gallery to grow and challenge Hauser and Wirth or Zwirner for art market share? Listen to find out his definitions of success. Francisco Correa Cordero is the founder and director of the contemporary art space Lubov in Lower Manhattan, where exhibitions have been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, The Village Voice, V Magazine, and Office Magazine, among more publications. He has collaborated on independent projects with White Columns, Recess, Silver Projects, Residency Unlimited, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and apexart in New York, and with espace HIT in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also the executive coordinator at Independent Curators International (ICI) in New York. lubov.nyc @lubov_nyc

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.   katherinegressel.com theoldstonehouse.org @oldstonehousebklyn @eventpaintingbykatherine

Cara Ober was told print was dead and she created a luxurious, insightful, and deliberate print journal for the Baltimore art community. Cara talks with The Remix about how she sees the many facets of her life--both inside and outside the studio--as artwork; how she got a print journal off the ground; how she is a conscious and active member of the Baltimore artworld; and how she marches to the beat of her own drum. Creative collaboration is Cara’s passion and BmoreArt is a tool to capture her local art scene in a generous and generative way. She is doing the thing she looks for in institutions: to “seamlessly and elegantly represent the art from their place but put it into a global context.” Want to get Cara mad? Talk about exclusivity as an inevitable part of the art world, and do it in artspeak. Listen for details on exciting, newly formed and forming projects. Cara Ober is the founding editor and publisher at BmoreArt, Baltimore’s art and culture magazine. She is a Baltimore-based artist, writer, culture producer, and curator.  Cara writes about Baltimore's unique cultural landscape from the perspective of an artist and feminist. She approaches all kinds of cultural production from a constructive and critical perspective informed by material and pop culture, history, social movements, and politics. Over the past decade, Cara's critical reviews, essays, and interviews have explored the political and economic impact of the arts in Baltimore and the way artists maintain a professional practice and thrive in a city full of rich and diverse cultural traditions as well as serious social issues. She writes regularly about artist and museum culture and institutional values and the way they intersect and collide, assessing how this impacts artists, art communities, and establishes hierarchies and systems of value.Cara is a recipient a 2019 Rabkin Arts Writers grant, the winner of a Mellon Arts Innovation Grant from Johns Hopkins University in 2015, a Grit Fund Grant from The Contemporary via The Andy Warhol Foundation in 2015, and a Warhol Grant for Emerging Curators in 2006. Cara  earned an MFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art, an MS in Art Education from McDaniel College, and a BA in fine arts from the American University. Bmoreart.com caraober.com @bmoreart @caraober

Brian and Carolyn Jobe, the founders of Tri-Star Arts--an organization that connects and promotes contemporary visual art in Tennessee--join The Remix to talk about their journey from Tennessee to Texas to New York and back again. Both artists are educators and arts administrators who saw an opportunity (and a need) to connect contemporary artists and arts organizations across the entire state of Tennessee through listings, a speaker series, and other events. We get into the nitty gritty of their funding and how the founding of Tri-State Arts relates to a long-term vision that will manifest in the 2021 Tennessee Triennial, an event sure to attract nationwide interest. They talk about generosity, mentors, kindness, and time management. Find out how they balance their ambitious organization with their own practices and a family. They also give great advice for anyone planning to run a Kickstarter campaign. Brian Jobe has previously worked at the Guggenheim NY and Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio. Carolyn Jobe has worked in arts administration for a variety of entities including the Chelsea Music Festival (NY) and Art Crating Inc. In addition to being arts administrators, they are both artists: Brian, a sculptor, and Carolyn, a painter, both exhibiting their work nationally. Through their programs, they enjoy facilitating beneficial connections and have a passion to see the contemporary art communities of Tennessee thrive. @tristar_arts @tennessee_triennial @locate_arts

At 17-years-old, Elisa Jimenez manifested a dream to make art her life and life her art. She now works as a transdisciplinary artist and healer who surrounds herself with very talented people who believe in collaboration and conscientious capitalism. She traveled from TX to NYC to follow the dream and be herself. 25 years later, after working successfully as a solo entrepreneur, Elisa talks to The Remix about the influence of her family and friends (her tribe); her beginning as a mulit-disciplinary performance artist who spun webs throughout NYC to create a vortex of goodness; how a random passerby liked her dress and threw her into the world of fashion; artificial divisions; slow design; how her values have never waned, regardless of how hard that may be; what happens when health issues change your perspective; how to calculate loss and acknowledge success; and how to find systems to work with your personality. She talks ups and downs, the challenges, and upholding her ethics. Elisa Jimenez is an interdisciplinary artist in fashion design, writing, drawing, painting, performance art, photography, and art installation. Her main ongoing project is called "The Hunger World," a world of marionettes ranging from 2 inches to 30 feet in height. Vogue discovered Jimenez as "the scoop" and has consistently acknowledged her as being at the forefront of the new avant-garde as well as one of the top 10 American Designers in the independent realm. Her designs have appeared in the pages of Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Dutch, Black Book, Paper Mag, Jane, and Trace. She has worked for a number of actors, musicians, films and television programs, including: Melissa Auf der Maur, Cher for her Believe album, Jennifer Connelly for her character in Requiem for a Dream, Marisa Tomei, Courtney Love, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sex and the City, Pink, Cameron Diaz, and art photographer Cindy Sherman. Jimenez was invited to be in the Barbican Gallery's exhibit and book Rapture: Art and Fashion Since the 1970s, curated by Chris Townsend of London. She was represented by Holly Solomon and continues to show her art and fashion in traditional and unexpected ways. elisajimenez.com @elisajimeneznyc #beyondbrickandmortar

Koan Jeff Baysa takes The Remix from medical school to Mexico, collecting to curating, and commuting between Hawaii and NYC. As a doctor, Koan gave free medical attention to artists and his interest in both worlds quickly merged. Community, diversity, access, and inclusion are his mottos, with a goal of working in the area outside common thinking to inspire people to process geography and culture differently. Get prepared for his love of word play! The conversation turns to tech, medicine, and his work on Medical Avatar, a platform that emphasize visualization and patient engagement. We end on the importance of STEAM, Koan’s intense travel schedule, and where he finds artists. What would he have been if not a doctor or curator? You’ll never guess!  Kóan Jeff "KJ" Baysa is a physician and curator, born and raised in Hawai‘i, educated in San Francisco and New York, a member of the Association of International Art Critics, and alumnus of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. He has participated in medical missions in conflict zones and develops health apps for handheld devices. He segued from a clinical medicine practice in Manhattan to a design and science curatorial practice in Los Angeles that bridges medical culture and social sculpture, with research interests in the neuroscience of memory and olfaction, human sensory perception/misperception, neurodiversity, and the cultural constructs of health and disease. He is Chief Medical Officer, Medical Avatar; Co-founder, Joshua Treenial; Senior Founder, Honolulu Biennial; Director, iBiennale; Curator, Institute for Art and Olfaction; Program Board Advisor, Art Omi; Cultural Advisor, World Council of Peoples for the United Nations; Alumnus, Advisory Committee of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics; Cultural Agent, Curators Network; International Advisor, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza; Advisory Board, Kaus Australis, Rotterdam; Co-Founder, Mosaic NYC. A Ford Foundation grantee surveying contemporary art in Vietnam, he has curated exhibitions in China, Japan, Chile, Croatia, Mexico, Korea, Austria, Canada, Ireland, England, Ukraine, Holland, United Arab Emirates, and throughout the US, with upcoming projects in Iceland, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Finland, and Hawai'i. He is the Pacific Editor for d'Art International, writes catalog essays and reviews, and has lectured at the United Nations, MoMA, Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum, National Academy of Sciences, Phillips Collection, Hanoi University of Culture, and the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. Dr. Baysa divides his time between New York, Honolulu, and Los Angeles.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kjbmd/ @ibiennale ArtAndOlfaction.com

As a young writer, George Scheer visited Greensboro, NC, with fellow writer Stephanie Sherman and rediscovered his grandmother’s thrift store, founded in 1939, shuttered in 1997, and overflowing with surplus material culture. The result of that trip is a living museum called Elsewhere that’s had hundreds of residents, interventions, performances, and community meals. George speaks with The Remix about local vs. regional vs. national reach; how Elsewhere residents continually transform a 60-year archive into artwork (nothing leaves and nothing is sold); how he went about physically creating space in the store and his community; how an artist resident helped educate him on how to run a nonprofit; Elsewhere’s funding trajectory; succession; and how he sees institutions as instruments of change. The conversation covers the nuts and bolts of starting and growing a nonprofit to the point of sustainability. We end the conversation with George’s next stop of New Orleans and how a health scare has him thinking long-term about how environment impacts patient agency and recovery. What are Elsewhere’s ties to the Guggenheim? Did George work for Obama? Listen to find out. George Scheer is an artist-founder, director, and cultural policy advocate who fosters creative communities at the intersection of aesthetics and social change. George is the Director of the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and co-founder of Elsewhere, an experimental museum and artist residency. As a cultural critic, George writes about arts, cultural policy, urbanization, and place. Other projects include Kulturpark, a public investigation of an abandoned amusement park in East Berlin, and South Elm Projects, a curated series of public art commissions. George holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Political Communications, MA in Critical Theory and Visual Culture from Duke University, and a PhD in Communication and Performance Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. cacno.org goelsewhere.org @elsewheremuseum @cacnola

Andrea Valencia Aranda is able to cultivate an international perspective from Mexico City to NYC to Rotterdam thanks to digital communication. Regardless of where she lives, she has figured out a way to work on major exhibitions--such as Cecilia Vicuña’s world-travelling retrospective--while also continuing (and embodying) her research on immigration, memory, and empty space. We talk about instability in the art world and Andrea’s anxiety dreams of empty spaces giving way to a career that investigates how we, as curators, can hold a space and support a community. Tune in for tips on sustaining an international practice as well as details on her amazing projects Open Doors and Se Habla Español--both of which emphasize community, inclusion, and understanding while working to subvert and deconstruct systems that divide and exclude audiences. How does she use soft power so powerfully? Aranda is an art historian and independent curator from Mexico City. She holds an MA in Curatorial Practice from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Among her current curatorial research, she is working with sound art, immigration, feminism, and the poetics of empty spaces. She worked as an Assistant Curator at The National Museum of Art, Mexico City; as Liaison Manager for International Projects in the Office of International Affairs of The National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico; and she was Coordinator of the Pavilion of Mexico in the 57th Venice Art Biennale. In 2017, she co-founded the curatorial collective Se habla español. She is currently working with Witte de With Contemporary Art Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands as Exhibition Coordinator of the retrospective of Cecilia Vicuña. @andycurator