Launch Event featuring Paula Maricola
On September 19, 2014 Paula Maricola—Executive Director at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage—will participate in a salon-style conversation “What does it Mean to Catalyze Culture? Exploring practices that spark creativity, revitalize systems, and generate support for the cultural sector” hosted by Christina Bevilacqua—salonière and director of programs and public engagement at the Providence Athenaeum. The event is open to all board members from Catalyzing Newport’s partner organizations.
Paula Maricola
As Executive Director, Paula Marincola administers a budget of over $12m,and collectively, the Center’s programs invest approximately $8 million in culture in the region annually by supporting artists and projects of excellence, imagination, and courage. She is responsible for all administrative, communications, and programmatic functions, and for overseeing the implementation of the Center’s strategic agenda. The Center is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts; it has a full-time staff of 23.
Under Paula Marincola’s leadership, the Center has also become a thriving nexus for the exchange of knowledge in the fields of arts and heritage. In addition to its grantmaking, the Center organizes and produces lectures, symposia, workshops, and master classes that bring leading cultural figures from around the world into dialogue and practice with their regional peers. These activities contribute to the local arts community’s ability to continuously improve its artistic capacity, as well as enhance the Center and the area’s visibility locally and nationally. The Center also commissions scholarship on issues vital to the fields that it serves. Marincola has lead the organization in developing, evolving, and implementing its strategic agenda as both grantsmaker and thought leader. In 2013, she designed a major restructuring of the Center’s grantmaking strategies, which was announced in March.
In addition to her duties as Center ED, Paula Marincola maintains her position as Director of the Exhibitions Initiative, the Center’s visual arts program; she was also the program designer at its inception in 1997. The exhibitions program supports visual arts exhibitions and accompanying publications. As program director, Paula Marincola has produced and published the proceedings of “Curating Now: Imaginative Practice/Public Responsibility,” a major symposium on curatorial practice with an international roster of participating curators and museum directors. She is also the editor and a contributor to a volume of Center-commissioned essays entitled: “Questions of Practice: What Makes a Great Exhibition?” published in October 2006 and distributed internationally by Reaktion Books, London, which is now in its fourth printing, and has been translated into Korean. Both books are used extensively as texts in museum and curatorial studies courses.
selected publications
Pigeons on the Grass, Alas, Contemporary Curators Talk About the Field, Paula Marincola/Peter Nesbett, eds. A collection of interviews by 41 contemporary curators discussing critical issues in curatorial practice. Contributors include Paul Schimmel, Hou Hanru, Helen Molesworth, Pablo Helguera, Jens Hoffmann, Mai Abu El Dahab, Ruba Kabrib, Dan Byers, among others.
Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, Paula Marincola, executive editor and contributor; Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, Laura Koloski, eds; An anthology of Center commissioned essays that investigates path-breaking public history practices at a time when the traditional expertise of museums and historical institutions is constantly challenged by changing cultural conditions. Published: 2011. Distributed by Left Coast Press.
Questions of Practice: What Makes A Great Exhibition? Paula Marincola, ed. An anthology of Center-commissioned essays on vital issues in exhibition-making, including contributions by Paola Antonelli, Carlos Basualdo, Iwona Blazwick, Lynne Cooke, Thelma Golden/Glenn Ligon, Mary Jane Jacob, Jeffrey Kipnis, Detlef Mertins, Ralph Rugoff, Ingrid Schaffner, Robert Storr. Published: 2006. Distributed by Reaktion Press, London.
Curating Now: Imaginative Practice/Public Responsibility. Paula Marincola, ed. Proceedings from a symposium on curatorial practice, including contributions by Robert Storr (symposium co-organizer), Anne d’Harnoncourt, Thelma Golden, Kathy Halbreich, Dave Hickey, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Mari-Carmen Ramirez,Ned Rifkin, Paul Schimmel, Nicholas Serota. Published: 2001.