Join us on April 17 at 3:00 PM for a seated conversation between New York based artist Ilana Savdie and ICA San Francisco’s Founding Executive Director, Alison Gass as they discuss Savdie’s artwork, featured in Jessica Silverman’s latest group exhibition, “Beauty is the Best Defense.”
Ilana Savdie (b. 1986, Miami, FL) received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from Yale University. In 2023, Savdie enjoyed her first solo museum exhibition, “Radical Contractions,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her work has been exhibited in numerous international exhibitions, including at the Jewish Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; NGV Triennial, Melbourne; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp; and the B3 Biennale, Frankfurt. Savdie’s work is held in the permanent collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal, QC, Canada; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among several others. Savdie was raised between Barranquilla, Colombia and Miami, FL, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Alison Gass is the Founding Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF), where she leads the institution in redefining the role of the contemporary museum in civic life. Under her leadership, ICA SF has developed a model grounded in transparency, equity, and collaboration. Previously, Gass was the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago; Chief Curator at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, and Assistant Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ICA SF is not Gass’s first “startup” museum. After leaving SFMOMA, she served as Founding Chief Curator of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, where she helped launch the new building, recruit staff, and establish a globally focused contemporary art program. Gass holds degrees in Art History from Columbia University and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.
Image Credit:
[Left]: Portrait of Ilana Savdie. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Austin Sandhaus.
[Right]: Portrait of Ali Gass. Courtesy of Ali Gass. Photo: Ulysses Ortega.
