Pratt Institute Presents “Women of Influence in the Business of Art” at Art Basel 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
10:30 AM: Pre-Event Reception, with champagne cocktails, Pre-function Rm
11:00 AM: Pratt Presents Women of Influence Panel Discussion, Pre-function Rm
12:00-100PM: Post-Event Public Reception with champagne cocktails and passed hors d’oevres, Pre-function Rm
The Miami Beach Edition Hotel
2901 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33140
The reception and panel are free and open to the public. Reservations are required and you can register at Pratt Presents’ Public Programs site with attendee name(s), number of tickets requested, and a contact phone number. Space is limited.

Pratt Institute and W magazine will present “Women of Influence in the Business of Art,” a panel discussion moderated by W’s Editor-in-Chief, Stefano Tonchi, featuring: Shirin Neshat, Visual Artist; Mickalene Thomas, Pratt Institute Alumna, Filmmaker and Visual Artist; Heidi Zuckerman, CEO and Director of the Aspen Art Museum.

This exclusive group of influential women have had a profound impact on the art world and are currently shaping its future. The discussion will explore the qualities that define a new generation of female artists and leaders in art, as well as the many different ways in which they have achieved success, despite obstacles and prevailing inequalities.

“Pratt Presents” is a curated series of free public programs developed by Pratt Institute that features big ideas, bold thinkers, and brilliant dialogue. These curated series of high-profile public programs and events showcase the Institute’s expertise and reputation as a distinguished academic institution as well as a cultural hub.

The “Women of Influence in the Business of Art” event will be held at the EDITION Hotel, located in Mid-Beach, the historic “heart of Miami Beach” between South Beach and North Beach. Sponsorship for this free and public event is provided by: Simon Property Group (presenting sponsor), Perrier-Jouët (champagne sponsor), and W magazine (media sponsor).

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker living in New York. Neshat’s early photographic works include the Women of Allah series (1993–1997), which explored the question of gender in relation to Islamic fundamentalism and militancy. Her subsequent video works departed from overtly political content or critique in favor of more poetic imagery and narratives. In 2009, Neshat directed her first feature-length film, Women Without Men, which received the Silver Lion Award for Best Director in the 66th Venice International Film Festival. Neshat’s recent photographic series include The Book of Kings (2012) and Our House Is on Fire (2013). Neshat has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at galleries and museums internationally. A major exhibition of her work recently opened at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Shirin was included in the 48th Venice Biennale of Art (1999), Whitney Biennial (2000), Documenta XI (2002) and Prospect.1 New Orleans (2009). She was awarded the Grand Prix of the Gwangju Biennial (2000), the Golden Lion Award, the First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennial (1999), the Hiroshima Freedom Prize (2005), and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2006). Neshat is currently working on her second feature-length film, based on the life and art of the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kolthum.

Mickalene Thomas is a distinguished visual artist and filmmaker who has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally since 2003. She is best known for combining art-historical, political, and pop-cultural references to create striking figurative and nonfigurative paintings. Her work stems from a long study of art history and classical genres of portraiture, introducing complex notions of femininity and challenging common definitions of beauty and aesthetic representation. Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition was in 2012 at the Brooklyn Museum and Santa Monica Museum of Art. Thomas’s work is in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as the Detroit Institute of Arts; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Seattle Art Museum; and Smithsonian American Art Museum, among many others. She was born in 1971 in New Jersey and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Heidi Zuckerman is the Aspen Art Museum’s CEO and Director, overseeing all aspects of the AAM’s guiding vision and mission, administrative policies, curatorial and educational practices, strategic planning, and fundraising efforts. During her ten-year tenure with the AAM, she has secured a budget surplus every year—reinvesting instead of drawing from the endowment; fostered a 270+% increase in operational budget ($1.9M to $7M); and overseen the successful strategic planning and capital and endowment fundraising of $75M for the construction of the AAM’s Shigeru Ban–designed facility, which opened to the public in 2014. From 2004 to 2005, Zuckerman served as the Chair of the Art Curatorial Department at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and from 1999 to 2005, as the institution’s Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator. Prior to this, Zuckerman served as the Assistant Curator of 20th-Century Art at the Jewish Museum in New York. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in European History from the University of Pennsylvania; a Diploma from the Royal Society of Art, Christie’s, London; as well as a Master of Arts degree in Art History from CUNY Hunter College. She also serves as the Art Network Chair for the Young Presidents’ Organization globally.

Stefano Tonchi has been Editor-in-Chief of W since March 2010. Under Mr. Tonchi’s direction, W has been a finalist 10 times for the prestigious ASME National Magazine Awards, with three nods in the General Excellence category, and has won 12 medals from the Society of Publication designers, as well as a Webby Award for its video series, “Screen Tests.” Mr. Tonchi oversaw the publication of W’s special-edition books, W: Stories and W: The First 40 Years. Prior to W, Mr. Tonchi was the creator and Editor-in-Chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, which he introduced in 2004 after serving as Style Editor at the Sunday Times Magazine. Previously, he was the Fashion Creative Director of Esquire. Mr. Tonchi has written books and curated exhibitions focusing on contemporary culture, most recently Bellissima: Italy and High Fashion 1945-1968 at Museo Nazionale Delle Arti Del XXI Secolo in Rome. He is the co-author of Uniform: Order and Disorder (also an exhibition at P.S. 1/MOMA), Total Living, Excess: Mainstream and Underground in the ’80s (also an exhibition at The Pitti Palace in Florence), Human Game: Winners and Losers, and Walter Albini and His Time. Mr. Tonchi graduated with a classic studies degree from Liceo Classico Forteguerri in Pistoia, Italy. He resides in New York City.