Sarah Russin, Executive Director (03/14) she/her
Executive Director since 2014, Sarah Russin is expanding upon LACE’s experimental spirit and legacy of presenting groundbreaking and socially engaged art. With the LACE team and board of directors, Sarah is dedicated to the development and support of artists and artistic communities, and to offering LACE as a communal center that welcomes a broad audience to experience and create dialogue around contemporary art and culture. Shortly after arriving at LACE, she established two signature annual programs: the Emerging Curator’s Program, designed to discover curatorial talent in Los Angeles, and the Summer Artist in Residence Program, which since its inception, has featured Native Strategies, Rafa Esparza, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Jimena Sarno, and Young Joon Kwak with Mutant Salon. In celebration of LACE’s 40th Anniversary, Sarah worked closely with The Getty Research Institute in their acquisition of The LACE Archives. She is a founding member of the LAVA Coalition (Los Angeles Visual Arts) formed in 2020—a group of small visual arts organizations in LA that provide mutual support, engage in shared fundraising and professional development, and advocate for our sector.
Prior to LACE Sarah worked in higher education in various capacities. At Otis College of Art and Design, she served as Assistant Vice President of Institutional Advancement, and previously as Director of Alumni Relations, developing support for the college in the areas of collaborative partnerships, corporate and foundation relations, marketing and communications, and individual giving. Before joining Otis in 2002, Sarah oversaw recruitment efforts for Art Center College of Design, where she reviewed thousands of portfolios, and led Art Center’s highly regarded Night and Saturday High Programs. She served on the board of the Barnsdall Park Foundation for several years. Sarah holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design.
Fiona Crary, Deputy Director (01/23) she/her
Fiona is LACE’s Deputy Director, stewarding the organization’s programming and operations calendar, development strategies, and relocation into the renovated gallery. Her work is guided by a passion for supporting artists and artwork production through the lifecycle of a project—from ideation, to development, strategic planning, budgeting, and project management. In 2023, she served as LACE’s Interim Curator, overseeing new commissions from artists Jackie Amézquita and Micaela Tobin, as well as LACE’s exhibitions and public programs. She was previously the Manager of Curatorial Projects & Public Experience at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Managing Editor at Art Practical, Assistant Director at LACE, and has held additional roles at arts organizations and institutions including &art&, the Hollywood Arts Council, the Skirball Cultural Center, Creative Migration, RITE Editions, and California College for the Arts. She has curated group and solo exhibitions and public programs for YBCA; the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art; the Curatorial Research Bureau; Hubbell Street Galleries, Dogpatch Studios, and Isabel Percy West Gallery at California College of the Arts; Public Pool Gallery; LA Weekly’s Artopia; and more. She co-curated the ninth editi0n of YBCA’s signature triennial, Bay Area Now, featuring new work by 30 Bay Area contemporary artists.
Fiona is also a dedicated advocate for arts and artist funding, and equitable pay for artists and arts workers. She was selected as an Arts for LA ACTIVATE Fellow in Cultural Policy for 2016-17 and has served as an arts delegate for Los Angeles Arts Day. She is currently a mentor for Arts for LA’s ACTIVATE Protege program. She holds a BA in Art History with a minor in Education Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. Outside of LACE, you can find her at a pottery wheel or hiking with her dog Carrott.
Selene Preciado, Curator & Director of Programming (08/23) she/her
Selene Preciado is LACE’s new Curator & Director of Programs. From 2015–2023, she worked at the Getty Foundation, supporting Pacific Standard Time (PST: LA/LA and PST ART: Art and Science Collide), and co-managing the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program since 2018. Prior to joining the Getty, she worked at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), and inSite_05.
Selected curatorial projects include Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture in conjunction with the National Museum of the American Latino (2022–2023, ongoing national tour); Ser todo es ser parte/To be Whole is to be Part, LACE (2020); Destino Elei vía Tiyei, Centro Cultural Tijuana (2019), co-curated with Daniela Lieja Quintanar; Customizing Language, the inaugural exhibition of the Emerging Curators Program at LACE, co-curated with Idurre Alonso (2016); José Montoya’s Abundant Harvest: Works on Paper/Works on Life, Fowler Museum at UCLA, co-curated with Richard Montoya (2016); MIXTAPE (2013); and Anywhere Better than this Place (2012) at MOLAA. Her research-based curatorial practice approaches topics such as history, memory, language, diaspora, place, ritual, and popular culture through experimental perspectives.
Raised in Tijuana, Preciado obtained a B.A. in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and holds an M.A. in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California (USC).
Juan Silverio, Assistant Director of Programming (02/20) they/she
Juan Silverio (they/she) is a curator and arts administrator living in Tovangaar (Los Angeles). Born and raised in a Mexican Zapotec family in Koreatown, LA, they joined the arts and culture field by way of the Getty Marrow Undergraduate Internship program, holding curatorial internship positions at the Getty Research Institute, Self Help Graphics, 18th St Arts Center. Juan joined LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) in 2019 as an apprentice and now runs all exhibitions, programs and operations. They are invested in championing and building community with artists, curators, creatives and cultural workers from LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, and communities of color across Los Angeles and beyond. In 2022, they were an All Paper Seminar inaugural fellow at the Benton Museum (Claremont, CA), and co-edited the LACE publication for CAVERNOUS: Young Joon Kwak and Mutant Salon (2018). In 2023, they joined the National Performance Network (NPN) Board of Directors and was awarded a fellowship at the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture (NALAC) Leadership Institute. They are a 2024 A&L Berg Foundation ESAP (Early Stage Arts Professional) Fellow and is a writing contributor to the 60th Venice Biennale exhibition and catalogue, “Stranieri Ovunque/Foreigners Everywhere”, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Juan holds BA degrees in Book Arts and Chicana/o Studies from the College of Creative Studies and University of California, Santa Barbara.
Camille Wong, Communications Manager (08/22) they/she
Camille Wong is a research-based artist and arts administrator in Los Angeles. They began at LACE as the inaugural Mel and Leta Ramos Family Foundation Apprentice in 2020 and now coordinate the organization’s external communications and marketing. Her practice is invested in finding invisible dynamics of power embedded in technologies, social infrastructures, and the built environment. Their approach spans interactive websites, experimental video, sculpture, and writing, to reveal the extensive influence of power obscured within the texture of social spaces. Wong received an MFA in Media Art at the University of California, Los Angeles and a BA in Art and Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Camille (at) welcometolace.org
Daniela Lieja Quintanar, PST ART: Art & Science Collide Curator (2020-2025) she/her
Daniela Lieja Quintanar (Mexico City, 1984) served as LACE’s Chief Curator and Director of Programs from 2016–2022. She works between Los Angeles and Mexico, emphasizing contemporary art and curatorial practices that explore the politics and social issues of everyday life. She is part of the curatorial team of MexiCali Biennial 2018-19, and was recently awarded the Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Fellowship. She served as Project Coordinator and Contributing Curatorial Advisor for Below the Underground: Renegade Art and Action in the 1990s Mexico at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Getty PST:LA/LA initiative. In 2016, she worked with artist Teresa Margolles for her contribution La Sombra to the Public Art Biennial CURRENT: LA Water. In 2016, she was Research Assistant for the exhibition The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930 of the Getty Research Institute, PST:LA/LA. She organized with LACE La Pista de Baile by Colectivo am, as part of the Getty/Redcat PST: Live Art LA/LA Performance Festival. She curated Unraveling Collective Forms (2019); CAVERNOUS: Young Joon Kwak & Mutant Salon (2018) and Emory Douglas: Bold Visual Language (2018 co-curated with Essence Harden); home away from by Jimena Sarno (2017), El Teatro Campesino (1965-1975), (2017 co-curated with Samantha Gregg) at LACE, Between Words and Silence: The Work of Translation and Down and to the Left: Reflections on Mexico in the NAFTA Era at the Armory Center for the Arts (both 2017, co-curated with Chief Curator Irene Tsatsos), and Acciones Territoriales (Territorial Acts) at the Museo Ex Teresa in Mexico City (2014). Lieja holds a BA in Ciencias de la Cultura from the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico City, and an MA in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California.
Daniela (at) welcometolace.org
Ana Briz, PST ART: Art & Science Collide Curatorial Assistant (12/21) she/her
Ana Briz is a researcher, writer, and curator in Los Angeles, the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Tongva peoples. In 2021, she joined the LACE team as curatorial assistant to (un)disciplinary tactics: Beatriz da Costa. Her research is situated in the field of performance, art, and visual culture in the United States with an emphasis on queer, feminist, and anti-racist work by BIPOC in California. She is broadly interested in issues of displacement, gentrification, mourning, and resistance in contemporary art and culture. The abolitionist imaginary informs her curatorial practice and research interests. Briz is currently a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and holds an M.A. in Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Art History from Florida International University.
Ana (at) welcometolace.org
Mary Cullather, Bookkeeper (08/16) she/her
Mary is an experimental music composer and multi-media artist who lives in Los Angeles and has worked in music, performance, video, photography, and installation. She has an MFA in Art from CalArts and a BA in Music from University of St. Thomas. Her work has been shown at: DiverseWorks, Huntington Beach Art Center, New Music America, The Orange Show.
Abby Lee, Emerson Media Intern (09/24) she/her
Abby Lee is a writer and journalist, newly based in Los Angeles. She focuses on arts and culture reporting, including visual arts, film, and theater. She has written for The Boston Globe, The Buffalo News, and WBUR. At LACE, Abby will be assisting external communications and looks forward to deepening her understanding of nonprofit art institutions and the greater LA arts scene. Abby graduates from Emerson College’s journalism program in December 2024.
Abigail (at) welcometolace.org
Bowie, LACE Gallery Dog
Photo by Glenn Zucman
