Who Gets To Be Remembered: Expanding Notions of Value

In a field shaped by scarcity—of space, funding, and time—and the growing environmental costs of preservation, this panel asks a pressing question: who gets to be remembered, and who decides? As the art world continues to grapple with entrenched hierarchies and power imbalances, this conversation explores how legacy is shaped within systems that often privilege permanence, capital, and institutional authority.

Panelists from across disciplines will examine the subjective nature of value—monetary, historical, personal—and how these frameworks influence decisions about what is preserved, shared, or left behind. What role do care, public access, and cultural relevance play in shaping future canons? And how might models of communal self-determination begin to shift the field from inclusion within existing structures toward more transformative change? This panel invites a critical rethinking of legacy-making—one that centers equity, sustainability, and collective responsibility.

SPEAKER BIOS

Thelma Golden (Session Chair)

Thelma Golden is the Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual arts by artists of African descent. She began her career in 1987 as a fellow at the Studio Museum, then joined the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988. Golden returned to the Studio Museum in 2000 as the Deputy Director for exhibitions and programs and was named the Director and Chief Curator in 2005. Golden serves on the board of directors for the Barack Obama Foundation, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Mellon Foundation. In 2010, she was appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House by President Barack Obama. She holds a BA in Art History and African American Studies from Smith College.

Sam Gordon

Sam Gordon is a New York­-based artist and curator. In 2017 he founded Gordon Robichaux, a gallery and curatorial agency with Jacob Robichaux in Union Square, New York. Recent curatorial projects include The Frieze Library: Volume Seven, Frieze New York, 2025; Downtown 2021, La MaMa Gallery, NY, 2021; and Souls Grown Diaspora, apexart, NY, 2020. Reviews and features have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and Hauser & Wirth’s Ursula magazine. Gordon's own painting, drawing, photography, and video work was regularly presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions at Feature Inc. from 1997–2013. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY. Gordon has been a visiting professor at the California Institute for the Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, and The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Glenn Phillips

Glenn Phillips is Chief Curator at the Getty Research Institute. He is a specialist in the history of curating and the international history of conceptual art, with a focus on video and performance art in Europe and the Americas. His acquisitions for the GRI include the archives of Eleanor Antin, Simone Forti, Mary Kelly, Allan Sekula, Claes Oldenburg, Harald Szeemann, Harry Shunk, and the video archives of the Long Beach Museum of Art and The Kitchen. His curatorial projects, often organized collaboratively, include Lumen: The Art and Science of Light, 800-1600; Barbara T. Smith: The Way to Be (2023); Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures (2021); Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions (2018-19); Artists and Their Books (2018); Video Art in Latin America (2017); Yvonne Rainer: Dances and Films (2014); and It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles, 1969-73 (2011-12).

Komal Shah

Originally from Ahmedabad, India, Komal Shah migrated to the US in 1991 to study computer science in California. After completing her Masters at Stanford, she earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, eventually holding positions in the executive suites of Oracle, Netscape, and Yahoo. In 2008, Shah left the tech industry to focus on philanthropic pursuits. She then began developing the Shah Garg Collection with her husband and tech entrepreneur Gaurav Garg, solidifying a vision for the collection’s emphasis on women artists in 2014. Today, they are focused on amplifying the voices of women artists and artists of color through the Shah Garg Foundation.

Dyani White Hawk

Dyani White Hawk (b. 1976, Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. Her practice, strongly rooted in painting and beadwork, extends into sculpture, installation, video, and performance, reflecting upon cross-cultural experiences through the amalgamation of influences from Lakota and Euro/American abstraction. White Hawk was featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Her largest survey exhibition, spanning 15 years, will open at the Walker Art Center in October 2025, and will travel to Remai Modern in 2026. White Hawk has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, Joan Mitchell Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Her work can be found in many public and private collections, such as the Brooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis.