The Luminary Announces New Gallery Director Stephanie Koch
The Luminary Announces New Gallery Director Stephanie Koch
03.25.2021
Following an extensive national search, The Luminary is pleased to announce the appointment of new Gallery Director Stephanie Koch starting on April 5th, 2021.
Following an extensive national search, The Luminary is pleased to announce the appointment of new Gallery Director Stephanie Koch starting on April 5th, 2021. Koch, a facilitator, writer and curator previously based in Chicago, comes to The Luminary from recent roles as co-founder of independent art space Annas, lead facilitator of the Chicago Arts Census, and as curatorial fellow at ACRE and Chicago Artists Coalition.
From facilitating a census for art workers to assess their lived conditions to co-organizing fundraisers Chicago Art for Black Futures during the 2020 uprisings, Koch brings a singular attention to extending who is considered an artist and expanding equity and access within arts institutions. In all roles, she creates arts administrative structures which seek to sustain creative practitioners: their lives, their research, and the communities in which they engage.
In this new role as Gallery Director at The Luminary, Koch is “interested in thinking through how arts institutions care (or don’t care) for the many people, places, and objects that come into contact with it: staff, artists, guests, community members, environments, etc.” In surveying her priorities for the position, she states: “In particular, I’m excited to review and audit The Luminary’s processes along the axes of equity, accessibility, labor, and a commitment to abolition and anti-racism. My aim is to not only create a space of vulnerability and self-awareness for myself and The Luminary, but also to create a space of collective reflection through small-scale conversations and community programming to reimagine The Luminary’s structure together.”
The Luminary’s Executive Director James McAnally sees the announcement as building on a season of shifts and expansions for the organization, stating “Now is a time for imagining new models, and deepening commitments to mutual liberation. We are excited to welcome Stephanie’s vision to create more channels for collaboration, engage more deeply as a neighbor and embed an intersectional ethos in every part of the organization. As The Luminary continues to expand its pathbreaking programs both in and beyond the gallery, we think Stephanie is the right leader to re-envision the role of our space in wider ecologies of practice.”
As Gallery Director, Koch will lead activities at The Luminary’s anchor space at 2701 Cherokee Street, including exhibitions, residencies, public programming, and community engagement. She joins Manager Kalaija Mallery, Executive Director James McAnally, and Curator Katherine Simóne Reynolds as The Luminary continues to cultivate new horizons for the independent art space, foregrounding experimentation, equity, and liberation across all its programs.
Support for this new role comes from the VIA Art Fund, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Crawford Taylor Foundation.