The 12-person board of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York, which prioritizes showcasing and assisting the work of LGBTQIA+ artists, has grown to include five new members. They include Giselle Byrd, Chella Man, Raquel Willis, Chella Man, Kat Bishop, and Gonzalo Casals.
Willis, a writer, activist, and media strategist best recognized for her work on Black trans freedom, is now the president of the executive board of the Solutions Not Punishments Collaborative. She formerly held the positions of executive editor of Out magazine and director of communications for the Ms. Foundation for Women, where she established the Trans Obituaries Project, which won a GLAAD Media Award.
She was a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations in 2018 and was included in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list in 2020. Her writing was featured in the ground-breaking Black Futures collection, curated by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, and St. Martin’s Press will release her memoir I Believe in Our Power in the coming year.
According to the press, Man is an author and artist whose work explores the “continuums of disability, race, gender, and sexuality,” and is a resident and mentor at Silver Arts Project. He has had exhibitions at Mana Contemporary and the Brooklyn Museum.
Former commissioner of cultural affairs for New York City and director of the Leslie-Lohman, Casals is now a senior research and policy fellow at the Mellon Foundation with a focus on arts and culture.
Bishop, who previously spent 24 years working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, founded the cultural consulting firm Campfire Miami.
The appointment of the cohort follows Margaret Rose Vendryes, the museum’s vice chair, who passed away unexpectedly in March after joining the board of the museum in 2014. On November 7, Vendryes will be recognized at the museum gala.
Margaret supported Leslie-future Lohman’s growth, and according to Michael Manganiello, chair of the museum’s board, “her vision for the museum was always for it to grow, to meet the world around us and our community’s needs. We can certainly state that Margaret’s goal is being accomplished with this current group of board members and that the museum will continue to be a place where artistic exploration is a vehicle for LGBTQIA+ joy, affirmation, and expression. “
