Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions seeks executive director
Deadline for application:
January 6th, 2005
Contact: Bridget DuLong, Managing Director at bridget [at] artleak.org www.artleak.org
December 2004 – Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), a 26-year-old, not-for-profit, artist-centered, contemporary visual arts organization, is conducting a search for a new Executive Director. Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions strives to cultivate and promote innovation in contemporary art-making, in all media and presentation formats and through a variety of educational initiatives, for the benefit of Los Angeles audiences. Occupying a unique position within Los Angeles’s dynamic cultural life, LACE is distinguished by serving as a laboratory for artistic research and unfettered, positive creative expression, often assuming an active role in artists’s productions and investing in the process of art-making. Additionally, LACE provides a venue in which artists and audiences have the freedom and the opportunity to take risks; it creates opportunities for a range of energetic civic engagement.
LACE seeks a passionate and engaging leader whose primary responsibilities will include: serving as the primary advocate for the mission of the organization, and cultivating investment in that mission and in all aspects of the organization’s activities; overseeing direction of organization’s programs; and overseeing management of all fiscal and administrative matters. The Executive Director serves as the member of the board of directors that is charged with managing the operations of the organization.
QUALIFICATIONS
The qualified candidate will be knowledgeable about the challenges and intricacies of not-for-profit governance and management as well as about the global art community, and knowledgeable or able to learn quickly about the communities within which LACE functions locally – within Hollywood as well as within the city of Los Angeles and its surrounding regions.
The ideal candidate will have a passion for the potential of LACE’s current, critical, growth stage, and an unabashed enthusiasm for along with astute understanding of matters relating to organizational development. The Executive Director will be responsible for the creative vision of the organization though is not expected to serve as a curator.
Essential, however, is a rich awareness of and appreciation for the obligations, effective strategies, and other matters germane to presenting contemporary visual art. The Executive Director will recognize and support the commitment Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions has to the production of art making and to experimental forms of working as well to the presentation of the final product.
RESPONSIBILITIES
The institution’s current strategic plan requires an Executive Director that will, over the next three years:
– Lead the organization as it moves through current growth phase, which includes expanding staff, doubling current budget of $500,000, acquiring a new long-term facility, and preparing a capital campaign;
– Oversee the efforts of an executive staff of four, who in turn oversee a support staff of approximately six;
– Increase the size and capacity of the executive staff by hiring program staff who will be responsible for implementing the programmatic mission of the organization;
– Deepen the organization’s influence in the local art community, while simultaneously strengthening its presence nationally and internationally.
PROCEDURE
LACE has identified a Search Committee to aid in its efforts to locate the ideal new Executive Director. Applications should be sent to Chair, Search Committee, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 6522 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90028. Material must be postmarked by January 6th, 2005. Please submit a current CV, five references, salary requirements, and a statement of no more than four pages outlining your qualifications for this position. Applications will be kept in confidence.
The Search Committee will determine a list of candidates by 7 January 2005, and finalists by 28 January 2005. The interview process is expected to be completed by 18 February 2005 and a new Executive Director announced by 25 February 2005, and in place by 4 April 2005.
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or religion. For additional information about Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and its program and history please visit www.artleak.org.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LACE
Founded in 1978 by a group of thirteen artists, mostly from the Chicano community and the Otis Art Institute, and steeped in principles of grassroots community organizing and social change, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions has nurtured several generations of emerging and under-recognized artists as well as newly emerging art forms. From the start, LACE has been committed to presenting works of art in all media-including the once-experimental media of performance art and video. Having now found a place in art museums and institutions around the world, what was considered experimental in the late ’70s is now part of the canon. And the once unknown and untested artists who found support and encouragement at LACE are now among this generation’s most influential and admired artists. Now, 26 years after its founding, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions operates on a conceptual continuum established by its founders, remaining true to the original guiding principles in the artist-centered approach that informs every aspect of operations and, perhaps most importantly, in the institution’s abiding commitment to risk-taking and to providing a dynamic venue for free and unfettered artistic exploration.
In 1999 LACE began its capacity building endeavors by conducting assessment activities and subsequently developing a long-range plan. To date, the organization’s capacity-building project has allowed LACE to enlarge staff, increase programming capacity, conduct extensive board and staff training, diversify income streams, establish a cash reserve, and improve systems for financial planning. Under its current administration LACE has transitioned from a bare-bones, vulnerable, artist-run space to a sustainable, professionally-run art institution in a growth mode, administratively systemized yet flexible, with a growing international presence and demonstrated ability to generate strong artistic programming that emphasizes monographic solo exhibitions that provide more meaningful resources to artists and audiences than ever before.