OFFSITE PROGRAM @ CAAM: POINTS OF ACCESS: MUSEUMS IN CONVERSATION

Allison Agsten is the Director of The Main Museum. Previously, as Curator of Public Engagement at the Hammer Museum, she led a pioneering program devoted to creating an exchange between visitors and the museum through works of art. Agsten also oversaw the museum’s artist board, initiated the Hammer’s visitor services department, and organized a major offsite partnership with Art + Practice, an art and social services non-profit in south L.A. Prior to her time at the Hammer, Agsten was Director of Communications at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), spearheading a number of projects related to accessibility including Reading Room, a first-of-its-kind program to make rare LACMA publications available for free online. Prior to joining LACMA, Agsten covered the arts as a producer in CNN’s Los Angeles bureau.

Pilar Tompkins Rivas is the director of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College. Previously, she was coordinator of curatorial initiatives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and director of residency programs at 18th Street Arts Center. Specializing in U.S. Latino and Latin American contemporary art, she has been an arts professional since 2002 and has organized dozens of exhibitions throughout the United States, Colombia, Egypt, France, and Mexico. She co-curated Home – So Different, So Appealing and A Universal History of Infamy at LACMA, L.A. Xicano at LACMA, the Fowler Museum and the Autry National Center, and Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk at the Claremont Museum of Art, and curated Tastemakers & Earthshakers: Notes from Los Angeles Youth Culture, 1943-2016 and A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas at VPAM, as well as Civic Virtue: The Impact of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Watts Towers Arts Center for the City of Los Angeles.

jill moniz holds a doctorate in cultural anthropology from Indiana University. She worked in community engagement at the Museum of Latin American Art before becoming the head curator at the California African American Museum. moniz served as curator to Dr. Leon O. Banks, a founding trustee of MOCA, before returning to large-scale exhibitions, notably Work Over School at the Craft and Folk Art Museum and Signifying Form at The Landing Gallery. Dr. moniz serves as an advisor for community engagement and programming for the Getty Museum, sits on the CALTRANS Public Art Advisory Board, and adjudicates awards for the California Arts Council.