Your Philanthropy

Through our Your Philanthropy briefings, held throughout the year, we offer you unique programs that can inform your giving. You’ll find that we cover a broad range of topics designed to offer you insights and perspectives on our community and philanthropy, presented by local experts and national thought leaders.

Upcoming Program

Finding Time: Columbus Public Art 2012
WHEN: Thursday, May 31, from noon–1:30 p.m.
WHERE: The Columbus Foundation, Davis Hall

RSVP by May 28 to Donna Jordan at events@columbusfoundation.org or 614/251-4000.

An exciting new movement is taking art to the streets—literally!

We invite you to join us for a luncheon presentation on Finding Time: Columbus Public Art 2012, a unique program that is transforming downtown into a virtual open-air gallery for all to experience. This event will offer insights from a panel of renowned curators who will share how this visionary project celebrates art throughout the city.

Planned in conjunction with 200Columbus the Bicentennial, Finding Time includes 14 temporary public art projects by more than 50 local, national, and international artists. Utilizing an array of public places, from plazas and parks to streets and alleys, this exciting collaboration will enhance the downtown core and riverfront in 2012.

Finding Time: Columbus Public Art 2012 Speaker Lineup //

Malcolm Cochran, Program Director and Curator
Cochran has created large-scale objects, installations, and public art since the late 1970s. He is best known in Columbus for Field of Corn (with Osage Oranges), 1994, in Dublin, OH. Cochran’s fountain for Goodale Park was completed in 2011. His exhibitions and projects include works at Artpark, Lewiston, NY; P.S.1 and Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia; Retretti Art Center, Finland; and Het Stroomhuis, The Netherlands. Cochran has permanent public commissions in Brattleboro, VT; Cleveland, Columbus, and Dublin, OH; and the Hudson River Park, New York City. Cochran received his BA at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, and his MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. From 1975–86 he was exhibition designer and curator at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. Since 1987 Cochran has taught sculpture at The Ohio State University, Columbus. In summer 2009 he led a studio for 25 graduate students in various disciplines in vacant storefronts and buildings — dubbed Art Squatters — in downtown Columbus. Finding Time: Columbus Public Art 2012 is an outgrowth of this experience and his service on the Columbus Art Commission.

Lisa Dent, Curator
Dent is associate curator of Contemporary Art at the Columbus Museum of Art where she is responsible for all facets of the contemporary program, including exhibitions, programs, publications, and acquisitions. Exhibitions include Columbus Complaints Choir-Oliver Kochta Kalleinen and Tellervo Kalleinen, Stephanie Syjuco: Pattern Migration; and Latifa Echakhch. Dent was a Rubenstein Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and subsequently held curatorial staff positions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was later director of the Friedrich Petzel Gallery in New York and worked as a freelance writer, art critic, and scenic designer. From 2004-08, Dent owned and managed Lisa Dent Gallery in San Francisco, CA, where she presented exhibitions by emerging and mid-career international artists. She has taught courses in modern art history and design at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and the University of California, Davis; and is an adjunct faculty member at Columbus College of Art and Design. Dent received her BFA from Howard University, her MFA from New York University, and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in curatorial studies.

Shelly Willis, Curator
Willis directs the City and County of Sacramento’s Art in Public Places Program. The program is currently overseeing the development of the Sacramento International Airport public art program, an $8 million project and the largest public art project in the county’s history. Willis came to Sacramento after six years of managing the University of Minnesota’s public art program where she directed the development and installation of temporary and permanent public artworks throughout the University of Minnesota system, taught public art, and developed a public art minor program at the university. Among other writings, her essay on the state of public art education in the U.S. was published in Public Art by the Book by Americans for the Arts. Willis is co-editor of Public Art Practice, published by Routledge NY. Willis managed visual arts programming for the City of Fairfield, CA from 1998-2009. She founded and directed the city gallery and the city’s public art program, with an emphasis on exploring community identity through temporary and permanent public artworks and exhibitions. She received undergraduate degrees in art history and business administration from California State University, Chico. Willis is on the advisory board of FORECAST, Public Artworks, a St. Paul nonprofit organization that publishes Public Art Review and supports and advocates for public art nationally.

Dow Kimbrell, Curatorial Assistant/Program Coordinator
Kimbrell is a studio instructor at the Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University. With an undergraduate degree in Literature from Bard College and a Master’s in Architecture degree from OSU, Kimbrell comes to the project with a unique set of skills and work experience. He was a member of the principal production team on Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3, working on-set as an assistant to the director of photography and the associate producer, and as a set and prop fabricator. He also worked on Matthew Barney’s Guggenheim show “The Cremaster Cycle” and worked at  the Guggenheim as an art handler. He has extensive publishing experience in both online and print. In addition to his teaching duties, Kimbrell writes about architecture as a critic as well as pursuing research on the relationship of humor to architecture and design.

If you have any suggestions of future programs please contact Steven Moore. Feel free to also share your ideas with us on our Facebook page.   We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.