Michael Mehring has been actively involved in Los Angeles contemporary arts for the past 20 years. Mike has been on the board of directors of several visual arts organizations, including Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE) (Vice President) and Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center (President). Mike was one of the founders of MOCA Contemporaries, a support counsel that went on to raise over $1 million for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He is also on the advisory board of the Foundation for Art Resources (FAR), and has been an advisor to numerous non-profits, most recently the Foundation for International Art Criticism, publisher of Art/Text. Mike has been integrally involved in the production of numerous multi-media presentations, including those by artists Diana Thater, T. Kelly Mason, Jessica Bronson and the band Savage Republic.
Cindy Bernard has a career that spans nearly three decades. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, California Arts Council, Creative Capital, Anonymous Was a Woman, the Harpo Foundation, California Community Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Japan, and was included in the Whitney and Lyon Biennials.
In addition to her visual practice, Bernard takes an active interest in the spaces and production of social exchange. In addition to founding SASSAS, she was a director and advisor to Foundation for Art Resources from 1985 to 1990, a founding director of the Coalition for Freedom of Expression, and co-founder of MOCA Mobilization.
Her current project is Vinland, a meditation on the complex and continually shifting relationships between spaces, social and economic structures, and personal and collective histories, centered in two small communities in Newfoundland.
Bernard is a Professor of Graduate Fine Art (Adjunct) at Art Center College of Art and Design and was appointed the inaugural Ruffin Distinguished Artist-In-Residence at the University of Virginia for the academic year 2013/2014. She was a 2015 MacDowell Fellow.
Michael Ned Holte is a writer, independent curator, and educator based in Los Angeles. He has organized numerous exhibitions including “Routine Pleasures” (2016) at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House, Los Angeles; “TL;DR” (2014) at Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand; and, with Connie Butler, the 2014 edition of “Made in L.A.” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. He has written monographic essays on artists such as Kathryn Andrews, Hani Armanious, Charles Gaines, Richard Hawkins, Alice Könitz, Shio Kusaka, Roy McMakin, Ricky Swallow, and Clarissa Tossin, and has contributed to periodicals including Afterall, Artforum International, The Brooklyn Rail, East of Borneo, Pin-Up, and X-Tra. He has been a member of the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts since 2009, and has served as Co-Director of the Program in Art since 2014.
Peter Tolkin is registered architect and founding principal of Peter Tolkin Architecture, a design practice focused on residential, retail / mixed-use, and arts-related projects. In his practice Peter advocates for the social and cultural agency of architecture, an approach informed by his prior work as a documentary photographer and his studies with American artists Allan Sekula and Lewis Baltz. Peter brings ample experience designing and managing projects that enhance the public realm, such as Saladang Song Restaurant, the mixed-use project Metlox Town Square in Manhattan Beach, the Claremont Village Square expansion, and a Zero Net Energy Commercial Office building at 245 Fair Oaks in South Pasadena. Peter’s residential projects include the Sherman Residence in Encino, the Sun Glass House in Malibu, and the Branch House in Montecito. Peter’s interest in the arts has led him to collaborate with a number of artists on installations including artists Yunhee Min and Charles Gaines. He has also worked on a number of self-generated art projects such as the inflatable installation Dunnage Ball and an accessible restroom design that addresses the politics of gender identity in architecture entitled XYYXXY. Peter first rose to prominence in 2002 when Architectural Record named him one of its ten emerging international “Design Vanguard” architects. Since then the firm has been recognized with numerous AIA awards, a James Beard Foundation award, and with publications in the national and international press including The New York Times, Architectural Record, Dwell, Domus, Abitare, and Interior Design. Peter received a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History from UC Santa Cruz, a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from California Institute of the Arts, and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. Peter continues to practice photography as a complement to his architectural work.
