Dumbo Arts Center Welcomes Karl Erickson As Executive Director

The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Karl Erickson as Executive Director. Erickson brings to DAC a passion for contemporary art combined with years of experience in non-profit arts management and programming. Recently Erickson was the Director for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York. Prior to moving to New York, he served as the Director of the Fellows of Contemporary Art, a philanthropic arts organization, and as the Program Coordinator for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Notable accomplishments include stabilizing the programming and operations of MoCCA, launching a new program for emerging curators at FOCA entitled "Curator's Lab" and organizing a variety of cross-media and -genre works at LACE, such as the Voice-Overs series, as well as being the co-founder of Cakewalk Magazine. Erickson is also an artist whose interests include language, transcendental experiences, and counter-cultures throughout the ages.

Erickson says, "I am truly excited about this opportunity to lead DAC into a new era. It is an honor to be entrusted with such a rich, vital organization. DAC will continue to be a place where new art is created and new forms of interaction between artists and audiences initiated. I believe that art is an expansive field that documents where we are as a culture and, more importantly, shapes what we can become. Art can be a force for positive change and a way for us to creatively channel our energies to advance ourselves as a society. The freedom contemporary art offers to explore our potential is unparalleled, and we will delve deeply into this freedom. DAC's education programs are also an important contribution to the New York art community and we will continue to develop them, including the Artist Opportunity Workshop. I look forward to working with DAC's dedicated staff, Board and community in the coming year."

DAC Board Chairman Julie Martin says "We are very excited to have Karl assume the leadership of DAC at this important moment in our history and look forward to working with him as we go forward in our new space. His energy, ideas and experience in working with artists and artists' spaces will continue DAC's long history of actively supporting artists and the art community in Dumbo and expand Dumbo's role as a cultural destination for New Yorkers and the world."

Erickson joins Gallery Manager Maya Taylor to initiate DAC's new series of programs in its next home at 111 Front Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn. As part of the arts complex there, DAC will join a roster that includes AIR, Brooklyn Arts Council, 5 + 5 Gallery, Klompching Gallery and many more as a hub of art innovation in Brooklyn and beyond.

DAC is a non-profit contemporary arts organization located in Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York. DAC's mission is to catalyze interaction between visual artists, the local community and the wider public, in order to preserve the neighborhood of Dumbo as a springboard for new art.

Founded by artists in the wake of the first D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival in 1997, DAC was the first non-profit arts organization in Dumbo, Brooklyn. DAC continued to produce the annual multi-site festival from 1998-2009. Today DAC presents a year-round program of new exhibitions in its gallery, commissions site-specific art and provides educational programs for artists and students.

Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit public registered charity, supported in part, by public funds from The National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts. This organization receives additional funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, The Dedalus Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, and The Cowles Charitable Trust. DAC would also like to gratefully acknowledge the Walentas Family and Two Trees Management Co. LLC for their generous donation of gallery and office space.

 

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