Running For: Alumni Trustee
Campaign Statement
I’m pleased to submit my name for the Alumni Trustee. I am a proud graduate of the School of Art which underscored an ethics of living as well as a life devoted to contemporary art. I would be honored to put my decades of arts administration and leadership to work on behalf of the mission of Cooper Union. I would be pleased to support President Laura Sparks in her vision to bring Cooper Union back to its DNA as a merit-driven, tuition free college.
As Director of The Institute of Contemporary Art, Amy Sadao has forged connections with institutions across Philadelphia and beyond, dramatically increased ICA’s budget and staffing, and directed an ambitious contemporary program extending equity to overlooked and underrepresented artists, ideas, and publics.
Biography
Before assuming the directorship of ICA, Sadao served for ten years as Executive Director of Visual AIDS in New York City where she expanded the organization’s resources and public awareness of its mission utilizing contemporary art to provoke dialogue about HIV/AIDS and supporting HIV-positive artists.
A mentor of artists and arts workers, Sadao has been notably honored for her work by ArtTable’s 2014 New Leadership Award; Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council, as a Women in the Arts Leader; and knighted by the Imperial Court of New York, the city’s oldest drag house, for her work as an AIDS and art activist.
She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and a MA in Comparative Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley and began her career as an intern at the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris.
She serves on the board of directors of Denniston Hill, an artist residency program, as well as the Asian Arts Initiative, Penn’s Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, and is a Director Emeritus of Visual AIDS.
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