Rujeko Hockley and Yoshua Okón join Art Matters Board

For Immediate Release:

February 18th, 2016 - Art Matters is pleased to announce the election of two new members to its board of directors: Rujeko Hockley, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum and Yoshua Okón, a Mexico-City based artist and Art Matters grantee. The Art Matters board is comprised of a diverse group of artists, curators, educators and other arts workers, a core of whom helped found the organization in 1985. In addition to their governance of the Foundation, the board reviews proposals for the annual grants, along with guest panelists. The Foundation assists artists who make work intending to break ground aesthetically and socially with direct grants for projects and on-going work.

Art Matters Director Sacha Yanow notes “Ru and Yoshua each bring unique perspectives and experience to our work and we’re thrilled to welcome them into the leadership of this organization.”

Rujeko Hockley joined the Brooklyn Museum in 2012 and has since worked on exhibitions including LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital (2013), The Bruce High Quality Foundation: Ode to Joy, 2001-2013 (2013), Unfolding Tales: Selections from the Collection (2013, 2014) (Co-curator), Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014) (Co-curator), Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic (2015), I See Myself in You: Selections from the Collection (2015) (Co-curator), and Kara Walker: African Boy Attendant Curio (Bananas) (2015) (Curator). Previously, she worked as Curatorial Assistant at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2005-07). She received her B.A. from Columbia University in Art History and is a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego.

Yoshua Okón was born in Mexico City where he currently lives. His work, like a series of near-sociological experiments executed for the camera, blends staged situations, documentation and improvisation and questions habitual perceptions of reality and truth, selfhood and morality. In 2002 he received an MFA from UCLA with a Fulbright scholarship. His solo shows exhibitions include: Salò Island, UC Irvine, Irvine; Piovra, Kaufmann Repetto, Milan; Poulpe, Mor Charpentier, Paris; Octopus, Cornerhouse, Manchester and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and SUBTITLE, Städtische Kunsthalle, Munich. His group exhibitions include: Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Antes de la resaca, MUAC, Mexico City; Incongruous, Musèe Cantonal des Beux-Arts, Lausanne; The Mole´s Horizon, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; and Adaptive Behavior, New Museum, NY among many others. His work is included in the collections of Tate Modern, Hammer Museum, LACMA, Colección Jumex and MUAC, among others. He is the founder of SOMA in Mexico City.

The full list of the Art Matters Board of Directors is http://www.artmattersfoundation.org/staff-board.