Wednesday, May 20, 2026
12:00 – 2:00 PM
583 Park Avenue
NYC
On Wednesday, May 20th, the American Federation of Arts will host its 2026 Spring Luncheon, featuring contemporary artist Firelei Báez in conversation with Connie Butler.
The Spring Luncheon brings together a passionate community of artists, scholars, collectors, museum directors, and distinguished professionals to support the AFA’s important work. Past speaker include Jeffrey Gibson, Tschabalala Self, Sandord Biggers, Marilyn Minter, Jeff Koons, Anne Pasternak and Will Cotton, among others.
With several exhibition openings under way, and a variety of new projects on the horizon, the AFA remains committed to its mission of expanding arts access through touring exhibitions and a robust offering of public programs. You support ensure that audiences of all background can experience the transformative power of art. Thank you!
To purchase your tickets online or make a contribution, please visit our Eventbrite page. For more information, please contact our Special Events team at events@amfedarts.org.
With generous support from
Co-Chairs
|
Elizabeth Belfer Jill Deupi Elizabeth Madigan Jost Martha MacMillian Anne E. McCollum Valeria Napoleone Alice Walton |
Host Committee
|
Derrick Adams Sarah Arison Pamela Averick Laura Bardier Renee Belfer Jonathan P. Binstock, The Phillips Collection Janis Gardner Cecil Diana Elghanayan Leslie & Tom L. Freudenheim Miller Gaffney Art Advisory Lee White Galvis Judith A. Garson Goppion Ellen Grimes Karla Harwich Anthony Hirschel Akiko Kamata Elaine Kones Barbara & Richard S. Lane Mary Lapides Bonnie Lautenberg Christian Levett NancyJane & Jeffrey M. Loewy Claire Marmion Peg Mastrianni |
Clare E. McKeon Bridget Moore, DC Moore Gallery Tina Estes Novogratz Howardena Pindell Judith Pineiro Stephen Reily Tyler Rollins Alexandra Lind Rose Kimerly Rorschach Capera Ryan Betsy Pinover Schiff Frances Schulman Angelica Semmelbauer Steve Shane Barbara Karp Shuster Barbara Madsen Smith Tina & James Snyder Belinda Tate Ellen & Bill Taubman Hank Willis Thomas Mickalene Thomas Serena Trizzino Monique Schoen Warshaw Allison Whiting Deborah Willis Kennedy Yanko |
ABOUT FIRELEI BÁEZ
Firelei Báez draws upon African diasporic histories, reimagining them to explore new possibilities for the future. Báez received an MFA from Hunter College, a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Since 2024, Báez has been the subject of her first major U.S. survey, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Des Moines Art Center, before traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where it remains on view through May 2026. Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions, including The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani, and the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed in Boston (2021). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Báez has participated in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of several major awards, including the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2020), the Artes Mundi Prize (2021), the Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021), and the Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022). Her work is held in prominent public and private collections worldwide, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ABOUT CONNIE BUTLER
Connie Butler is the Agnes Gund Director of MoMA PS1 in New York where she organized Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon (2024) and was part of the curatorial team for Greater New York (2026). Prior to her arrival in 2023, she was Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles where she organized numerous exhibitions including Made in LA (2014); Mark Bradford: Scorched Earth (2015); Marisa Merz: The Sky Is a Great Space (2017); Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence (2019); and Witch Hunt (2021). She also co-organized with MoMA, Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions which opened at the Hammer in October 2018. From 2006-2013 she was the Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings at The Museum of Modern Art, New York where she co-curated the first major Lygia Clark retrospective in the United States (2014) and On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century (2010).
Butler has also published widely on feminist art and curatorial practice, and organized the groundbreaking survey WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (2007) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles where she was curator from 1996-2006. In 2020 Butler received the Bard College Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.