Summer Series: Athena LaTocha and Valerie Cassel Oliver

Jul 23, 2026 12:30PM-1:30PM

Schermer Meeting Hall

Community Engagement and Dialogue

The Summer Series program features some of the most influential artists of our time, exploring the work of world-renowned creators in conversation with today’s leading critics, curators, and collectors. Join us for a conversation in Schermer Meeting Hall at Anderson Ranch Arts Center with Athena LaTocha and Valerie Cassel Oliver.

Summer Series lectures are free, open to the public, and available in person or via livestream. Registration is appreciated.

Athena LaTocha (b. Anchorage, Alaska) is an artist whose works on paper explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. The artist incorporates materials such as ink, lead, soils and wood, looking at mark-marking and displacement of materials made by industrial equipment and natural events. Her works are informed by her upbringing in the wilderness of Alaska. LaTocha’s process is about being immersed in these environments, while responding to the storied and, at times, traumatic histories that are rooted in place.

LaTocha’s work has been shown at MoMA P.S.1, Long Island City, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia; IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey; The Green-Wood Cemetery, The Brooklyn Museum, and BRIC House, Brooklyn, New York; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, Alaska.

LaTocha is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (2025); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2024); Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2023); Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship (2023); Rockefeller Brothers Fund Pocantico Art Prize in Visual Arts (2022); Eiteljorg Fellowship, the National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Painting (2021); Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019, 2016); Wave Hill (2018); and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (2013). Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, The Art Newspaper, BOMB and Hyperallergic. LaTocha earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stony Brook University, New York. The artist lives and works in New York.

Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her position at the VMFA, she was Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2000-2017).  At the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Cassel Oliver organized numerous exhibitions including the acclaimed Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970 (2005); Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012) and major survey exhibitions for Donald Moffett; Benjamin Patterson, Jennie C. Jones, Angel Otero and Annabeth Rosen.

Her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was the critically acclaimed retrospective entitled, Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018). In 2021, she opened the groundbreaking exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse that toured nationally.  And in 2023, she organized the exhibition, Dawoud Bey: Elegy that looks at the artist’s preoccupation with histories of place. The work includes commissioned photographs of Richmond’s Historic Slave Trail exhibited with previous bodies of work created in Louisiana and Ohio.  The exhibition, now on tour is being presented at the New Orleans Museum of Art until early 2026.  Cassel Oliver has also organized the exhibitions, “Ted Joans: Drawings from Africa” (2024) that featured the complete portfolio of Joans’ drawings from 1956 (2023); Theaster Gates: Wonder Working Power (2024) and Robert Rauschenberg: Cardbirds (2025), a centennial project that will also feature a commissioned performance work by Ellen Fullman.

Cassel Oliver is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including fellowships from the Getty Research Institute (2007) and the Center of Curatorial Leadership (2009); the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Award (2011); the James A. Porter Book Award from Howard University (2018) as well as  the Alain Locke International Arts Award, Detroit Institute of Art; the College Arts Association’s Excellence in Diversity Award; the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and Brandywine Workshop and Archives’ Lifetime Achievement Award (all 2022). She was recently presented with an award of distinction from the American Folk Art Society (2023) for her work to bring art from the African American South into the collection of the museum. In October 2023, she was also tapped to curate Spotlight, a section for the Frieze Masters Art Fair in London–a role she will reprise this Fall.

Cassel Oliver holds an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York; an M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and, a B.S. in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin.  Beyond her curatorial endeavors, she has previously worked in the field as a Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Arts (1988-95) and as Director of the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1995-2000).

Panel

Athena LaTocha

Summer Series Speaker

Athena LaTocha (b. Anchorage, Alaska) is an artist whose works on paper explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds. The artist incorporates materials such as ink, lead, soils and wood, looking at mark-marking and displacement of materials made by industrial equipment and natural events. Her works are informed by her upbringing in the wilderness of Alaska. LaTocha’s process is about being immersed in these environments, while responding to the storied and, at times, traumatic histories that are rooted in place. LaTocha’s work has been shown at MoMA P.S.1, Long Island City, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia; IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey; The Green-Wood Cemetery, The Brooklyn Museum, and BRIC House, Brooklyn, New York; South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, South Dakota; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, Alaska. LaTocha is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (2025); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2024); Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2023); Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship (2023); Rockefeller Brothers Fund Pocantico Art Prize in Visual Arts (2022); Eiteljorg Fellowship, the National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Painting (2021); Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019, 2016); Wave Hill (2018); and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (2013). Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, The Art Newspaper, BOMB and Hyperallergic. LaTocha earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stony Brook University, New York. The artist lives and works in New York.

Learn More

Valerie Cassel Oliver

Summer Series Speaker

Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to her position at the VMFA, she was Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2000-2017).  At the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Cassel Oliver organized numerous exhibitions including the acclaimed Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970 (2005); Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012) and major survey exhibitions for Donald Moffett; Benjamin Patterson, Jennie C. Jones, Angel Otero and Annabeth Rosen.   Her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was the critically acclaimed retrospective entitled, Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018). In 2021, she opened the groundbreaking exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse that toured nationally.  And in 2023, she organized the exhibition, Dawoud Bey: Elegy that looks at the artist’s preoccupation with histories of place. The work includes commissioned photographs of Richmond’s Historic Slave Trail exhibited with previous bodies of work created in Louisiana and Ohio.  The exhibition, now on tour is being presented at the New Orleans Museum of Art until early 2026.  Cassel Oliver has also organized the exhibitions, “Ted Joans: Drawings from Africa” (2024) that featured the complete portfolio of Joans’ drawings from 1956 (2023); Theaster Gates: Wonder Working Power (2024) and Robert Rauschenberg: Cardbirds (2025), a centennial project that will also feature a commissioned performance work by Ellen Fullman. Cassel Oliver is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including fellowships from the Getty Research Institute (2007) and the Center of Curatorial Leadership (2009); the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Award (2011); the James A. Porter Book Award from Howard University (2018) as well as  the Alain Locke International Arts Award, Detroit Institute of Art; the College Arts Association’s Excellence in Diversity Award; the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and Brandywine Workshop and Archives’ Lifetime Achievement Award (all 2022). She was recently presented with an award of distinction from the American Folk Art Society (2023) for her work to bring art from the African American South into the collection of the museum. In October 2023, she was also tapped to curate Spotlight, a section for the Frieze Masters Art Fair in London–a role she will reprise this Fall. Cassel Oliver holds an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York; an M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and, a B.S. in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin.  Beyond her curatorial endeavors, she has previously worked in the field as a Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Arts (1988-95) and as Director of the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1995-2000).

Learn More