ABOUT

Julie joined Harpo Foundation in 2008 as the Foundation’s first Executive Director, working closely with artist and founder, Ed Levine, until his death in January 2020. Julie leads in pursuit of the Foundation’s mission to support emerging and under-recognized visual artists and to develop a wider and deeper understanding of Ed Levine’s creative legacy.

Prior to her work with the Foundation, Julie founded and directed Outpost for Contemporary Art, an international Los Angeles-based residency program and served as the Development and Communications Coordinator at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. She launched and directed Four Walls in the 1990’s to present experimental and emerging artists in San Francisco. She studied Art History at San Francisco State University and Concordia University in Montreal.

Michelle brings over ten years of experience in the arts to her position as Program Manager for the Harpo Foundation, including several years developing and overseeing residency programs. For four years, she served as Director of the Acadia Summer Arts Program in Bar Harbor, Maine, an interdisciplinary artist and arts-professional residency program which hosted over 100 visual artists, writers, choreographers, and curators each summer and was recently the Residency Manager at Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, CA. 

She received her M.A. in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her B.A. in Art History from the University of Florida. Michelle has held curatorial positions at The Art Institute of Chicago, The Norton Museum of Art, and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art and looks forward to continuing to facilitate the important work of creative inquiry through the Harpo Foundation.