Two Chicago-based arts non-profits have announced new leaders, both promoting women who hope to build on the legacies of their organization while finding new ways to support and uplift local artists.
Hyde Park Arts Center and 3Arts Chicago will both have new leadership in 2025.
3Arts Chicago, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting artists — specifically women artists, artists of color, and Deaf or disabled artists — has promoted Cat Tager to the role of Executive Director.
Tager, a professional musician herself, has been with the organization for over a decade and currently serves as their Director of Development and Partnerships. She is only the second person to hold the new position, succeeding Executive Director Esther Grimm, who has helmed the organization for over 20 years.
It was Grimm’s vision that motivated Tager to join the organization decades ago. Tager’s band was hired to perform at 3Arts event and after the show she stayed for Grimm’s speech.
“She spoke about 3Arts and the mission of 3Arts and I felt like the ceiling just opened up and a sunlight beam came in because all of a sudden she was talking about how their organization supports women artists and artists of color,” Tager said. “And I thought, ‘My gosh, she’s talking about me. No one talks about me.’ I really felt seen in that moment.”
Since 2007, 3Arts has distributed $7.4 million in grants to more than 2,300 artists in the Chicago area.
Grimm has left the organization in “a position of stability,” according to Tager, but the art world is still facing “a hard moment” with funding and support drying up across the country, she said.
“When artists and arts administrators are supported in their development, they can bring fresh ideas and perspectives and innovations to their work, and that creates a ripple effect in the entire sector,” Tager told the Sun-Times. “I’m just really excited to be part of an organization that is interested in creating that ripple…and now get a chance to lead an organization who supports people who work in the arts at every level.”
Tager said her goal in leading the organization is; “to make supporting artists as easy and as frictionless for the artists as possible.”
Tager will step into her new role at the start of the new year.
The Hyde Park Arts Center has promoted Mariela Acuña to be their Director of Exhibitions and Residency.
Since its founding in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave., has been a pillar of the Chicago arts community, hosting exhibitions, residency programs, studio art classes and free events.
Acuña is an art administrator and curator at the center who has organized many exhibitions, including “Positions: New Landscapes,” an exhibit that is currently on view, featuring the works of six Chicago-based artists.
In her new role, she will organize a program of 12 exhibitions each year. She will also continue to oversee the Art Center’s residency programs and the Artists Run Chicago Fund, which has distributed over $1 million to almost 100 artist-run platforms since 2020.
Under her leadership, Acuña plans to continue the Art’s Centers legacy of “supporting experimentation.”
“Historically, this has been an institution that supports risk-taking,” Acuña told the Sun-Times. “Curatorially, we’re very brave. We encourage artists to take new directions in their work… that’s a really core part of the program that we want to continue.”
While much of the programming will look the same, according to Acuña, she hopes to continue to develop new means of supporting local artists.
“I hope that over the next many years, I can work with my colleagues on continuing to think critically about what supporting artists really means in the changing context that we’re in, and also dream with my colleagues about what the future of our work should be,” she said.
Acuña will assume her new position at the end of the month.