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The “So Called Williams Art Mafia”

On Tuesday evening, January 26, a broad gathering of Ephs met at MoMA for the “So Called Williams Mafia” project. Until now, the Williams Art Mafia has primarily been a label. It originally referred to a group of very influential directors at the country’s top art museums who graduated in the ‘60’s and three legendary Williams Art History teachers that inspired them.  But this was not a group as such. It never formally met. Intrigued by the dichotomy between the perception of the group's existence and reality, conceptual artist Marko Remec ’80 was inspired to organize the event. Appropriately, the evening itself was billed as art – a “conceptual group performance event.” Remec pitched MoMA director Glenn Lowry ’76 on the concept and he graciously agreed to provide space.

In his welcoming remarks Remec explained “By meeting here tonight, we are actualizing the concept of the Williams Art Mafia and making it real. As this is performance art, after tonight we will all have had our MoMA show!”  

In the room were over 150 alumni ranging from the classes of ’48 to ’16. Interest in the event was very high, the initial room at MoMA quickly sold out and luckily MoMA was able to move it to a larger space. There were Ephs attending from as far as Philadelphia, Hartford and Williamstown. The event was open to all Williams alumni who are active in the arts, who graduated as an Art BA or MA or are involved at Williams in the arts. There was participation from all the major NYC museums as well as others in the Northeast at levels from the director to intern. Numerous galleries, artists, auction houses, curators, arts nonprofits, museum trustees and collectors also attended. Going forward, the intention is to hold these events on a more regular basis and perhaps at different art centric geographic locales.

Take a look at the photo album on Facebook.

For more information, please contact nyephs@gmail.com.

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