How to Be Invited Back? Navigating Curator-Artist Relationships

What makes a curator return to an artist’s work time and again? Join Mariela Acuña (Director of Exhibitions and Residency, Hyde Park Art Center) and Ionit Behar (Curator, DePaul Art Museum) for a candid conversation about the dynamics of curator-artist relationships. From studio visits to exhibition planning, this workshop explores how trust, communication, and mutual respect shape long-term collaborations in the art world.

CAC's Professional Development series works to uncover a critical to professional artists outside of making art.

Rooted in our core values of knowledge-sharing and building community, this 90-minute seminar will include 30 minutes of conversation with participants. Bring your experience and your questions to the group!

Participants may attend in person or online via Zoom. Registration is required.

$10 for the general public
$5 for CAC alumni
FREE for current residents (Registration still required)

Mariela Acuña is an art administrator and curator. As Director of Exhibitions and Residency at Hyde Park Art Center, she oversees the Art Center's exhibitions program, the Jackman Goldwasser Residency, and the micro-publishing platform Green Lantern Press. Acuña’s recent curatorial projects include William Estrada: Multiples and Multitudes (2023), Jonathan Castillo: Immigrant Owned (2023), Positions: New Landscapes (2024-5), and Farah Salem: Uninhibited People of the Earth (2025). Acuña is a lecturer at SAIC and serves as Board President at Comfort Station.

Ionit Behar is curator at DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) in Chicago, where she has organized solo and group exhibitions including Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: A Want for Nothing, Selva Aparicio: In Memory Of, Life Cycles, A Natural Turn, Solo(s): Krista Franklin, Claudia Peña Salinas: Quetzalli, and LatinXAmerican. Her independent projects include Del Otro Lado at O’Hare International Airport, 50 años at SUBTE in Montevideo, and Nelly Agassi: No Limestone, Nor Marble at the Chicago Cultural Center. Behar holds a PhD in art history from the University of Illinois at Chicago.