Community Profiles Archive

Kate Gilbert
Founding Executive Director, Boston Public Art Triennial
Member, MA-NMWA Advisory Council

"Bold. Open. Sharp." These are the values of the Boston Public Art Triennial, and surely the adjectives also aptly describe the Triennial's Founding Executive Director, Kate Gilbert. Captivated at an early age by her first exposure to pubic art--the James Wines/SITE "Ghost Parking Lot," which presented automobiles covered in asphalt in a Hamden, CT parking lot--Kate pursued studio art as a way, she says, of "understanding my world." She earned an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, now part of Tufts University.

Kate’s path includes several years in which she worked at design and place-making nonprofits (“they fed my addiction to painting”) before entering graduate school. Upon completion of her degree, she pursued video, sculpture and a curatorial consulting service for public art initiatives, Kate Gilbert Studio. She then founded the nonprofit organization Now + There, in 2015. But, as Kate tells the story, there is much more to this evolution. A family legacy of advocacy and commitment to sustainability led Kate to contemplate how to bring Boston’s diverse communities together to consider bold new ways of making and consuming art. “Everything has changed with technology,” she explains. “We are not collecting stuff to make art anymore.”

Over several exploratory years Now + There morphed and eventually became the Boston Public Art Triennial, the city’s first and only public art organization dedicated to supporting artists and communities in bold, contemporary public art. In partnership with the City of Boston, the Triennial will present its first edition, titled “The Exchange,” from May 22 until October 31, 2025. Fifteen new outdoor public art commissions showcasing local, national and internationally known artists, curated by Artistic Director Pedro Alonzo and Curator Tess Lukey, will reflect sub-themes of equity, climate and biodiversity, indigeneity, shared humanity, and addiction and wellness. In addition to the curated projects there will be three open-call projects on view and five in collaboration with local museums. More than 100 events across the city are planned.

Notwithstanding the high value Bostonians place on the city’s history, the Triennial team has not found much resistance to its proposals and plans for iterative public art. “There are many, many people who want to go beyond ‘male and stale’,” she says, referring to Boston’s many iconic monuments to political and military leaders. [Gaining cooperation was] more of an educational acculturation process.” She is quick to describe the layers of process and benefit from engaging communities and the Triennial’s paid community captains. But Kate is clear: “The artists come first, then community and where to put the work.” She emphasizes that the selection criteria require appropriate, responsive spaces where participation can be measurable.

And given the democratic nature of public art and its potential appeal to artists eager to gain an audience for their work, Kate offers this advice: “Be lockstep in driving toward what you want. Understand what you want someone to see and think about, then extrapolate to where and in what form.”

With heartfelt thanks to Kate and the Triennial team, we look forward to the promise of the first Boston Public Art Triennial—the creation of a public art tradition, a new art history for Boston that is Bold. Open. Sharp.

Arlette Kayafas
Member, MA-NMWA Advisory Council

Establishing Gallery Kayafas in 2003 was the culmination of years of reflection and aspiration for Arlette Kayafas. A woman who came to appreciate the power of visual art as she navigated high school (where she met her husband, renowned photograph printer and collector Gus Kayafas) and college, she at first found herself in a supporting role. She was a "student wife," she says, to Gus as he studied at MIT with photographer-educators Minor White and Harold "Doc" Edgerton. When their children were young, Arlette was active in community programs and local schools, where her leadership talent emerged.

After Edgerton passed away in 1990, Arlette transferred his library and personal objects to MIT; she then cared for his wife. Arlette recalls that this latter experience led to a rewarding career as companion to elderly women in assisted living--educated women who, she says, welcomed her into their intellectual circle as an equal and prompted her to consider her own future. "When my last client died," she says, "I wanted to make something open, not ending. Something lasting." That, for Arlette, would have to have something to do with art.

By this time she and Gus had amassed a powerful collection of some 12,000 carefully curated photographs. There was nothing to do but find ways to show and perhaps sell them, and to offer other artists a venue unlike any other in Boston at the time. And so Arlette founded Gallery Kayafas.

Within a few years Arlette began to integrate the work of other visual artists as well. This change was marked by her increasing confidence that she had “…something to say … not just photography. I have only shown work that I want to own … that prompts interesting conversations.” Speaking of her interest in “strong voices” of women and others, she notes that when she shows certain artists her goal is that “I might change how you thought … [the work] makes you aware of what it’s like to be transgendered, to be from an immigrant family …  your life [becomes] broader, brighter.” This spirit connected Arlette to MA-NMWA, working with the organization since 2008 and supporting the Women to Watch program.

Arlette retired at the end of Summer 2024, much to the chagrin of the many members of the creative community with which she has connected. Asked to advise visual artists eager to gain an audience for their work, Arlette offers: “There are so many wonderful artists to support. You have to pay your dues. Visit galleries. Introduce yourself to the staff and owner. Talk to them. Listen to them. Read about them and about the artists they represent. And keep in touch with them.”

MA-NMWA extends its heartfelt thanks and very best wishes to Arlette and Gus. We are fortunate indeed that she has agreed to remain a member of the Advisory Council, and we look forward to a continued active partnership in whatever she chooses to do next.