Rebecca Ibel, founder of the Columbus, Ohio-based Contemporary Art Matters art gallery, will continue the Chautauqua Visual Arts Lecture Series at 6 p.m. tonight in Hultquist Center.
Her lecture follows a series of talks by guest faculty members and visiting artists. Ibel will bring a curatorial perspective to the series in tonight’s talk for the annual Leon and Gloria Plevin Lecture for CVA.
Ibel said she plans to talk about a recent exhibition that she co-curated with Edmund Gaisie and Deidre Hamlar. “Accra! The Rise of a Global Art Community” was on view late 2023 through early 2024 at the Columbus Museum of Art.
The exhibition featured work created by 18 artists with connections to Accra, Ghana, and highlights Ghana’s impact in contemporary art.
In her talk, Ibel said she will outline her background in the art industry, her experience in curating “Accra!” and what she believes the broader impact and importance of the exhibition is.
Though the exhibition has closed, Ibel said that its legacy is continuing to remain pertinent and that “the ripples are continuing to go out.”
“I’m very proud to be part of it,” she said.
Ibel has worked in numerous facets of the art industry throughout her career, having studied art history in college and later moving to work in auction houses and as a private art dealer, in addition to her work as a curator.
Ibel said she views her job as a way of shining a light on important themes, ideas and conversations happening in art.
“Curating is not just ideas that come out of your head,” she said. “It’s being exposed to opportunities and responding to the world. My job, as I see it, is to shine a spotlight on what I think are important ideas, important works, which have a wide range of interests.”
If it’s not personal, she said, it doesn’t work.
“It’s always something that I personally connect with,” Ibel said. “… It really has to be something that I believe in and that I can connect with the artist, or the group of artists, to really share their message, amplify their voices and ignite passion in a community.”
Ibel said she wants Chautauquans to leave her lecture thinking about how they engage with their neighbors. She hopes people will “see our neighbors and look at and think about what our neighbors have to say, what we can learn from them, and how they are us.”
“People are people and so you have to connect with people who look different than you, sound different thank you and take away the lessons from them,” Ibel said. “We are not divided into segregated sects of religion or geography or innate attempts to divide or define us.”
