Maren Hassinger in Conversation with Donna De Salvo and Christina Mossaides Strassfield

Maren Hassinger was born in Los Angeles in 1947. She graduated from Bennington College, Vermont, with a BA in sculpture in 1969, and from University of California, Los Angeles, with an MFA in fiber structure in 1973. While living in East Hampton in the 1990s, Hassinger was an active participant in the Long Island arts community. Her work appeared in numerous local exhibitions including Volume: 6 Contemporary Sculptors, Guild Hall, East Hampton, in 1992, and Sightings, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, in 1994. She also realized performances including A Day at the Beach for the Victor D’Amico Institute of Art, Amagansett, in 1995. She was a lecturer in the art department of Stony Brook Southampton from 1992 to 1997. Hassinger has completed solo presentations and projects at, among others, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Baltimore Museum of Art; Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. She recently retired after twenty years as the director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. Hassinger lives in New York.

Photo: Grace Roselli

Donna De Salvo is a curator, writer, and consultant who has worked with numerous national and international artists and museum collections.  She is currently Senior Adjunct Curator, Special Projects, Dia Art Foundation, and amongst other projects, is co-curating, with Matilde Guidelli Guidi, a major presentation of the work of Jack Whitten. She held several positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, becoming its first Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs where she oversaw the museum’s curatorial department and program of exhibitions and acquisitions, and was centrally involved in the development and design of the Whitney’s new building and exhibition galleries.  She led the team for its inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See, and in 2018-19, curated the Whitney’s widely-acclaimed retrospective, Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again. Known for her thematic exhibitions, such as Open Systems: Rethinking Art c. 1970 (Tate Modern); Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition (1955-1962) (LAMoCA) and A Museum Looks at Itself (The Parrish Art Museum), Ms. De Salvo has also organized exhibitions or commissioned the work of Barbara Bloom, John Chamberlain, Roni Horn, Anish Kapoor, Barbara Kruger, Steve McQueen, Barnett Newman, Hélio Oiticica, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, Lawrence Weiner, and Joe Zucker, amongst many others. Ms. De Salvo has held curatorial positions at Tate Modern, London; the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio; Dia Art Foundation, in New York; and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. In the 1990s, she was the Robert Lehman Curator at The Parrish Art Museum, where she organized numerous exhibitions, including an installation on Job’s Lane of the work of Maren Hassinger.   

Photograph by Matthew Carasella Photography.   

Christina Mossaides Strassfield is the Museum Director/Chief Curator of Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York. This title was given to her in January 2009.  She had been the Curator at Guild Hall Museum from 1990-1996 and returned in 2002.  One of her standout achievements while overseeing the artistic leadership and overall management of the Museum has been the exemplary Museum Exhibition schedule which she has either curated herself or directly oversaw as program manager. During her tenure she has transformed what was once a small sleepy museum into a vital Mecca for the visual arts which has been recognized by reviews in The New York Times, Art in America, Art News, New York Magazine, The New York Sun, Newsday and many other publications. The mission statement of the museum is to showcase the artists who have an affiliation with Eastern Suffolk County. Close proximity to NYC has made the Hampton’s the summer home for most of the New York Art world. This has allowed Strassfield to forge close relationships with the artist’s, dealers and collectors who shape the New York Art World.  She has been instrumental in coordinating exhibitions which have received acclaim from art critics as well as the general public. At Guild Hall she is charge of curating the collection of over 2500 objects, works of art by artists associated with the Eastern Long Island including acquisitions and collections care. Strassfield launched the Guild Hall Collector’s Circle and has cultivated many gifts for the collection, oversees the acquisitions and loan process, and guides the Museum Committee on collections in addition to organizing the traveling exhibition of works from the collection which has traveled cross-country since 2007 and continues to be booked.  In 2009 she Co-Chaired a Symposium at Hofstra University on the artist Perle Fine. In 2010 she was appointed Professor at Dowling College where in 2011 the Museum Studies Minor was launched under her leadership.  She currently teaches as an Adjunct Professor at the State University of New York, Suffolk Community College, Eastern Campus.

She is in charge of all aspects of administrating Guild Hall Museum and all exhibition related work. Management responsibilities for the museum include budgeting, fundraising, grant writing, major gift cultivation, marketing, publicity, research, conservation, education, exhibition design, AAM Museum accreditation as well as disaster, long range and strategic planning.  She has been published in catalogues, articles and has participated in symposiums, scholarly talks and on numerous panels.  She has appeared on News 12, NPR on WLIW, Plum TV, Cablevision, and LTV and on the radio.  She continues to be involved in the arts and has served on the art board of the LongHouse Foundation and has been on the executive board of the Long Island Museum Association and is a member of the prestigious ARTTable which recognizes leadership roles by women in the Arts.  

Her community involvement includes being elected to two 5 years terms on the Southampton School Board where she co-chaired the Budget Committee that oversaw the school districts then 62 million dollar budget.  She also served on the Finance and Audit, Academic Advisory and Academic Enrichment Committees.  Since 2019 she has served on NYFA’s Nominating Committee.

She has also served on her church’s Parish council and was the President of their Philanthropic Society.