About
About Recession Art
Recession Art is an arts organization devoted to helping emerging artists show and sell their work while giving art lovers and collectors of all incomes an opportunity to buy original work at affordable prices. We believe that in spite of hard economic times, artists and art lovers don’t have to put their passions on hold! We aim to break open the traditional gallery model and make showing, buying, and enjoying art more accessible for people who have been hit by the recession. We believe that we can start our own art stimulus plan today!
Founder Bios
Emma Katz: Executive Director
Emma Katz is a long time art appreciator and passionate organizer of all types of artistic endeavors. Her main love is the theater, specifically musical theater. On the way to her goal of becoming a renowned producer, she has worked for the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players, the Barrow Street Theatre, the Summer Play Festival, and most recently at the Horse Trade’s FRIGID NY Festival. She also is a proud counterperson at the Birdbath Bakery on 223 First Avenue and encourages everyone to come visit her there and try the pretzel croissant.
Ani Katz: Art Director
Ani Katz is an 08 graduate of the Yale undergraduate photography department, where she spent four years writing very few papers. When not in the lab waiting for her photographs to print, she could be found at the Yale Daily News, where she served as den mother of the Photo Desk. She has toured as a rock band photographer and currently teaches 1st grade in Brooklyn Heights. She would be happy to photograph your upcoming event, as long as you don’t mind that the pictures will look nothing like what you remember.
Staff Bios
Arielle Cohen: Social Media Director
Arielle Cohen currently attends CUNY Hunter where she is pursuing a degree in Women & Gender Studies. You can read her casual feminist critique at her blog and soon you can peruse the some of the interviews she is conducting at whatafeministlookslike.com. Eve Ensler has refered to her as “fierce” and “potent”. In addition to blogging and patriarchy smashing, Arielle enjoys printmaking, cycling and tweeting for Recession Arts. She is grateful to have not yet fully developed carpel tunnel syndrome.
C.J. Gineros: Technology Director
C.J. Gineros graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s computer engineering program in 2005, and has since been roped into countless artsy projects that require his genius tech skills. When he is not being pressured into fixing a friend’s computer, or updating the website of small non-profit arts organizations, he can be found in the offices of a forensic accounting firm that specializes in [anti] money-laundering and fraud. C.J. is also an aspiring inventor and entrepreneur. You can download his latest work, Plumb, at Palatial Software‘s website.
Melanie Kress: Development Director/Technical Director
Melanie Kress is an independent curator, organizer, and artist currently living and working in Brooklyn. She is the Co-Founder of the project space CONCRETE UTOPIA, which operates out of Williamsburg as an exhibition, performance, installation, publishing, video/film screening, and Deleuzean book-club space. Currently, Melanie works at White Columns, acting as Archive Intern, digitizing and cataloguing their forty-year archive. At Recession Art, Melanie acts as Development Director, Graphic Designer, and Technical Director. To pay the bills, she fronts as your friendly neighborhood bartender and beer nerd. Some day she will get a real job.
Allison Meier: Public Relations Director
Allison Meier is a writer for nonprofits and print publications and also of short stories, poetry, and novels that tend toward magical realism. After graduating from the journalism college at the University of Oklahoma, she worked for a year at a nonprofit contemporary arts organization in Oklahoma City. She then moved to Europe and taught English in primary schools in Valence, a town in the south of France. Now back in the States, she recently relocated to Brooklyn and is still trying to get over her withdrawal from boulangeries and snowboarding in the Alps. She chronicles her adventures at Allez, Allie!
Jane Van Cleef: Design Director
Jane Van Cleef is a fashion designer, toy designer and captain of industry. Past artworks of note include her senior thesis show at Harvard, Climate Change Preparedness Center : a fully functioning clothing store which outfitted customers for a more aquatic future. She is currently employed as a toy designer for the North American Bear Company where her responsibilities include maintaining the facebook page of Muffy Van Der Bear. On the weekends she is a freelance seamstress and go-to graphic designer for Recession Art.
