Elizabeth Dee is the Founder & Creative Director of Independent, a mission driven organization that serves galleries, collectors and institutions. Originally established in 2010 with a critically acclaimed art exhibition at the former Dia Center for the Arts, Independent produces two landmark, highly curated shows (Independent and Independent 20th Century), publishes editorial features and scholarship, and creates content programming on range of research based initiatives that bring together leading artists, gallerists, curators, arts writers, historians and thought leaders. Dee also created Independent Bureau, an invite-only forward diary designed in consultation with journalists who are seeking diverse represesntation in arts coverage. She also operates Art Counsel Advisors, a strategic consulting agency for galleries and foundations.
For twenty years, Dee owned and operated a notable New York gallery, representing a global roster of artists, including John Giorno, Miriam Cahn, Renée Green, Adrian Piper, Mika Tajima, Josephine Meckseper and Ryan Trecartin; and curated and published several historical surveys of the 20th Century. She also co-produced more than ten films with Trecartin and co-produced exhibitions of those films at Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, MoMA PS1, MoCA, Los Angeles, MoCA Miami, The Power Plant, Toronto, Istanbul Modern and others. In 2018, Dee succesfully realized with curators Connie Butler, Christophe Cherix and David Platzger, Adrian Piper's MoMA Retrospective, A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2017 which travelled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. From 2020 to 2022, she launched and directed the John Giorno Foundation, establishing its endowment in honor of the artist and preserving his enduring legacy as an artist, poet, Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist and political activist.
Her recent publications include The New York Art Market Report (by arts economist Claire McAndrew), Ryan Trecartin (co-published with Rizzoli), Every Future Has a Price: 30 Years After Infotainment, and With the Eyes of Others: Hungarian Artists of the 60s and 70s. She has written articles on the market, artists and curatorial practice for The Art Newspaper, Artnet, and Time Out New York.
From 2020 to 2024, Dee served on the faculty at New York University in it's graduate program. Earlier in her career, she was a curatorial advisor to the Kramlich Collection in San Francisco, the world's largest private collection of 20th-century video art.
Dee has been profiled in numerous international publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vogue. In her combined gallery and art fair work, Dee has curated more than 25 art fairs and 250 gallery exhibitions.
Elizabeth Dee is on the acquisition committee for photography at the Guggenheim Museum, on the development commitee for The Moviehouse and is a founding patron and co-commissioner of Contemporary Art Library's initiative, The New York Gallery History Project.
Gallery Extended Archive: Contemporary Art Library
Contact:
info@elizabethdee.com