Program Overview
VisArts’ Emerging Curator Program offers a unique opportunity for an Emerging Curator to work with an experienced Mentoring Curator to develop and present an exhibition and assist in the presentation of the mentor’s exhibition.
VisArts provides the Emerging Curator with an exhibition budget of $10,000. Additional funding and staff support for printing, promotions, and execution of exhibition programming is available.
The program is one year and begins every January. The selection panel includes VisArts’ curators, the Artist Advisory Council, and the Mentoring Curator.
The Emerging Curator and Mentoring Curator work together to expand education programming and enhance visitor experiences by developing tools, templates, technological enhancements, and funding strategies to support public programming that promotes social interaction, creative exchange, and audience engagement.
The Emerging Curator Program provides Emerging Curators with practical, hands-on experience at a community arts organization.
It’s designed to support diverse exhibitions presenting a broad spectrum of ideas and curatorial approaches, and to enhance the VisArts exhibition experience by developing educational initiatives, public programming, and opportunities for community engagement through expanded use of interactive, interpretive media.
VisArts’ Emerging Curator Program is generously supported by a grant from the Windgate Foundation.
Current Curators
John Massier
Mentoring Curator
2026 Mentoring Curator: John Massier
John Massier has been a curator and writer of contemporary art since 1988, during which he has worked with hundreds of national and international artists to present their work to the public through solo, group, and residency exhibitions.
During his twenty-five year tenure at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo (2001—2026), Massier oversaw exhibitions, and projects by hundreds of artists, including Suzy Lake, Laylah Ali, Julio Cesar Morales, Ruben Ochoa, Betty Tompkins, Jacob Kassay, Guy Richards Smit, Wayne Hodge, Jillian McDonald, Sam Van Aken, Kelly Richardson, Christina West, Kara Tanaka, Joan Linder, George Afedzi Hughes, Ester Partegas, Shary Boyle, Deborah Aschheim, David Kramer, Katie Bell, Alexandria Smith, Kenny Rivero, Shea Hembrey, and Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, among many others.
Prior to joining the staff of Hallwalls in early 2001, Massier had been a curator and writer in Toronto since 1988. Through the 1990s, at The Koffler Gallery, he curated more than sixty exhibitions of emerging and mid-career Canadian artists.
He has written feature articles, catalogue essays, artists’ profiles, as well as exhibition and book reviews for various galleries and visual art publications, including Canadian Art, MIX magazine, Coagula Art Journal, THIS magazine, Art in America, Art Papers, the Buffalo News, UB Art Galleries, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and the Albright Knox Art Gallery. In 1997, he co-founded the Toronto art publication LOLA.
In 2010, he served as Project Director for the regional survey biennial Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents.
In March 2026, he joined the Burchfield Penney Art Center as their Chief Curator.
2025
- 2026
Krys Ortega
Emerging Curator
2026 Emerging Curator: Krys Ortega
Krys Ortega is curator and public programs organizer based in Miami, Florida. Their work considers queer world-making—how queer communities respond to political structures that render them “other” and how visibility amidst erasure might forge a future of Queer self-determination. Their curatorial practice is grounded in the possibilities manifest through representations of queerness as an interstitial relational space, and act as a reimagination of intimacy, rigid social truths, and bodily autonomy.
Krys is a graduate of Williams College, where they earned dual degrees in Art History and Political Theory. During this time, they interned at the Williams College Museum of Art, supporting a range of exhibitions and public programs. They have also held roles at the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA PS1 supporting exhibition production, development, and community-based initiatives. Krys currently serves as Curatorial & Public Programs Manager at Bakehouse Art Complex, where they curate and support exhibitions, installations, and public programming. Recent projects include Strange Natures (2025) and Bakehouse at Forty: Present (2025–2026).
2025
- 2026
