Gonzalo E. Casals (born November 21, 1974) is an

Argentine-American Argentine Americans ( es, argentino-estadounidense) are Americans whose full or partial origin is in Argentina. They are part of the broader Hispanic and Latino American category, and make up a scant 0.1% of the U.S. population, compared to lar ...

museum director and professor based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He is the former Commissioner of the

New York City Department of Cultural Affairs The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) is the department of the government of New York City dedicated to supporting New York City's cultural life. Among its primary missions is ensuring adequate public funding for non-profit cultur ...

, and previously held the executive director position at the

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (LLM), formerly the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, is a visual art museum in SoHo, Lower Manhattan, New York City. It mainly collects, preserves and exhibits visual arts created by LGBTQ artists or art ...

in New York. He was the Vice President of Programs and Community Engagement at

Friends of the High Line The High Line is a elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's design is a collaboration between James Corner Field O ...

, as well as the Deputy and Interim Director of

El Museo del Barrio El Museo del Barrio, often known simply as El Museo (the museum), is a museum at 1230 Fifth Avenue in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is located near the northern end of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile, immediately north of the Museum of the Cit ...

East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...

. He is a resident of

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

Early life and education

Casals was raised in Bueno Aires, Argentina. Casals studied design and architecture at the

Universidad de Belgrano The University of Belgrano ( es, Universidad de Belgrano, commonly referred to as UB) is a private university established in 1964 and located in the Belgrano district of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Overview The university has nine de ...

. In 2002, he immigrated to New York City, where he received a Masters of Art History and Museum Studies from the City College of New York City and a Masters in Urban Affairs and Neighborhood and Community Development from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

Career

Casals has been part of the CreateNYC

public engagement Public engagement or public participation is a term that has recently been used to describe "the practice of involving members of the public in the agenda-setting, decision-making, and policy-forming activities of organizations/institutions respons ...

team and the New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers. While leading the

, Casals transformed the museum, that often focussed on white cis gay men and their art, into a more diverse space for the

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

+ community. Casals focused on the works of art by

artists, people of color, women, trans people, and those with intersecting identities. Casals has supported a number of major exhibitions: including the New York edition of the exhibition, "Art After Stonewall, 1969–1989"; a retrospective of the experimental filmmaker,

Barbara Hammer Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hamm ...

; and a survey show on "queer abstraction." As Director, Casals rebranded the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, dropping the "gay and lesbian" titled that was part of the museum name prior. He broadened education programming and opened up the museum's

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

s and libraries to artists and researchers. He has held teaching positions at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Casals, Gonzalo Directors of museums in the United States Argentine emigrants to the United States Living people People from Jackson Heights, Queens City College of New York alumni Hunter College alumni Commissioners in New York City 1974 births