Makayla Bailey

Background

About Makayla Bailey

I am a writer, curator, and museum professional based in New York City. As the Co-Executive Director of Rhizome at the New Museum, I steward all aspects of Rhizome's mission, from fundraising to strategic planning and artistic program initiatives. Rhizome was founded in 1996, and plays an integral role in the history, definition, and growth of art engaged with the internet. Rhizome champions digital art and culture through commissions, exhibitions, public programs, scholarship, and digital preservation, all of which facilitate increased public engagement with the complex past, present, and future of digital art. In this new chapter, Rhizome is continually growing to expand open access to born-digital art and culture through our groundbreaking arts programming, digital preservation, and research tools. I have a proven track record of providing crucial support for marginalized cultural producers within the context of institutions both small and large. In my career I have worked across curatorial and development capacities at institutions of varying scale: MoMA, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and LAXART. At the Studio Museum, I organized the institution's first-ever digital exhibition,"Hearts in Isolation." My writing and curatorial work has been featured in Artforum, ArtNews, Harper's Bazaar, Hyperallergic, Frieze, Flaunt Magazine, Studio Magazine, among others. I am currently researching alternative funding models for cultural institutions, and exploring the intersections of digital history, web3, American cultural expansion, and algorithmic and environmental racism. Profile Image Credit: Alex Galloway, Mark Tribe, and Martin Wattenberg,"StarryNight," Screenshot, ca. Internet Explorer 5.0 for Windows (detail)