Mid-America Arts Alliance Receives National Endowment for the Arts Support to Tour Whitfield Lovell Exhibition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 1, 2002

Mid-America Arts Alliance Appoints New Executive Director

KANSAS CITY, MO. --- Mid-America Arts Alliance announces the appointment of Mary Kennedy McCabe as Executive Director. McCabe has been with Mid-America Arts Alliance for thirteen years, serving as Director of ExhibitsUSA, the organization's national museum services division, for the past ten years. She has also served as Curator of Exhibitions for ExhibitsUSA and as Director of Programs for Mid-America Arts Alliance.

Mid-America Arts Alliance Chairman Art Thompson states: "After conducting a rigorous national search, the board of directors was unanimous in its decision to appoint Mary Kennedy McCabe, citing her dedication to the mission, staff, and constituents of Mid-America Arts Alliance. Her stellar record in building and leading ExhibitsUSA to the prominent position it now holds is evidence of her ability to move the entire organization forward. Given Mary's integrity, intelligence, and passion for the arts, her appointment ensures a continuity of vision that will serve both the organization and the field."

"I have been honored to serve Mid-America Arts Alliance for the past thirteen years, and am thrilled to be given this extraordinary opportunity to provide leadership to the organization," states McCabe. "Mid-America Arts Alliance's partnerships with our member state arts agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts, national and regional foundations and corporations, and the hundreds of artists and cultural organizations we serve, provide us the means to increase access to the arts for the people of our region and beyond. I look forward to working with our partners to expand and deepen our commitment to access and to imagine new programs that will strengthen the cultural life of our communities."

Mary McCabe began her tenure at Mid-America Arts Alliance in 1989 as Curator of Exhibitions. In 1992, she assumed the directorship of ExhibitsUSA, transforming the program from a regional traveling exhibition service into a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, offering a full range of museum services and prioritizing the needs of small and midsize museums. Under her leadership, ExhibitsUSA now organizes and tours 25-30 exhibitions annually, reaching over one million museum visitors in communities throughout all fifty states. In the past year, McCabe has expanded the program by developing the Hands-on Experiential Learning Project (HELP) in order to provide technical assistance to small and midsize museums.

McCabe's curatorial work with ExhibitsUSA has included such exhibitions as Beyond the Horizon: Robert Sudlow and Keith Jacobshagen; On the Edge of Time: Photographs by Mariana Yampolsky; and Moji: Keith Carter. In addition to acting as primary curator for nine exhibitions, Ms. McCabe has provided curatorial oversight to more than sixty exhibitions during her tenure at ExhibitsUSA, such as Luis Jimenez: Working Class Heroes: Images from the Popular Culture; Bold Strokes and Quiet Gestures: 20th Century Drawings and Watercolors from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and Chuck Close: Editions. Additionally, she served as Co-producer for Digital Griot: Betye Saar, a CD-ROM with Voyager Company in 1998, in conjunction with the ExhibitsUSA exhibition Betye Saar: Personal Icons.

Prior to her tenure with Mid-America Arts Alliance, McCabe served as Assistant Director of the Kansas Arts Commission, where she managed major grants programs, artist fellowship and professional development programs, and designed the rural arts program. In 1986, Ms. McCabe was Assistant Curator for the Vernon Collection, a private collection in Beverly Hills, California. In 1986 she also taught History of Photography at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. Her book on photo-pictorialist Clara Sipprell received the Mitch Wilder Award for outstanding museum publication by the Texas Association of Museums in 1990. McCabe also served as a research assistant in the photography collection of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, from 1984 to 1986. Ms. McCabe earned her M.A. in Art History/Museum Studies at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. She received her B.A. cum laude in Art History from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, in 1981.

Mary Kennedy McCabe succeeds longtime Mid-America Arts Alliance Executive Director Henry Moran. Moran resigned the position in September 2001 to accept an appointment by President George W. Bush to serve as Executive Director of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Mid-America Arts Alliance, founded in 1972, is a nonprofit regional arts organization based in Kansas City, Missouri. It is governed by a board of directors drawn from its partner states of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Major support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, participating state arts agencies, and leading foundations and corporations. For further information, visit the Mid-America Arts Alliance Web site at www.maaa.org or call (816) 421-1388.