Ursula Davila-Villa joins AES as "Legacy Specialist"
Photo: Elfie Semotan
New York, NY – Artist Estate Studio, LLC, the organization that manages the Estates of Jack Tworkov and Elizabeth Murray as well as the studios of living artists Joan Witek and Robert Zakanitch among others, is excited to announce that Ursula Davila-Villa has joined its team as Legacy Specialist.
In the growing field of artist estate management, Ursula has quickly become a leader in legacy planning. Her varied background, elite curatorial and research skills, as well has her worldwide wealth of contacts in the gallery and museum sector, positions her as an effective force and advocate for artists and their estates. Ursula will be a valuable member of our team. - Jason Andrew, Founding Partner, Artist Estate Studio, LLC
Expanding into legacy planning and stewardship comes as a natural evolution to the organization which strongly believes in empowering living artists and those involved with caring for artists’ estates by advocating for their interests and their legacies with integrity, empathy, and imagination.
About Ursula Davila-Villa.
Ursula Davila-Villa co-manages the Kurt Kocherscheidt Estate and has worked on an advisory role with artists such as Luis Camnitzer, Lorraine O’Grady, Carolee Schneemann, Elfie Semotan, and the Estate of Serge Spitzer. From 2012 to 2017 she was a Partner at Alexander Gray Associates where she managed the artistic and operational areas of the gallery including: artists liaison and career development, exhibitions, publications, institutional acquisitions, curatorial and research projects, and supervision of gallery staff.
From 2005-2012, she was Associate Curator of Latin American Art at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin where she directed and supervised exhibitions, permanent collection, acquisitions, publications, ongoing research, and established the first international artist-in-residence program. She curated several exhibitions at the Blanton, among them The New York Graphic Workshop 1964–1970: Luis Camnitzer, Liliana Porter y José Guillermo Castillo (2008), Eclipses for Austin a project by Pablo Vargas Lugo (2009), Recovering Beauty: The 1990s in Buenos Aires (2011), The Nearest Air: A Survey of Works by Waltercio Caldas (2013), among others. In 2012, she was co-curator of El Panal/The Hive: Third Poli/Gráfica Triennal of San Juan de Puerto Rico. In 2008 she curated a mid-career survey of Mexican artist Yoshua Okon at the Städtische Kunsthalle Munich, Germany. Previously, she worked as project and archival researcher for artist Cai Guo-Qiang at Cai Studio, as public programs assistant at the Guggenheim Museum, as curatorial assistant at Art in General (all in New York), and Manager of International Art Fairs at Galería OMR (in Mexico City).
She completed her M.A. in Museum Studies at New York University in 2005, and holds a BA in architecture and urbanism from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico, Université Laval, Quebec, Canada, and the Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands. She has lectured and published internationally on contemporary art and museum studies. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
About Artist Estate Studio, LLC.
Founded in 2017 by Jason Andrew and Julia K. Gleich, Artist Estate Studio, LLC, services artists and the estates of artists in the management and cataloguing of their art and the promotion of their legacy. With the artist and their studio as our core focus, we specialize in promotion and preservation. Whether our client is emerging, established, or an estate of an artist, we aim to provide full management associated with all aspects of the life and work of the artist. This includes strategic planning, promotion and marketing, overseeing agreements and contracts, licensing, inventory management, assistance with appraisals, legacy and estate planning, overseeing and development of catalogue raisonné projects, and the collection, preservation, and placement of the artist’s archives.
Our team brings together first-hand knowledge and more than eight decades of accumulated experience in the curatorial, archival, academic, performance arts, publishing, and market fields. We believe in empowering artists by representing their interests and stewarding their legacies with integrity, empathy and imagination.
