Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Adds Olga Viso, Stephen Pitti, Cathy Davidson as Fellows -ARTnews

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York has added three new fellows in residence: Cathy Davidson, a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center; Stephen Pitti, professor at Yale University; and Olga Viso, the former Walker Art Center director and now senior advisor for Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts on a recently instituted partnership with James Turrell’s Roden Crater. Each fellow serves for a period of 12 months, beginning this summer and fall.

In a joint statement, Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander and vice president Mariët Westermann said, “It is an honor and pleasure to have Olga, Cathy, and Stephen join us. The foundation works to reinforce the arts and humanities in the service of human flourishing and diverse, fair, and democratic societies. Several fellows have already joined us successfully in this mission, and we very much look forward to our newest fellows advancing this work.”

Davidson will work on reform to doctoral education in the humanities as well as issues relating to community colleges. Pitti will work on the role of ethnic and race studies in the academy and visibility for different histories. Viso will focus on interdisciplinary potentials for the arts and the future of artists’ foundations and archives.