The American Federation of Arts (AFA) announces Belinda A. Tate and Daniel H. Weiss have joined the AFA’s Board of Trustees. As the non-profit AFA celebrates its 110th year, these new board members’ expertise will support the AFA’s mission to create traveling art exhibitions and scholarly publications that expand access to art nationally and internationally. 

Belinda A. Tate currently serves as Executive Director for the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) in Michigan, and Daniel H. Weiss is President and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. As members of the AFA Board of Trustees, Tate and Weiss will join over thirty corporate representatives, collectors, and museum directors from institutions nationwide who are committed to supporting the AFA’s exhibition-making initiatives as the AFA continues a trajectory of growth, recently launching important traveling exhibitions including Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design, and Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement. In September 2019, KIA will host the critically acclaimed Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, which is organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Studio Museum.

The American Federations of Arts was founded in 1909 with the interest and support of President Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie. Since then, the AFA has circulated over 3,500 high quality exhibitions, with presentations in all fifty states, as well as Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Today, the AFA continues to explore new opportunities for the broadest dissemination and appreciation of the visual arts. In 2018, AFA exhibitions reached nearly 500,000 viewers; over the next two years, the AFA will travel eleven exhibitions to nearly thirty-five museums.

“I am delighted to welcome Belinda A. Tate and Daniel Weiss to the AFA Board of Trustees,” said Pauline Willis, Director and CEO of the American Federation of Arts. “Dan and Belinda bring with them a breadth of knowledge and set of diverse perspectives that represent a rich cross-section within the museum world today. Their expertise is integral to the AFA’s goal of deepening relations with the full spectrum of the museum community.”

“The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts was founded almost 100 years ago as a local chapter of the AFA, so I’m very proud to continue our longstanding partnership by serving on the AFA Board. Exhibitions organized by the AFA have always had a tremendous impact on me personally, most memorably In the Spirit of Resistance from the mid-’90s, which was the first exhibition to examine the influence of the Mexican muralists on the work of African American artists from the 1930s to 1950s,” said Belinda A. Tate.

“It is a genuine pleasure to be joining the Board of the AFA. At a time of increasing interest in the work of museums, along with the challenges of a rapidly evolving society, the importance of the AFA has never been greater. I look forward to contributing to this important organization in the years ahead,” said Daniel Weiss.
 
More on Belinda Tate and Daniel Weiss
 
Belinda A. Tate is Executive Director for the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, serving since 2014. Belinda Tate is a community bridge builder who embraces the KIA's vision that the visual arts are for everyone. She works to provide a cultural platform that welcomes and is inclusive of all people. Through hands-on, engaged leadership, she provides strategic direction for a team of seven senior leaders who manage a complex institution consisting of development and marketing, exhibitions and collections, museum education and library services (11,000 volumes), and the Kirk Newman Art School (more than 3,300 students). The organization maintains a budget of approximately $4MM, and is powered by 98 staff and faculty and 300 volunteers who serve more than 100,000 patrons annually in Southwest Michigan.
 
Daniel H. Weiss became the fifth President of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in July 2015 and was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in June 2017. With approximately two million objects in its collection representing more than 5,000 years of artistic achievement from around the world, seven million visitors annually, and an operating budget of $320 million, The Met is one of the largest and most diverse art museums in the world. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Weiss is Vice Chair of the Board of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of the Yale School of Management, and a trustee of the Wallace Foundation, the Library of America, and the Posse Foundation.