About Isolde
Bio
Isolde Brielmaier, PhD is Chief Strategy Officer of Work of Art Holdings (WOAH).
An innovative leader in arts and cultural strategy and social impact, Isolde has over two decades of experience working at the intersection of the private, public, academic and non-profit sectors.
Most recently, Isolde served as the Deputy Director and Chief Innovation Officer of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC where she was part of the executive team overseeing the venue's 60,000-square-foot expansion—doubling exhibition space, increasing opportunity for artists and the public, and anchoring NEW INC, the museum’s flagship art/tech incubator program. Prior to this, Isolde served as Executive Director of Arts, Culture & Community initiatives at Westfield World Trade Center, a private sector role in which she developed and scaled strategic partnerships, cultural events, and artist projects and installations across Westfield properties—nationally.
As an independent consultant, Isolde has developed and contributed to contemporary art and culture initiatives for a broad range of companies including Peninsula Hotel Group, Apple, Theory, Valentino, Amazon Web Services (AWS), LifeWater, COACH, Richard Meier Architects | SDS Procida, Versace, Wilfredo Rosado Jewelry, Gucci, New York magazine, as well as Art Basel Miami, the Armory Show NY, CIRCA, Puerto Rico, and ARCO Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid, Spain, among others.
As a curator, programmer and writer, Isolde has collaborated with noted contemporary artists including Carrie Mae Weems, Ellen Gallagher, Leonardo Drew, Richard Mosse, Ivan Navarro, Wangechi Mutu, Bill Viola, Hugo McCloud, Fred Wilson, Tyler Mitchell, and Bharti Kher, to name a few. Isolde was previously Curator-at-Large at the International Center for Photography (ICP) in NYC; worked for the Guggenheim Museum, the Bronx Museum of Art, and as Chief Curator for the SCAD Museum of Art.
Isolde holds a PhD from Columbia University and is Associate Professor at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She has written extensively on contemporary art and culture, including exhibition catalogues, journal articles and artist monographs. Her most recent book, I am Sparkling, was released in June 2022. Her edited volume Culture as Catalyst was released in the Fall of 2020. She serves as Editor at Large at Air Mail, Graydon Carter’s media venture along with several other outlets and journals and speaks regularly on topics related to art, culture, leadership and social impact.
She is deeply committed to the promotion of social justice and human rights, specifically global women’s issues and criminal justice reform and serves on the board of Prep for Prep New York and the sustainable luxury fashion brand Another Tomorrow, as well as an advisor to the Women's Prison Association (WPA) and Malaika, an all-girls school in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Isolde has been profiled and featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Elle, Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Modern Luxury, New York Magazine’s The Cut, WNYC Radio, CNN, Good Morning America, the Washington Post, Galerie Magazine, Cultured, and Whitewall among others. She lives in NYC.