Photo credit: Nicholas Lea Bruno
Valencia, CA (Sept. 29, 2022) — California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) announces today the appointment of Ann Wiens as its new Vice President for Marketing and Communications. Reporting to CalArts President Ravi S. Rajan, Wiens will begin her work as a member of the Institute’s senior leadership team on Nov. 28, 2022.
“We are excited to have an artist and a proven communicator of Ann’s caliber join CalArts,” said Rajan. “Ann is uniquely positioned to further our strategic goals of broadening the awareness and reach of the Institute, both domestically and internationally, through the telling of our compelling narrative.”
“I’m thrilled to be joining CalArts’ community of artists,” said Wiens, “and can’t wait to begin getting to know the students, faculty, staff, and alumni whose creative work and ideas comprise the CalArts story. At a time when both the arts and higher education are so critically needed in our world, I’m honored to have the opportunity to help share that story far and wide.”
Ann Wiens is currently Vice President of Marketing and Communications at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, a position she has held since 2019. She came to the Bay Area to serve as Director of Marketing and Communications for the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and previously held leadership roles as Creative Director and Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Oregon; and Director of Marketing, Public Relations, and Graphics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She began her higher-education career at Columbia College Chicago, where she was the founding editor of DEMO, the college’s award-winning magazine.
Prior to her work in higher education, Wiens spent her early career as an artist and art critic, and served as editor of the Chicago-based contemporary art magazine New Art Examiner for seven years. She earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from Stony Brook University, both with an emphasis on painting. She exhibited widely through the 1990s and 2000s.
Wiens is married to artist Michael Maszk and the couple has two children—Madeleine, an artist in Eugene, Oregon, and Henry, a college student in San Diego.
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California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) has set the pace for educating professional artists since 1970. Offering rigorous undergraduate and graduate degree programs through six schools—art, critical studies, dance, film/video, music, and theater—CalArts has championed creative excellence, critical reflection, and the development of new forms and expressions. As successive generations of faculty and alumni have helped shape the landscape of contemporary arts, the institute first envisioned by Walt Disney encompasses a vibrant, eclectic community with global reach, inviting experimentation, independent inquiry, and active collaboration and exchange among artists, artistic disciplines and cultural traditions.