Paula Marincola, executive director of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, has been awarded an honorary degree from Drexel University. The university’s announcement cites Marincola’s work as “a leader in the arts for more than three decades, playing a major role in shaping and fostering Greater Philadelphia’s vibrant arts and culture community...For her innovative and influential leadership in shaping arts and culture in the Philadelphia region, Drexel University is proud to present Paula Marincola with the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.” Marincola will address the graduates of Westphal College of Media Arts & Design at a commencement event on June 15, 2018.
Marincola leads the Center in developing and implementing its strategic agenda as a grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, guiding and aligning its programs. Her impact on the region’s arts and culture scene prompted Philadelphia Magazine in 2014 to name her one of the 75 most influential people in the city. Two years later, the magazine called her one of the region’s “Revolutionary Bosses” who have made “bold thinking the new way to do business in Philly.”
Her work as an editor of several Center publications on topics critical to contemporary cultural practice has substantially contributed to the professional and artistic development of the local and international community of artists, curators and cultural practitioners. Center-produced anthologies such as What Makes a Great Exhibition?, Curating Now, and, most recently, In Terms of Performance offer in-depth texts for professionals and university programs. Her work as an art critic for Artforum, among other publications, has been published internationally.
Prior to her tenure with the Center, Marincola was the assistant director and curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, and the director of Arcadia University’s Art Gallery. In both venues, she organized and produced nationally noted exhibitions and catalogues for some of the most important emerging and established artists working today. She has also served on numerous panels and juries, and has spoken extensively on contemporary art and cultural practice