On Roy Lichtenstein with Daniel Belasco and Scott Rothkopf, moderated by Alison McDonald

Join Gagosian and the Art Students League of New York for a conversation on Roy Lichtenstein with Daniel Belasco, executive director of Al Held Foundation, and Scott Rothkopf, senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Organized in celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth and moderated by Alison McDonald, chief creative officer at Gagosian, the discussion will highlight multiple perspectives on Lichtenstein’s decades-long career, during which he helped originate the Pop art movement. The talk coincides with Lichtenstein Remembered, an exhibition of sculptures and studies curated by Irving Blum at Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, on view through October 21.

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Daniel Belasco is an art historian, curator, and Executive Director of the Al Held Foundation. He previously served as Henry J. Leir Associate Curator of The Jewish Museum and Curator of Exhibitions and Programs at the Dorsky Museum, SUNY New Paltz. A specialist in postwar and contemporary American art, he has published on the work of Helen Frankenthaler and Louise Bourgeois, and curated exhibitions of Bradley Walker Tomlin, Grace Hartigan, Mary Reid Kelley, and other projects. His exhibition Dick Polich: Transforming Metal into Art (2014) featured work by Roy Lichtenstein, Martin Puryear, Jeff Koons, Janine Antoni, and others. He is a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Curators Foundation, holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and is publishing a book on all-women exhibitions in midcentury America with Reaktion in 2024.

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Scott Rothkopf is the Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He joined the Whitney’s staff in 2009 as curator and in that role has served as a curator or co-curator for Glenn Ligon: AMERICA (2011), Wade Guyton OS (2012), Sinister Pop (2012), Singular Visions (2010), Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (2014), America Is Hard to See (2015), Open Plan: Andrea Fraser (2016), Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection (2016), Virginia Overton: Sculpture Gardens (2016), Laura Owens (2017), and Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror (2021). Rothkopf is co-curating the Whitney’s upcoming Roy Lichtenstein retrospective with Meg Onli and Alex Da Corte opening in 2026.

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Alison McDonald has been the director of publications at Gagosian since 2002. During her tenure she has worked closely with Larry Gagosian to shape every aspect of the gallery's extensive publishing program and has personally overseen more than 600 publications dedicated to the gallery's artists. In 2020, McDonald was included in the Observer's Arts Power 50.