MEET THE LEGACY LAB PARTICIPANTS

For over two decades, Nancy Zastudil has been advocating for artists’ voices. More than half of that time has been focused on furthering artists’ legacies through curating, editing, publishing, and writing.

Today, as The Necessarian, she advises artists on how to include publishing as an essential part of their legacy plan — and offers related editing and project management services — so that artists can use their monograph, exhibition catalogue, and more to strategically shape the story of their life’s work.

She has held directorial, curatorial, or editorial roles at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, the Frederick Hammersley Foundation, Tamarind Institute, Arts+Culture Texas, and Hyperallergic, where she commissioned global coverage of contemporary art, with special attention to art in the Southwest.

Nancy was a 2024 Rabkin Prize nominee and her writing has been published in Artforum, Arts+Culture Texas, Hyperallergic, Southwest Contemporary, and more; her research has been supported by the Women's International Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, Utah State University, and others.

She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from The Ohio State University, her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts, and she is currently pursuing a graduate certificate in Sports, Entertainment, and Art Law from the University of Pittsburgh.