ISSUE Project Room welcomes new Executive Director Ed Patuto

The Board of Directors of ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn's premier avant-garde performing arts space, today announced the appointment of Ed Patuto as the new Executive Director for the organization. Patuto will assume his official duties at ISSUE on November 1, 2010.

Patuto succeeds Suzanne Fiol, ISSUE's Founder/Artistic Director who lost her courageous battle with cancer in October 2009. "ISSUE Project Room is at a pivotal moment in its history, and I am honored to have the opportunity to advance Suzanne's vision for experimental arts and help build a new home for ISSUE at 110 Livingston in Brooklyn," said Patuto.

Patuto enters ISSUE's family in the midst of its $2.5 million capital campaign for its prospective long-term arts center at 110 Livingston Street. To date, ISSUE has raised $1.128 million, thanks in large part to the Brooklyn Borough President, the New York State Council on the Arts, and CHORA.

According to ISSUE Board Chair Steve Wax, Patuto is joining ISSUE at an invigorating and crucial time. "Everyone at ISSUE is wildly excited about Ed joining us on the journey we call ISSUE Project Room. Patuto's background as both an artist and an arts administrator, the depth of his curatorial experience, his years of successful capital project management, and his passion for our mission made him the outstanding candidate to lead ISSUE. Ed is one of the few leaders who can focus us, the staff and board - on our new theater's renovation and continued fundraising - as well as maintain the development of our programming."

Wax commended the senior management and the entire staff at ISSUE for their admirable performance during the search for a new Executive Director. ISSUE engaged a Search Committee to assist with the international search process resulting in over 200 applicants. It speaks to the visionary leadership of ISSUE's board that they chose an Executive Director from the West Coast with a background in both visual arts and performance as well as an experienced fundraiser.

By procuring resources for projects, arranging collaborations both in the arts and in other disciplines, and providing a welcoming context and audience for testing provocative ideas and work, Patuto will help expand ISSUE's profile both locally nationally. "I plan to continue ISSUE's strong tradition of supporting local artists and at the same time see ISSUE as an incubator for creating new collaborations and dialogue between experimental artists here and out West, as well as internationally," says Patuto.

About Ed Patuto
Patuto has 20 years of experience fundraising and working in arts organizations on the West Coast. He recently served as the Co-Founder/Director of VOLUME, a CA-based curatorial catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work concentrating on the nexus of music and visual arts practices ranging from the experimental to popular culture. Additional positions have included: Director of Development for both the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Montalvo Arts Center; Vice President of Institutional Advancement for both the San Francisco Art Institute and Saybrook University; and Producer/Curator of several exhibitions, performance series and events including VOLUME's Restless Brilliance at the Armand Hammer Museum Los Angeles, Electronic Cinema Southern Exposure, San Francisco, Scores Lawrimore Project Seattle, Resonant Forms Festival, Los Angeles, and rE/visioning the Collection at de Young Museum, San Francisco to name a few. Patuto has a solid link to the New York area - alumnus of State University of New York and Ailey School of American Dance and used to live in Brooklyn, just three blocks from ISSUE.

About ISSUE Project Room
ISSUE Project Room, a registered 501(c)(3) organization, was established in 2003 by visionary artist Suzanne Fiol, and is a vibrant nexus for cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary arts in Brooklyn. ISSUE supports emerging and established experimental artists through more than 200 programs each year including music concerts, literary readings, films, videos, dance, visual and sound art, new media, critical theory lectures and discussions, site-specific work, commissions, educational workshops, master classes, and genre-defying interdisciplinary performances that challenge and expand conventional practices in art. www.issueprojectroom.org

Support for ISSUE has been provided by CHORA, a project of the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation led by Artist and Foundation Director Lauren Bon. CHORA aims to support the intangibles that precede creativity.