User:Laurenk0105/sandbox

= Gonzalo Casals = Gonzalo Casals is an Argentine-American museum director and professor based in New York City. Since March 2020, he is the Cultural Affairs Commissioner for New York City, and previously held the executive director position of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York for three years. Prior, he was Vice president of programs and community engagement at Friends of the High Line, as well as deputy and interim director of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem. He is a resident of Jackson Heights, Queens.

Early life and education
Gonzalo Casals was raised in Bueno Aires, Argentina where he studied design and architecture at the Universidad de Belgrano. In 2002, he immigrated to New York City, where he received a Masters of Art History and Museum Studies from the City College of New York City and a Masters in Urban Affairs and Neighborhood and Community Development from Hunter College.

Career
Casals has been part of the CreateNYC public engagement team and the New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers. While leading the Leslie-Lohman Museum, Casals focuses on the works of art by LGBTQ artists, including community like people of color, women, trans people, and those with intersecting identities mattered. Among the major exhibitions he has supported, the artist practices of sex workers by filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, and a New York presentation of the traveling exhibition, "Art After Stonewall", well exemplify the foreground of Casal's goal on enriching art and culture for the diverse communities. His dedication to inclusion and access could be seen in the project where he rebranded Leslie-Lohman through dropping its "gay and lesbian" name and launching a capital campaign while broadening its programming by allowing museum to create more spaces for education and open up its archives and libraries for research. He has held teaching positions at the City University of New York, Yale University and New York University.