About The Residency

(Re)Create started working as a residency program in 2016. Since then, artists have had the opportunity to work, experiment, write, or study, in various beautiful locations internationally. Our main two locations are in Castelnuovo Calcea and Venice, Italy.

ReCreate hosts various public and private events. We are beginning to restructure a more complex program that will result in the combination of: artworks’ production, publications, exhibitions, artists’ residencies, symposiums, and more. We include a spectrum of opportunities to connect artists and creators to resources.

Team

Founder and Executive Director

Gale Elston

  • Gale P. Elston is a distinguished attorney with a specialization in art law. Admitted to practice in both New York and California, Elston is the founder and principal attorney of Gale P. Elston P.C., where she has been offering her expertise since 1983. Her practice encompasses copyright law, VARA, copyright litigation, and trademark registration, representing artists, galleries, and corporations both nationally and internationally.

    In addition to her legal practice, Elston serves as an adjunct professor of law and society at the City University of New York, where she has been teaching since 2013. Her lectures and publications have significantly contributed to the field, particularly in areas related to copyright law and artists’ rights. 

    The cases she has litigated have improved rights for artists, Pavia v.1120 Avenue of the Americas Associates, et al, 95 CIV 1302 (1995) decided in the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York created first impression law and is discussed and cited in over 22 National Law Reviews, Law Journal articles, and Law Treatises, including the pre-eminent Treatise on Copyright, Law, Nimmer on Copyright (@8D.08 and 8D.06), the Harvard Law Journal ( 47 Harv. Intl. L.J. 353)(1960), Rutgers Law Review ( 55 Rutgers L. Rev. 477)( 2003), Berkeley Tech. Law Journal ( 20 Berkeley Tech. L.J 701)(2005), Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (Cardozo Arts & Ent LJ 79)(1996), Santa Clara Law Review (41 Santa Clara L.Rev.203) (2000), UCLA Law Review, (55 UCLA L.Rev.1437)(2008) and International Copyright Law and Practice USA @7, among many others.

    Elston’s passion for art is deeply personal and extends beyond the courtroom. She ran an art gallery in NYC in the 1980s and later, a cultural space in San Francisco. Driven to support artist activity, Elston believes art communicates our values, fostering a more cohesive, inclusive, and open-minded society. She sees art as linked to social justice, with the power to raise consciousness and promote ethical treatment of people in need, such as immigrants or marginalized communities.

    Her commitment to the arts is further demonstrated through her roles as a Trustee for the Headlands Center for the Arts, a founding board member of White Box, an alternative cultural space in New York City, and as the founder of ReCreate, a nonprofit organization supporting artists in residency programming. She has served on the non-profit board of Faith Ringgold’s Anyone Can Fly Foundation. She currently serves on the following non-profit Boards: The Emily Harvey Foundation, supporting artists in Venice, Italy; and, The Robert D. Bielecki Foundation supporting artists and musicians and The San Francisco Archive and Legacy Foundation.

    Elston’s academic credentials include a Ph.D. candidacy in philosophy from The European Graduate School, a Juris Doctorate from Benjamin Cardozo, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy with an English minor from Creighton University.

President

Michael L. Gentlesk II

  • Not your typical lawyer, Michael has also been a partner in a record label with “Major” distribution where he’s overseen business affairs and creative development for the label and the launch of its debut artist, as well as its various music publishing affiliates.

    He studied at Oxford University’s Magdalen College before graduating from Stanford with a degree in English in 1986 and then a law degree from Georgetown in 1989. After law school, he worked for several large Philadelphia firms, before starting his own firm specializing in the practice of entertainment law. He’s been blessed to have clients that have spanned every facet of the music industry in matters from entity formation and deal structuring to creative talent development and protection of all manner of intellectual property.

    He’s also been a founding principal in Wonderland Entertainment, the multimedia production company/film studio started by the late Marc Rocco (whose film writing, production, and directing credits have included Murder In the First, Where The Day Takes You, and most recently The Jacket, among others), overseeing ongoing acquisitions and development that have included the life story rights of Bettie Page. He also has represented EMI/Janice Combs Publishing’s top songwriter, Jack Knight, in various ventures as a songwriter and book author, and recently has worked with EMI/Justin Combs Publishing’s Michael Winans, Jr., Shae Winans, and Shannon “Slam” Ridley in various music publishing, record production, and related matters, including most recently the Full Court Press album project featuring NBA stars and some of the world’s top hip hop artists as well as his new patented luxury lifestyle product the Wizpak.

    He’s also counseled various independent record labels that have included Musical Fire Entertainment (Doesya) and Camden Records (Kate Bradshaw, Executive Slacks) in their formation and development, and publishing companies in the areas of music publishing, song collaboration, and development that has resulted in client song placements in feature films and television that include Rush Hour 2, Honey, Soul Plane, Scrubs, and Queer As Folk, among many others.

    He’s also been most blessed to represent and manage such great artists and good people as R&B Hall of Fame legend Gary “U.S.” Bonds, Joe Stonestreet (Blackstreet/Wreckx-N-Effect’s co-founder and Virgin Records’ solo artist), Jordan Hill, David Boyles (Columbia Music Entertainment/Japan), and teen pop idols Brooke Allison (Virgin Records/Disney’s Cinderella II) and 2gether’s Noah Bastian (TVT/MTV’s 2gether), among many others.

    He’s represented national independent record promoters in keyman contracts with Clear Channel/Premiere Radio for the Top-40/AC/Hot AC, Urban and Urban AC formats, and live concert promoters and booking agents, with whom he’s also co-produced/promoted various live concerts at larger regional venues over the past ten years.

    He’s also lectured extensively on entertainment industry topics for bar, industry and student groups, and in fact am featured on New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education’s retail video, The Business of Music (taped from a live State Bar Seminar he conducted in 2002), as well as Comcast Cable Network’s Law Talk program on Entertainment Law that was first aired in February 2005.

Artistic Director

Elga Wimmer

  • In the late 1970s, her work in the fashion industry took her to Asia, which opened up the world of art to Elga. Visiting museums, galleries, temples, historic sites, she acquired an avid taste for other cultures. Once I arrived in New York in the late ‘80s, she soon became fully involved in the vibrant art scene, first by working with galleries and private dealers, and finally, in 1992, by opening her own gallery. 

    Institutional activity began in 2004, when she became a guest curator at the Borusan Sanat museum in Istanbul, followed by several exhibitions created in collaboration with Berta Sichel, Head of the Video and Film Department of the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. It was then that she developed what is still her preferred professional approach, mixing culturally diverse artists who have a common thread of expression. 

    Now Elga is fully involved with curatorial projects and consulting with museums (chief curator Chelsea Art Museum 2004 – 2011), foundations, and private collections. Among her most notable international shows were “Double Vision,” PhotoEspana VI, Madrid, 2003 (Zhang Huan, Isaac Julien, Justine Kurland, et al.); “We Are the World,” Chelsea Art Museum, 2004, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, 2005 (Lee Mingwei, Mika Rottenberg, Olga Kisseleva, et al.); “Body and Soul: Performance Art Past and Present,” collateral show of the Venice Biennale, 2017, (Derrick Adams, VALIE EXPORT, ORLAN, Golden Lion recipient Carolee Scheemann, et al.).

Curator

Chiara Spangaro

  • Chiara Spangaro, is an art historian and independent curator in the fields of contemporary art and architecture. She is the Scientific Director of Fondazione Aldo Rossi and the curatorial consultant of Archivio Giovanni Gastel in Milan.

    Mentored by Germano Celant, with whom she worked from 2002 until 2020, and In collaboration with him, she curated the Art and Architecture Department of Triennale di Milano, 2009-12, with exhibitions as Frank O. Gehry. Since 1997 (2009), Disquieting Images (2010), Arte Povera (2011), and Espressioni di Gio Ponti (2012).

    Chiara was associate curator of exhibitions such as: Arts & Foods, 2015, Christo e Jeanne-Claude. Water Projects, 2016, Post Zang Tumb Tuuum, Art Life Politics: Italia 1918-1943, 2018, Arman 1954-2005, 2018, Richard Artschwager, 2019. 

    In 2017 she curated Melissa McGill: The Campi at Carlo Scarpa’s Casa Scatturin in Venice, in 2018 Gio Ponti. Archi-designer at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. In 2019 she curated Melissa McGill: Red Regatta, a site-specific performative work featuring four regattas of 52 traditional boats in Venice waters and close-by lagoon, and organized Vera Rossi. Crepe at Nonostantemarras, Milan. The next year, she organized with Alberto Ferlenga and the MAXXI in Rome Aldo Rossi. L'architetto e la città 2020-2021, and with Francesca Alfano Miglietti Corpus Domini at Palazzo Reale in Milan. In 2022 she curated Aldo Rossi. Design 1960-1997. In Venice in 2024 she was Project Manager of the William Kentridge exhibition Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot, and in New York she curated Hernán Pitto-Bellocchio's solo show The True Administration of Nature (Spring Break Art Show).

Project Manager

Marcella Ferrari

  • Marcella Ferrari collaborated for seventeen years, until his passing, with Germano Celant, internationally renowned art historian and theorist of Arte Povera.
    In 2014, she was involved by Christo and his team in the realization of The Floating Piers, taking on operational responsibility for the project. She became CEO of the company in charge of the construction and organization of the work, which in 2016 welcomed over one million visitors, becoming one of the most important site-specific contemporary art interventions in the world.
    Throughout her career, she has worked on the production and coordination of public art projects with artists such as Daniel Buren, Umberto Cavenago, Alberto Garutti, Alicja Kwade, Remo Salvadori, Marco Tirelli, David Tremlett, and Patrick Tuttofuoco.
    In July 2018, she became General Manager of Red Regatta, a major public art project conceived by artist Melissa McGill and realized in Venice.
    She currently collaborates with Pirelli HangarBicocca on exhibition organization and continues to work with contemporary artists on the creation of public art projects.

Public Relations

Ted Huetter

  • Ted Huetter is a writer, photographer and visual artist based in Seattle. His artwork has been exhibited in Los Angeles, and as an expert in aviation and spaceflight his writing and photography has been in the public eye since the 1980s, including ten years as a NASA communications professional. He is the Senior Public Relations Manager at Seattle’s renowned Museum of Flight and is a founding member of its committee developing the Museum’s groundbreaking Art+Flight exhibition and project of 2023. Huetter’s book of original photographs, Waiting for Spaceships – Scenes from a Desert Community in Love with the Space Shuttle will be published in spring, 2024. He began his association with Re-Create in 2014.

Treasurer

Stephen Reyna

  • Stephen is from San Antonio,Texas, and has been an ASCAP member since 1995. He is a multi instrumentalist guitar, bass, keys and drums, and is a doctoral student at European Graduate School EGS. 

    Stephen has been a senior consultant in communications for a half  dozen non profit organizations. This is his second sitting on the (Re)Create board, with the first time as Secretary.

Board Member

Evelyne Pauld

  • Evelyne Pauld was born in Haiti, raised in Montreal and worked as Creative Director of a major Montreal company, traveling the world for her career. Now she is a practicing artist in Florida.

Advisory Committee

Robert Atkins

  • Robert Atkins is a UC Berkeley-trained art historian and writer working at the intersection of art and politics. A long-time Village Voice columnist, he has written for more than 100 publications spanning the globe, and lectured and taught widely throughout the world. He is the author of the best-selling art guides ArtSpeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements & Buzzwords, its modern-art prequel ArtSpoke, as well as co-author of Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression. His latest book, Dissent or Descent? Art & Politics in the Age of the Culture Wars will be published in 2024.

    A Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s STUDIO For Creative Inquiry, he began creating pioneering online resources in 1995 including TalkBack: A Forum for Critical Inquiry, Artery: The AIDS-Arts Forum and, most recently, ArtSpeak China.org. He has curated exhibitions at venues including the Sao Paulo Bienal and, in New York, Just Above Midtown and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. The co-curator of From Media to Metaphor: Art About AIDS, the first international traveling exhibition devoted to AIDS, he is also a co-founder of Visual AIDS, the creators of “Day With(out) Art” and the “Red Ribbon Project.” He is a former board member of the US branch of the International Art Critics’ Association (AICA) and the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including several from the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. He currently lives in Desert Edge and Idyllwild in Southern California and resides online at www.RobertAtkins.net.

    Photo credit: Warren Neidich