A new annual conference established to help artists and arts professionals develop business skills and learn about financial literacy will take place in New York this April. Called the Art World Conference, the event will address many of the opportunities and challenges faced by visual artists today.

More than forty prominent art-world figures will participate in a series of panels, workshops, and conversations that will aim to provide artists and arts professionals with practical, actionable information that will help them build and sustain careers in the arts. Among the topics that will be discussed are goal setting, sales, marketing, grants, and taxes, as well as managing debt, investing, and growing and sustaining community.

Highlights include president and CEO of United States Artists Deana Haggag’s keynote speech on empowerment; a conversation on intellectual property and legal rights with artist Mickalene Thomas and Maria Murguia, the licensing executive and marketing manager at Artists Rights Society; and tech-focused workshops with Patton Hindle, senior director of arts at Kickstarter, and author Amy Whitaker, a professor at New York University.

Other presenters include Paddy Johnson, writer and founder of Art F City; artist and educator Sharon Louden; Hilary Néve, head of cultural initiatives at Google; Larry Ossei-Mensah, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; Prerana Reddy, director of programs at A Blade of Grass; Shannon Stratton, chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; and Caroline Woolard, founder of the collective BFAMFAPhD.

Founded by entrepreneur and independent curator Dexter Wimberly, formerly the director of strategic planning at Independent Curators International, and consultant and independent curator Heather Bhandari, the coauthor of Art/Work (Simon & Schuster, 2009), the Art World Conference will be held at New York Law School in TriBeCa from April 25 to April 27, 2019. It is sponsored by Morgan Stanley, Kickstarter, Hyperallergic, the Creative Independent, Spring Place, and the non-profit New York Foundation for the Arts.