The Learning Exchange is a gathering for artists, educators and cultural institutions to collectively explore the future of learning in the arts, with an emphasis on how artists can create mentorship pathways, build partnerships and lead new educational models that expand creative opportunities for young people.

Inspired by our ongoing commitment to dialogue and community engagement, this program builds on the gallery’s belief that high-quality art and critical discourse should be accessible to all. This year’s Learning Exchange explores artist Mark Bradford’s socially engaged practice and the gallery’s current exhibition, ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ which reflects Harris Norton’s philanthropy, advocacy and educational support.

If you’re an artist, student, educator or cultural partner interested in exploring more learning opportunities, connect with the Learning department at LAlearn@hauserwirth.com.

Program to include:

11.15 am
Welcome by Art Division

11.20 am
Opening remarks by Eileen Harris Norton & Stacen Berg

11.30 am
Holding the Thread: Art, Responsibility and Action – A conversation with Mark Bradford & Debbie Hillyerd

Initiated by Mark Bradford’s socially engaged practice, this discussion examines how artists and those who support them can redefine what artistic leadership looks like today. Bradford demonstrates that social engagement is a deliberate choice. For him, art must serve a purpose beyond commercial value by bridging aesthetic production and social justice. He believes that real, tangible impact emerges through direct social action: helping underserved youth, supporting individuals reentering society after incarceration or creating enduring, community-driven initiatives.

In their conversation, Mark Bradford and Debbie Hillyerd will explore how artists can model a form of leadership where creativity and social responsibility reinforce one another. Additional insights will be drawn from the lived experiences of special guests in attendance.

1 – 2 pm 
Fresh Takes: Exhibition tours led by next-generation artists and educators 

About Learning at Hauser & Wirth
Our active learning programs create a dialogue between art, artists and a diverse audience which focus on first-hand experience. Ongoing global projects are centered on three core pillars: to engage with communities, to enrich academic programs; and to foster better access to art careers through a series of meaningful partnerships.

About Eileen Harris Norton
A third-generation Californian, Eileen Harris Norton grew up in sight of Simon Rodia’s famous towers in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was twelve years old when the 1965 riots transformed her working class neighborhood into a flashpoint of the American Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. A graduate of the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles, she taught public school elementary English as a second language before co-founding, with her former husband Peter Norton, the software company that they later sold to Symantec.

Since the 1980s, Harris Norton’s reputation as a collector has developed in tandem with her philanthropy, providing direct support to a generation of museum curators—including Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden and Lowery Stokes Sims—who have all systemically changed who and how institutions collect. In 2009, she established the Eileen Harris Norton Foundation, extending her commitment to social and environmental justice through initiatives supporting education, families and the environment. Then, in 2014, she co-founded Art + Practice (A+P) with artist Mark Bradford and activist Allan DiCastro in Leimert Park, the historically Black Los Angeles neighborhood where Bradford grew up and first maintained a studio. Serving local youth transitioning from foster care and, through global partnerships, children experiencing displacement worldwide, A+P embodies her conviction that art can be a catalyst for care. These values—of access, care and sustained attention—resonate throughout this exhibition, where Harris Norton’s collecting emerges as both an artistic and social act of stewardship.

About Mark Bradford
Mark Bradford is a contemporary artist known for his large-scale, abstract paintings created out of paper. Characterized by its layered formal, material and conceptual complexity, Bradford’s work is rooted in his understanding that all materials and techniques are embedded with meaning that precedes their artistic utility.

Just as essential to Bradford’s work is a social engagement practice through which he reframes societal structures by bringing contemporary art and ideas into communities with limited access to museums and cultural institutions.

Bradford received his BFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1995 and his MFA from CalArts in 1997. He has since been widely exhibited internationally. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; Hauser & Wirth, Hong Kong; Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart; Hauser & Wirth, Monaco; Hauser & Wirth, New York; MAZ Museo de Arte de Zapopan; Fundação de Serralves; and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

About Debbie Hillyerd
Debbie Hillyerd is Hauser & Wirth’s Senior Director of Learning, overseeing the development of global learning, philanthropy and charitable projects across the organization. Prior to this, Hillyerd lectured at Bath Spa University, University of the West of England, Northbrook College and Loughborough University in the UK, teaching Critical Studies, Fine Art and Curatorial Practice. Her career in education spans over 30 years, during this time she has written and consulted for various international institutions in the education sector.

About ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’ 
Marking fifty years since Eileen Harris Norton’s first acquisition, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ presents more than 80 works that together reflect Harris Norton’s prescient vision and commitment to social justice and learning. Titled after a painting by Kerry James Marshall, the exhibition includes work by such artists as Mark Bradford, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Marshall, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Whitten, among others.  

About Art Division
Art Division is a nonprofit organization dedicated to training and supporting underserved youth who are committed to studying the visual arts, aimed at young adults aged 18 – 27.