CREATIVE TIME GALA 2026
Honoring Guadalupe Maravilla, Michelle Coffey, and Molly Gochman
On Tuesday, April 28, we gather with our community for Creative Time’s 2026 Gala under the rosy hue of the Russian Tea Room, honoring Guadalupe Maravilla, Michelle Coffey, and Molly Gochman. This trio of brilliant practitioners exemplify an enduring commitment to public art and Creative Time’s mission of supporting artists who are shaping the dialogues, debates, and dreams of our times.
Guadalupe Maravilla
Creative Time honors Guadalupe Maravilla for his profound commitment to public art, collective healing, and his ability to transform lived experience into deeply resonant contributions to immigrant and diasporic communities.
Guadalupe Maravilla is an artist, humanitarian worker, and healer whose practice is shaped by his experience as an unaccompanied child fleeing the Salvadoran Civil War to the United States in the 1980s. He transforms this journey into mythology, using sound as medicine to create communal healing rituals in museums and public spaces worldwide. Maravilla’s sculptures, known as Disease Throwers, function as both instruments and shrines, incorporating objects gathered from retracing his migration journey. The sculptures are activated in ceremonies he leads, and play a central role in sound-based healing practices rooted in ancient traditions from Indigenous people across Latin America.
Maravilla lives in New York City. His work is in numerous museum permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Tate, and the Guggenheim Museum, among others. He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Maravilla has been the recipient of several prestigious fellowships, such as the Creative Capital Grant, LatinX Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Fellowship and the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
Michelle Coffey
Creative Time honors Michelle Coffey for her steadfast advocacy for arts organizations, artists, and cultural workers, and for building critical infrastructure that enables ambitious, socially engaged art to thrive in public life.
Michelle Coffey is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of Lambent Foundation, where she advances a visionary approach to philanthropy that centers artists as essential agents of social change. With a background spanning human rights advocacy and progressive funding—including serving as Director of Starry Night Fund and Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Tides Foundation—Coffey has long supported movements addressing justice, equity, and cultural transformation. Her early work at the Walker Art Center during the 1990s culture wars shaped a practice rooted in the intersection of art, politics, and community. Today, she serves on multiple national boards, including Public Trust, Socrates Sculpture Park, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Molly Gochman
Creative Time honors artist Molly Gochman for her unwavering advocacy of public art and for her long standing dedication to building community through a creative practice focused on care, belonging, and shared responsibility.
An artist and activist, Molly Gochman’s socially engaged practice activates public space to foster connection, dialogue, and collective experience. Working across sculpture, installation, photography, and sound, she creates participatory works that explore themes of community, environment, and the passage of time, guided by the belief that lived experience shapes both individuals and shared histories. Her recent projects include Monuments to Motherhood, with installations in Prospect Park and Medical District Park in Memphis, and exhibitions at institutions such as Pioneer Works, Lincoln Center, and the Ukrainian Museum. Gochman is deeply embedded in civic and cultural leadership, currently serving as Chair of the Freedom Fund, while previously serving on various arts and social justice boards.