MAG Gala 2025:
Celebrating the Art of Our Time

MAG Gala 2025 Artist Honoree
Sanford Biggers

Sanford Biggers’ (b. 1970) practice explores often-overlooked aesthetic, cultural, historical, and political narratives through his use of antique quilts and textiles, painting, sculpture, performance, and video. He describes his process as “conceptual patchworking,” a method of transposing, combining, and juxtaposing ideas, forms, and genres into artworks that challenge traditional historiography and official narratives.

Biggers’ work has been exhibited internationally and nationally in prestigious institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Modern, and Whitney Museum of American Art, and is held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Morehouse College’s Bennie Trailblazer Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2017 Rome Prize in Visual Arts by the American Academy in Rome, and he was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame.

Biggers’ outdoor sculpture Oracle anchors MAG’s Centennial Sculpture Park.

MAG Gala 2025 Arts Leader & Founder, Ronnen Fine Art
Deborah Ronnen

Deborah Ronnen is a lifelong advocate for the arts. A passionate champion of modern and contemporary art, a collector and art dealer, a noted local philanthropist and civic leader—and a teacher in the best sense of the word—she has worked tirelessly to bring important artists and artistic voices to our community.

Deborah’s long and generous involvement with the Memorial Art Gallery culminated in 2022 when she established an endowment in honor of her parents: The Ann and Irving Norry Curator of Contemporary Art. This transformational gift not only broadens the museum’s relationship with contemporary art, enhancing its contemporary art acquisitions and exhibition programming, but also fosters deeper connections between the work of living artists and art history, introducing new audiences to the art of our time.

Her cultural leadership efforts extend well beyond the Memorial Art Gallery. These include significant and ongoing engagement with and support of arts organizations including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Garth Fagan Dance, the George Eastman Museum, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Eastman School of Music. She served on the New York State Council on the Arts from 2008 to 2021, having been appointed by multiple governors. She also served on The Buffalo AKG Art Museum board and acquisition committee for 10 years. In 2023, The Buffalo AKG Art Museum honored her with the unveiling of the Ronnen Glass Box Theater, a dedicated gallery space within the museum designed to exhibit contemporary time-based media.

In her work as founder of Ronnen Fine Art, Deborah has organized solo exhibitions featuring Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Sol LeWitt, Kota Ezawa, Mark Fox, Adam Fuss, Vik Muniz, and Alison Saar, among many others.

MAG Gala 2025 Outstanding Volunteer Group
MAG Council

The MAG Council was established in 1940 by a dedicated group of Memorial Art Gallery supporters. Through numerous projects and generous contributions, the all-volunteer membership of the Council has played a vital role in sustaining the museum and enriching its members and the wider community. Over the past 85 years, the MAG Council has raised more than $4 million to support art acquisitions and conservation, exhibitions, special publications, community events, scholarships for children to attend Creative Workshop classes, and capital projects, such as the expansion of the Centennial Sculpture Park. Through fundraisers, including the popular Art & Treasures, Art Tours, and Fine Craft Show and Sale, Council volunteers have greatly enhanced and influenced what the Memorial Art Gallery is today and, in turn, enriched the culture that defines Rochester.