Art Consulting and Advisory
Museums
What is the museum of the future? How can museums develop diversity, equity and inclusion within their mission and deliverables? How can they enhance career satisfaction and retention in their organizations? How can they engage coaching and mentorship models to enhance cross-team functionality, autonomy and efficiency in times when cohesion is needed most? How can arts administration professionals work with a new generation of artists that are exploring new interfaces of materials and ideas. And finally, how can they engage the museums of the future?
Universities
How can universities support the new generation of arts administration professionals engaging them with leadership models so they can thrive even in uncertain times? And, how can leadership models and coaching support graduate students to build sustainable strategies in the continued development of their careers, contributing to the field, the mission of the university and the needs of the profession?
About Les
A research scholar on leadership in the arts, Dr. Les Joynes (b. Santa Barbara, California) trained both in administration and arts and is exploring new models for museums of the future especially engaging communities.
A graduate of the NYU coaching program, he is a Leadership Coach to MBAs, EMBAs and MFAs at Columbia University and PhDs at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In 2019 he initiated Museum Leadership and Coaching at the Yale Center for British Art at Yale University.. He is also a GoldAward Mentor at Goldsmiths, University of London.
He has conducted museum research for the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, the Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing, and presented on his research museums of the future at Museum 2050 at the Long Museum Shanghai. As a multimedia artist, Les first began exhibiting his work at eighteen at Santa Barbara Museum of Art and has since collaborated with art institutions in the UK, France, Japan, Brazil, China, South Korea, Mongolia and India.
He teaches Modern and Contemporary art history and multi-media experiential practices at Renmin University in Beijing with lectures at University of Cambridge, Teachers College, Peking University Institute of Cultural Industries, University of California Santa Barbara, University of the Arts London (UAL), University of Coventry, and the Bard-Smolny Program in St Petersburg. He is visiting faculty at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Arts at Visva Bharati University in West Bengal and the Royal University of Bhutan. Les is a member of the ICF and IOC Affiliate of Harvard Medical School, the American Alliance of Art Museums, and member of the Museum Committee at College Arts Association. With combined training in arts, administration and leadership, Les completed his MA Fine Art from Goldsmiths, London, Masters in Fine Art from Musashino Art University, Japan, PhD in the UK, Post-Doctorate at University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, MBA from California State University, and M.Sc from Boston University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences.
Writing and Research
His writing and artwork has featured in Museum 2050 published by the Long Museum of Art, Shanghai, Art in America, Flash Art, Art Monthly London, Commons and Sense Japan, NHK Television Japan and the Journal for Artistic Research.
He is recipient of the US Department of State ACMS Fellowship for his research on International Education and the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award.
He serves on the Museum Committee of the College Arts Association and is member of the American Association of Art Museums he has coached academics and artists at at CAA conferences. Active in curating since the early 1990s he contributed to the inaugural International Taipei Biennial “Sites of Desire” exhibition.
