The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine/Spring 2008
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Studio/ Spring 2008 The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine/ Spring 2008 SMH Board of From the Director Trustees were unexpectedly able to present Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series: Selections from The Phillips Collec- Chairman tion. The Whitney team’s hard work Raymond J. McGuire and flexibility enabled thousands of Vice-Chair visitors to see the exhibition in their Carol Sutton Lewis Gilman Gallery from November 21, Treasurer artist the Courtesy / 2006 2007, to January 6, 2008. I deeply Reginald Van Lee regret not being able to present the Secretary / (detail) exhibition at the Studio Museum, but The Studio Museum in Harlem Ma∂azine / Spring 2008 Anne B. Ehrenkranz am truly grateful to everyone at the Whitney for allowing these works to be seen in New York. Gayle Perkins Atkins Jacqueline L. Bradley Charles Ethan Porter (1847/49–1923). Kathryn C. Chenault Organized by the New Britain Museum Gordon J. Davis 02 What’s Up / Flow / Flow: Catalogue Excerpt / Charles Ethan Porter / Harlem Postcards 15 Projects on View / of American Art in Connecticut, Reginald E. Davis Charles Ethan Porter: African-Amer- Susan Fales-Hill StudioSound featuring DJ Kemit / More-in-Store featuring Unknown Collection 17 Upcoming Exhibitions / ican Master of Still Life will be the Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spring 2008 first exhibition ever presented in our Sandra Grymes Kehinde Wiley / R.S.V.P. Senga / Artists in Residence / Expanding the Walls 19 Feature / Afri 26 Read It Now! / How to new lower-level gallery. On January Alterscape Stories: Uprooting the Past Past the Uprooting Stories: Alterscape This spring brings us Flow, the third 17, in the presence of New York City Joyce K. Haupt See a Work of Art in Total Darkness by Darby English 28 Elsewhere / Barkley L. Hendricks / Art Smith / NeoHooDoo / / in what is now a trilogy of devoted to Department of Cultural Affairs Com- Arthur J. Humphrey Jr. emerging artists. In the exhibitions misioner Kate D. Levin, several elected George L. Knox Lyle Ashton Harris / Archive Fever / Ghada Amer / Wifredo Lam / Julie Mehretu / Whitney Biennial 2008 / Freestyle (2001) and Frequency officials and many friends and sup- Nancy L. Lane (2005–06), the Studio Museum porters of the Museum, we cut the Dr. Michael L. Lomax Edward Burra / After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy / Robin Rhodes 34 Education and affirmed its commitment to support- ribbon on the new space. This spring Tracy Maitland ing and exhibiting new work. Flow Public Programs 40 Joyce Alexander Wein Prize / Trenton Doyle Hancock 41 A Portrait of an Artist by an Artist / Nkanga Otobong and summer you will begin to experi- Rodney M. Miller expands the purview of our explora- ence programs in this wonderful new I am thrilled to announce two new Eileen Harris Norton tion from North America throughout addition to the Studio Museum. features in Studio highlighting the art Kehinde Wiley / Mickalene Thomas 44 Feature / Contemporary Revolutionary 46 Feature / The Birth of Antagonistic the world, presenting an amazing and ideas of contemporary artists. Dr. Amelia Ogunlesi variety of work by emerging artists For Artist on Artist, current artist in Corine Pettey Difference 48 Feature / Nari Ward 49 Profile / E.B. Lewis 52 Studio Fiction / Brian Keith Jackson 56 Harlem Where from Africa. residence Saya Woolfalk writes about David A. Ross We’re At / Harlem Exteriors / Harlem Interiors / From Harlem to Ethiopia 68 Development News / Gala 2007 2007 Joyce Alexander Wein Prize Charles A. Shorter Jr. winner Trenton Doyle Hancock. Also, Ann Tenenbaum 72 Museum Store you’ll get the first look at two new John T. Thompson photographs—a portrait of Kehinde Wiley by Mickalene Thomas and a ex-officio portrait of Mickalene Thomas by Hon. Kate D. Levin Kehinde Wiley. You’ll see even more ex-officio fantastic photography in this issue’s Karen A. Phillips two portfolios exploring the diverse and exciting character of our neigh- Studio Alongside these two exciting exhibi- borhood: Harlem Exteriors by tions will be our ongoing project Aric Mayer and Harlem Interiors by Editor-in-chief Harlem Postcards, this time featuring Lenard Smith. Ali Evans new work by Evi Abeler, Marc Managing editor Handelman, Pearl C. Hsiung and See you around and definitely Tiffany Hu Larry Mantello. Editor at large As we look toward the future with Lea K. Green Flow, we are thrilled to present a I would like to thank my esteemed Copy editor fantastic exhibition of a historically colleague Adam Weinberg, Director Samir S. Patel significant artist of African descent, of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and his staff for their exceptional uptown . Art direction and design support and cooperation when we Thelma Golden Map, New York Director and Chief Curator Original design concept 2x4, New York Printing Cosmos Communications, Inc. The Studio Museum in Harlem is supported, in part, with public funds provided by the following Thelma’s photo / government agencies and elected representatives: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Studio is published three times a year The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts, a state Cover Image/ by The Studio Museum in Harlem, agency; Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th C.D.; Speaker Christine Quinn and the New York City Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko 144 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027. Council; Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, 70th C.D. through New York State Office of Parks, Kepi III Copyright © 2008 Studio Magazine. Recreation and Historic Preservation, and Manhattan Borough President, Scott M. Stringer. 2003 All material is compiled from sources Collection of The Studio believed to be reliable, but published without respon-sibility for errors The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply grateful to the following institutional donors for their Museum in Harlem or omissions. Studio assumes leadership support: no responsibility for unsolicited Altria Group, Inc. Pierre and Maria Gaetana Matisse Foundation This issue of Studio is underwritten, in manuscripts or photographs. All rights, American Center Foundation MetLife Foundation part, with support from Bloomberg including translation into other lang- Bloomberg The New York Community Trust uages, reserved by the publisher. Carnegie Corporation of New York The Nimoy Foundation Nothing in this publication may be Citigroup Foundation The Scherman Foundation reproduced without the permission of Elaine Dannheisser Foundation The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation the publisher. Fellows of Contemporary Art The Starr Foundation Please email comments to Goldman, Sachs & Co. Time Warner, Inc. [email protected]. Graham Foundation for The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Wachovia The Greenwall Foundation Wallace Special Projects Fund at Community Funds, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Inc. on behalf of an anonymous donor in honor of JPMorgan Chase Foundation Lelia Allen and Dolores Williams Dawit L. Petros/ Proposition 1: Mountain/ 2007/ Courtesy the artist 3 Studio / Spring 2008 01/ Adel Abdessemed 02/ Joël Andrianomearisoa Birth of Love (still) L’etrange (still) What’s Up 2006 2007 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Flow April 2–June 29, 2008 suggesting that the markers of colonial time are more fluid than we might believe. Embedded in this long and varied history, these global artists challenge us to think about the ways in which the movement of people and resources build a shared time and space. For example, the artists have witnessed an influx of international aid to the conti- nent that has led to foreign debt and paved the way for corporate control of national services and natural resources. As security forces and other goods and ser- vices have been privatized, many African states have fewer means by which to guarantee the safety of their citizens, limiting the ability of people to circulate at will. At the same time, these artists are the inheritors of an immeasurable legacy of thinkers, leaders and creators who formed a gen- eration of contemporary African political and artistic expression. These conditions have a direct relationship to global possibilities and particular effects on the lives of black people worldwide. Throughout African-American history, the idea of Africa has been adapted as black peo- ple have sought to construct and understand their identity. This exhibition extends this history of self-making, memory 01 02 and loss to the present, and looks to the future with both Adel Abdessemed Joël Andrianomearisoa caution and hope. b. 1971, Constantine, Algeria, lives and works in Paris, France b. 1977, Antananarivo, Madagascar, lives and works in Paris, France Organized by Christine Y. Kim, Associate Curator, Flow is the third in a series of emerging artist exhibitions pre- Flow is a survey of new work by twenty emerging art- perspectives—sometimes dissonant, at other such as broken Moroccan tea glasses, horse-jumping sented by the Studio Museum that includes Freestyle ists. These artists were either born in Africa or born moments in sync. The work they produce imagines an poles and rubber, some of the artists in this exhibition (2001) and Frequency (2005). Like its predecessors, Flow to African parents, and currently live and work across understanding of Africa that extends beyond geo- explore themes of immigration, violence and the failures illustrates the individuality and complexity of twenty-first- Africa, Europe and North America. Coming of age graphic borders as it remains engaged with the pres- of assimilation. Other artists reinterpret the more tradi- century contemporary art, this time from creators around after the mid-century movements for national libera- ent realities of African peoples. In this way, the artists tional medium of portraiture by depicting their subjects as the world. While the majority of these artists have exhib- tion in Africa, this generation has witnessed shifts in remain particularly conscious of continued foreign displaced, fragmented or masked. And still others call ited abroad, many are new to U.S.