Summer/Fall 2013 Summer/Fall Magazine in Harlem Museum The Studio
The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine Summer/Fall 2013 Studio Magazine Board Of Trustees This issue of Studio is underwritten, Editor-in-Chief Raymond J. McGuire, Chairman in part, with support from Elizabeth Gwinn Carol Sutton Lewis, Vice-Chair Rodney M. Miller, Treasurer Creative Director Teri Trotter, Secretary The Studio Museum in Harlem is sup- Thelma Golden ported, in part, with public funds provided Jacqueline L. Bradley Managing Editor by the following government agencies and Valentino D. Carlotti Jamillah James elected representatives: Kathryn C. Chenault Joan S. Davidson Copy Editor The New York City Department of Cultural Gordon J. Davis, Esq. Samir Patel Affairs; New York State Council on the Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arts, a state agency; National Endow- Design Sandra Grymes ment for the Arts; Council Member Inez Pentagram Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. E. Dickens, 9th Council District, Speaker George L. Knox Printing Christine Quinn and the New York City Nancy L. Lane Allied Printing Services Council; Manhattan Borough President Dr. Michael L. Lomax Scott M. Stringer; and New York Council Original Design Concept Bernard Lumpkin on the Humanities. 2X4, Inc. Tracy Maitland Dr. Amelia Ogunlesi Studio is published two times a year The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply Corine Pettey by The Studio Museum in Harlem, grateful to the following institutional Ann G. Tenenbaum 144 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027. donors for their leadership support: John T. Thompson Reginald Van Lee Copyright ©2013 Studio Magazine. Bloomberg Philanthropies Booth Ferris Foundation All rights, including translation into other Hon. Kate D. Levin, ex-officio Ed Bradley Family Foundation languages, are reserved by the publisher. Karen A. Phillips, ex-officio Ford Foundation Nothing in this publication may be Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust reproduced without the permission of the The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation publisher. Lambent Foundation Cover Image and Inside Back Cover: Margaret A. Cargill Foundation Senga Nengudi Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation Performance Piece, 1978 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Image courtesy the artist and Thomas Erben MetLife Foundation Gallery, New York Photo: Harmon Outlaw Rockefeller Brothers Fund Surdna Foundation Target The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Joyce and George Wein Foundation Wells Fargo The Winston Foundation Letter from the Director
Packer and Cullen Washington Jr. in September and will feature to this illustrious group! exhibition resources and a robust Expanding the Walls: Making calendar of events and Connections between Photography, performances. History and Community offers Naima J. Keith has spent the another sort of residency experi- last year collaborating with ence. The program gives high London-based independent school–age students a comprehen- curator Zoe Whitley to organize sive course in digital photography The Shadows Took Shape, an and unparalleled access to the exhibition and book that will debut James VanDerZee archive. Make this fall. Shadows is an interdisci- sure to check out their work along- plinary look at contemporary art side VanDerZee’s in Expanding the through the lens of Afrofuturist Walls 2013: No Filter. aesthetics, and will feature many Summer also brings the first solo Studio Museum alumni alongside museum exhibition in New York several international artists exhib-
Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders for a Houston-based artist you will iting here for the first time. remember from appearances in Every season, year after year, The Bearden Project (2011–12), our most important collaborators The preparation for the summer Frequency (2005–06) and the pages are YOU: our visitors, supporters season—deep in process as I write of this magazine! Robert Pruitt: and friends. Tell us what you think this—is among my favorite times at Women, organized by Assistant and share your stories and pic- the Studio Museum. Not only are Curator Naima J. Keith, features a tures with us. Find us on Twitter the parks and streets of Harlem selection of the artist’s evocative, and Facebook, and check out coming alive with the beginnings of large-format portraits of women. our ever-expanding presence summer, but our staff is busy pre- While the summer season offers on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, paring for two of our beloved signa- the best of the Museum’s fantastic YouTube and more! ture projects. homegrown projects, this fall is all See you around, online, and— I’m eagerly anticipating our latest about collaboration. We’re thrilled of course—uptown! Artist-in-Residence exhibition, to once again work with Valerie Things in Themselves, organized by Cassel Oliver, Senior Curator at the Assistant Curator Lauren Haynes. Contemporary Arts Museum Each summer we present the work Houston, and a groundbreaking of the three talented artists who scholar of black conceptual art. Thelma Golden have spent a year working in the Together with New York University’s Director and Chief Curator Studio Museum’s third-floor studios. Grey Art Gallery, the Studio Museum A touchstone of the Museum’s pro- will present Radical Presence: Black gramming since our founding in Performance in Contemporary Art, 1968, the Artist-in-Residence pro- originally organized by Oliver in gram boasts more than a hundred Houston in 2012, and brought to alumni, including some of the most New York through the dedication prominent contemporary artists of Assistant Curator Thomas J. Lax working today. I am honored to and Grey Director Lynn Gumpert. welcome Steffani Jemison, Jennifer Radicalpresenceny.com launches Museum Features
What’s Up: Exhibition Schedule 5 Artist × Artist: Odili Donald Odita 52 Summer/Fall 2013 on Ayé A. Aton
What’s New: Recent Acquisition 6 Artists and the Curatorial Impulse 56 Stanley Whitney Octavia Butler “Positive Obsession” 60 What’s New: Recent Acquisition 8 Fellow to Fellow: Jamillah James and 64 Beauford Delaney Monique Long Harlem Postcards Spring 2013 10 Catching Up with the Artists in 12 Residence Body Language 20 Studio Jr. Expanding the Walls: Percitopia 22 Exploring Art Together 68 Fall 2013: The Shadows Took Shape 24 DIY: Body Language Watercolor 70 Fall 2013: Radical Presence: Black 28 Resist Project Performance in Contemporary Art Five for the Family! 72 Coloring Page 74 Beyond Talking with Teachers 76 In Memoriam: Merton D. Simpson 35 Friends Elsewhere 36 If You Like . . . 42 Happy Birthday, Sam Gilliam! 79 Book Picks 46 Gala 2012 80 Studio Visit: Torkwase Dyson 48 Spring Luncheon 2013 83 Jayne Cortez “Ballroom Audobon” 50 (In Memoriam) Members 87 Supporters 91 Membership Info and Form 94 Visitor Info 96 Museum Features
What’s Up: Exhibition Schedule 5 Artist × Artist: Odili Donald Odita 52 Summer/Fall 2013 on Ayé A. Aton
What’s New: Recent Acquisition 6 Artists and the Curatorial Impulse 56 Stanley Whitney Octavia Butler “Positive Obsession” 60 What’s New: Recent Acquisition 8 Fellow to Fellow: Jamillah James and 64 Beauford Delaney Monique Long Harlem Postcards Spring 2013 10 Catching Up with the Artists in 12 Residence Body Language 20 Studio Jr. Expanding the Walls: Percitopia 22 Exploring Art Together 68 Fall 2013: The Shadows Took Shape 24 DIY: Body Language Watercolor 70 Fall 2013: Radical Presence: Black 28 Resist Project Performance in Contemporary Art Five for the Family! 72 Coloring Page 74 Beyond Talking with Teachers 76 In Memoriam: Merton D. Simpson 35 Friends Elsewhere 36 If You Like . . . 42 Happy Birthday, Sam Gilliam! 79 Book Picks 46 Gala 2012 80 Studio Visit: Torkwase Dyson 48 Spring Luncheon 2013 83 Jayne Cortez “Ballroom Audobon” 50 (In Memoriam) Members 87 Supporters 91 Membership Info and Form 94 Visitor Info 96 Summer/Fall 2013 4 Museum 5
What’s Up Exhibition Schedule Museum Summer/Fall 2013
Check studiomuseum.org for the latest on our exhibitions and programs.
July 18–October 27, 2013 Robert Pruitt: Women Things in Themselves: Artists in Residence 2012–13: Steffani Jemison, Jennifer Packer, Cullen Washington Jr. VideoStudio: Long Takes Expanding the Walls 2013: No Filter Body Language
November 13, 2013–March 9, 2014 The Shadows Took Shape Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art
Always on View Harlem Postcards Glenn Ligon: Give Us a Poem Adam Pendleton: Collected (Flamingo George) Summer/Fall 2013 4 Museum 5
What’s Up Exhibition Schedule Museum Summer/Fall 2013
Check studiomuseum.org for the latest on our exhibitions and programs.
July 18–October 27, 2013 Robert Pruitt: Women Things in Themselves: Artists in Residence 2012–13: Steffani Jemison, Jennifer Packer, Cullen Washington Jr. VideoStudio: Long Takes Expanding the Walls 2013: No Filter Body Language
November 13, 2013–March 9, 2014 The Shadows Took Shape Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art
Always on View Harlem Postcards Glenn Ligon: Give Us a Poem Adam Pendleton: Collected (Flamingo George) Summer/Fall 2013 6 Museum 7
What’s New Recent Acquisition Stanley Whitney
by Lauren Haynes, Assistant Curator
When the The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded in 1968, it was origi- Corey M. Baylor & nally conceived of as a non-collecting museum. As the Museum and its group Racquel Chevremont Baylor of supporters grew, this policy shifted and the Museum began to accept gifts Judia Black from generous artists and donors. Currently, the Museum’s collection, which Patricia Blanchet numbers close to 2,000 objects, continues to thrive with the addition of Bernard Lumpkin donations of artworks by artists and collectors. In addition to these gifts, Valentino D. Carlotti since 2001, the Studio Museum’s collection has grown through purchases Pippa Cohen thanks to the assistance and guidance of the Museum’s Acquisition Anthony Edson Committee. Helmed by Studio Museum Board Member Nancy L. Lane, the Martin Eisenberg Acquisition Committee meets three times a year to review and select works Godfrey R. Gill presented by the Studio Museum’s Curatorial Department, including this Alvin D. Hall recent acquisition, Untitled (05–2010) (2010) by abstract painter Stanley Nancy L. Lane Whitney. This is the first work of Whitney’s in the Museum’s collection, and it Miyoung Lee continues the Museum’s commitment to supporting artists of African descent Chris E. & Nyssa Lee at all stages of their careers. Without the knowledge and foresight of the Rodney M. Miller Acquisition Committee, the Studio Museum’s collection would not blossom Ruthard C. Murphy II as it does. As the Museum’s collection grows, so does the membership of the Amelia Ogunlesi Acquisition Committee. We would like to thank the current members of the Holly L. Phillips & Jose Tavarez Committee for their support of and dedication to the Museum, our mission Jerome L. & Ellen Stern and artists of African descent. Carol Sutton Lewis Nancy Washington Dawanna Williams
Stanley Whitney Untitled (05–2010), 2010 Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee 12.16.1 Summer/Fall 2013 6 Museum 7
What’s New Recent Acquisition Stanley Whitney
by Lauren Haynes, Assistant Curator
When the The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded in 1968, it was origi- Corey M. Baylor & nally conceived of as a non-collecting museum. As the Museum and its group Racquel Chevremont Baylor of supporters grew, this policy shifted and the Museum began to accept gifts Judia Black from generous artists and donors. Currently, the Museum’s collection, which Patricia Blanchet numbers close to 2,000 objects, continues to thrive with the addition of Bernard Lumpkin donations of artworks by artists and collectors. In addition to these gifts, Valentino D. Carlotti since 2001, the Studio Museum’s collection has grown through purchases Pippa Cohen thanks to the assistance and guidance of the Museum’s Acquisition Anthony Edson Committee. Helmed by Studio Museum Board Member Nancy L. Lane, the Martin Eisenberg Acquisition Committee meets three times a year to review and select works Godfrey R. Gill presented by the Studio Museum’s Curatorial Department, including this Alvin D. Hall recent acquisition, Untitled (05–2010) (2010) by abstract painter Stanley Nancy L. Lane Whitney. This is the first work of Whitney’s in the Museum’s collection, and it Miyoung Lee continues the Museum’s commitment to supporting artists of African descent Chris E. & Nyssa Lee at all stages of their careers. Without the knowledge and foresight of the Rodney M. Miller Acquisition Committee, the Studio Museum’s collection would not blossom Ruthard C. Murphy II as it does. As the Museum’s collection grows, so does the membership of the Amelia Ogunlesi Acquisition Committee. We would like to thank the current members of the Holly L. Phillips & Jose Tavarez Committee for their support of and dedication to the Museum, our mission Jerome L. & Ellen Stern and artists of African descent. Carol Sutton Lewis Nancy Washington Dawanna Williams
Stanley Whitney Untitled (05–2010), 2010 Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee 12.16.1 Summer/Fall 2013 8 Museum 9
What’s New Recent Acquisition Beauford Delaney by Jamillah James, Communications Coordinator and 2012 Curatorial Fellow
One of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s spring 2013 exhibitions, Brothers The Studio Museum in Harlem would like to thank Joan Willentz for her generous and Sisters, showcased a selection of later works by painter Beauford donation of Lithographie Afrique. The Studio Delaney (1901–1979), including a recent Museum acquisition, Lithographie Museum’s permanent collection is broadened Afrique (1963). The cross-generational exhibition examined the relationships and enriched through the extraordinary generosity of many collectors, artists and between Delaney’s works made between 1958 and 1969, and works in the Museum supporters. We are deeply grateful Studio Museum’s permanent collection. Emphasizing the continuation of to them all. painterly abstraction, the exhibition was organized into small groupings, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent or “families” that share formal and stylistic characteristics, to map the collection is supported with public funds from expanded conversations around abstraction by black artists in the twentieth the following government agencies and elected representatives: The New York City Department century. Delaney and his counterparts exemplify a rigorous dedication to of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on process, repetition and gesture as a means of transcendence or reflection. the Arts, a state agency; Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th Council District; and Speaker This commitment, and the use abstraction as a radical gesture for African- Christine Quinn and the New York City Council. American artists in particular, have been documented in earlier exhibitions Brothers and Sisters was organized by Jamillah at the Studio Museum, such as Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and James, 2012 Curatorial Fellow, as part of the Abstraction 1964–1980 (2006). Museum’s year-long curatorial fellowship Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Beauford Delaney moved to New York in program dedicated to fostering emerging curators of diverse backgrounds. 1929. Dividing his time between Greenwich Village and Harlem, Delaney surrounded himself with a diverse group of artists and writers, and began to achieve wide recognition for his portraits. In 1953 he moved to Paris, where he remained until his death in 1979. Author James Baldwin (1924–1987), a long- time friend, wrote in the introduction to Delaney’s 1978 retrospective at the Studio Museum that the artist’s work underwent “a most striking metamor- phosis” in Paris. Indeed, during this time Delaney began to move away from figurative representation and toward an investigation of geometry and color. Lithographie Afrique presents an interesting change of pace for Delaney. As the title suggests, the work is a lithograph, which is an unusual choice for Delaney. Lithography is a printmaking process that involves etching an image onto a metal or limestone plate, then applying paint and pressing it onto paper. As a gestural painter, Delaney’s hand is essential to understanding how his images are created. A printing method such as lithography changes the way in which an image is manufactured, dislocating the element of inti- macy between artist, material, image and surface. However, the swirling pink and blue forms in Lithographie Afrique translate the movement often found in Delaney’s paintings beautifully. The Studio Museum is thrilled to add this exciting work to its permanent collection.
Beauford Delaney Lithographie Afrique, 1964 Gift of Ted and Joan Wilentz 12.35.3 Photo: Marc Bernier Summer/Fall 2013 8 Museum 9
What’s New Recent Acquisition Beauford Delaney by Jamillah James, Communications Coordinator and 2012 Curatorial Fellow
One of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s spring 2013 exhibitions, Brothers The Studio Museum in Harlem would like to thank Joan Willentz for her generous and Sisters, showcased a selection of later works by painter Beauford donation of Lithographie Afrique. The Studio Delaney (1901–1979), including a recent Museum acquisition, Lithographie Museum’s permanent collection is broadened Afrique (1963). The cross-generational exhibition examined the relationships and enriched through the extraordinary generosity of many collectors, artists and between Delaney’s works made between 1958 and 1969, and works in the Museum supporters. We are deeply grateful Studio Museum’s permanent collection. Emphasizing the continuation of to them all. painterly abstraction, the exhibition was organized into small groupings, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent or “families” that share formal and stylistic characteristics, to map the collection is supported with public funds from expanded conversations around abstraction by black artists in the twentieth the following government agencies and elected representatives: The New York City Department century. Delaney and his counterparts exemplify a rigorous dedication to of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on process, repetition and gesture as a means of transcendence or reflection. the Arts, a state agency; Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th Council District; and Speaker This commitment, and the use abstraction as a radical gesture for African- Christine Quinn and the New York City Council. American artists in particular, have been documented in earlier exhibitions Brothers and Sisters was organized by Jamillah at the Studio Museum, such as Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and James, 2012 Curatorial Fellow, as part of the Abstraction 1964–1980 (2006). Museum’s year-long curatorial fellowship Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Beauford Delaney moved to New York in program dedicated to fostering emerging curators of diverse backgrounds. 1929. Dividing his time between Greenwich Village and Harlem, Delaney surrounded himself with a diverse group of artists and writers, and began to achieve wide recognition for his portraits. In 1953 he moved to Paris, where he remained until his death in 1979. Author James Baldwin (1924–1987), a long- time friend, wrote in the introduction to Delaney’s 1978 retrospective at the Studio Museum that the artist’s work underwent “a most striking metamor- phosis” in Paris. Indeed, during this time Delaney began to move away from figurative representation and toward an investigation of geometry and color. Lithographie Afrique presents an interesting change of pace for Delaney. As the title suggests, the work is a lithograph, which is an unusual choice for Delaney. Lithography is a printmaking process that involves etching an image onto a metal or limestone plate, then applying paint and pressing it onto paper. As a gestural painter, Delaney’s hand is essential to understanding how his images are created. A printing method such as lithography changes the way in which an image is manufactured, dislocating the element of inti- macy between artist, material, image and surface. However, the swirling pink and blue forms in Lithographie Afrique translate the movement often found in Delaney’s paintings beautifully. The Studio Museum is thrilled to add this exciting work to its permanent collection.
Beauford Delaney Lithographie Afrique, 1964 Gift of Ted and Joan Wilentz 12.35.3 Photo: Marc Bernier Summer/Fall 2013 10 Museum 11
Harlem Spring 2013 Harlem Postcards Spring 2013 Postcards
Alex Da Corte Letha Wilson Ugo Rondinone Jumoke Sanwo Born 1980, Camden, NJ Born 1976, Honolulu, HI Born 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland Born 1977, Lagos, Nigeria Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY Lives and works in New York, NY Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria
Crossover Cameo, 2013 Double Rock Harlem (Point of Rocks & Coyote Buttes), 2013 Wish You Were Here, 2013 Buttons, 2012
Historically, the cameo refers to works in which a carved In my studio practice I take the photograph as a starting point The sun is the star at the center of the solar system and My first impression of Harlem was similar to looking at relief portrait was made in a contrasting color to the for works that physically change, disrupt or activate the image is Earth’s primary source of energy. a delicately woven patchwork of history, culture and background, achieved by carefully carving a piece of plane—I fold and cut the images, layer images together, even art. I was fascinated by the vibe emanating from all material with a flat plane where two contrasting colors introduce materials such as concrete and paint. Often I photo- Harlem is the new star at the center of my life and my corners. I focused on the signs, which represented to meet. This removes all of the first color, except for the graph the natural landscape of the Western United States, and primary source of energy. me time spent in Harlem. image, leaving a contrasting background. Typically, the although I have lived in New York City for 15 years, I have never portraits were immediately recognizable icons. taken photographs here. The Harlem Postcards project offered This sun can be found on the wall by the front door of I documented posters, handwritten messages and me an opportunity to turn my lens towards the urban environ- the Children’s Zone Promise Academy on 125th Street advertisements, which revealed an underlying, coded A “crossover cameo” refers to an icon that has crossed ment, specifically in Harlem. and Madison. transmission between the writer and the rest of the over into public domain and does not require copyright community. I was drawn to the buttons in this image or royalty payment, similar to how a stock photo I came across St. Nicholas Park, between 127th and 141st because they reflected the sociopolitical topics in operates. Streets, and was struck by this impressive rock outcropping Harlem that were resonating in general across paired with the stone wall in the foreground. St. Nicholas Park America. I am fascinated with the figures represented This work examines what it means to embody anonymity is one of Harlem’s several “ribbon parks,” which was built on through imagery (Malcolm X) and text (Trayvon over the iconic in culture—become a crossover cameo, a rugged mass of rock, following the steep and irregular Martin); symbols of the struggles of African-American wear a costume, perhaps a long white tee and a du-rag, topography of Northern Manhattan. Afterwards I learned the men in twentieth and twenty-first century America to blend in with the stuff around us—and what happens site of this photograph is very near the “Point of Rocks” where portrayed on a fashion statement piece. when one reaches out into the world to push against that General George Washington had positioned himself during the notion, to stand tall and make waves. Battle of Harlem Heights in 1776. The Harlem Postcards Tenth Anniversary Collector's Set is now available at the Museum Store! studiomuseum.org/shop Once I had printed this photograph of the rock outcropping in the darkroom, I brought it back to my studio and placed the second photograph on top of it. I took the second photograph while on a day hike in the Coyote Buttes North area of the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, in southwestern Utah. Summer/Fall 2013 10 Museum 11
Harlem Spring 2013 Harlem Postcards Spring 2013 Postcards
Alex Da Corte Letha Wilson Ugo Rondinone Jumoke Sanwo Born 1980, Camden, NJ Born 1976, Honolulu, HI Born 1964, Brunnen, Switzerland Born 1977, Lagos, Nigeria Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY Lives and works in New York, NY Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria
Crossover Cameo, 2013 Double Rock Harlem (Point of Rocks & Coyote Buttes), 2013 Wish You Were Here, 2013 Buttons, 2012
Historically, the cameo refers to works in which a carved In my studio practice I take the photograph as a starting point The sun is the star at the center of the solar system and My first impression of Harlem was similar to looking at relief portrait was made in a contrasting color to the for works that physically change, disrupt or activate the image is Earth’s primary source of energy. a delicately woven patchwork of history, culture and background, achieved by carefully carving a piece of plane—I fold and cut the images, layer images together, even art. I was fascinated by the vibe emanating from all material with a flat plane where two contrasting colors introduce materials such as concrete and paint. Often I photo- Harlem is the new star at the center of my life and my corners. I focused on the signs, which represented to meet. This removes all of the first color, except for the graph the natural landscape of the Western United States, and primary source of energy. me time spent in Harlem. image, leaving a contrasting background. Typically, the although I have lived in New York City for 15 years, I have never portraits were immediately recognizable icons. taken photographs here. The Harlem Postcards project offered This sun can be found on the wall by the front door of I documented posters, handwritten messages and me an opportunity to turn my lens towards the urban environ- the Children’s Zone Promise Academy on 125th Street advertisements, which revealed an underlying, coded A “crossover cameo” refers to an icon that has crossed ment, specifically in Harlem. and Madison. transmission between the writer and the rest of the over into public domain and does not require copyright community. I was drawn to the buttons in this image or royalty payment, similar to how a stock photo I came across St. Nicholas Park, between 127th and 141st because they reflected the sociopolitical topics in operates. Streets, and was struck by this impressive rock outcropping Harlem that were resonating in general across paired with the stone wall in the foreground. St. Nicholas Park America. I am fascinated with the figures represented This work examines what it means to embody anonymity is one of Harlem’s several “ribbon parks,” which was built on through imagery (Malcolm X) and text (Trayvon over the iconic in culture—become a crossover cameo, a rugged mass of rock, following the steep and irregular Martin); symbols of the struggles of African-American wear a costume, perhaps a long white tee and a du-rag, topography of Northern Manhattan. Afterwards I learned the men in twentieth and twenty-first century America to blend in with the stuff around us—and what happens site of this photograph is very near the “Point of Rocks” where portrayed on a fashion statement piece. when one reaches out into the world to push against that General George Washington had positioned himself during the notion, to stand tall and make waves. Battle of Harlem Heights in 1776. The Harlem Postcards Tenth Anniversary Collector's Set is now available at the Museum Store! studiomuseum.org/shop Once I had printed this photograph of the rock outcropping in the darkroom, I brought it back to my studio and placed the second photograph on top of it. I took the second photograph while on a day hike in the Coyote Buttes North area of the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, in southwestern Utah. Summer/Fall 2013 12 Museum 13
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Organized by Jamillah James, Communications Coordinator
The Studio Museum’s 2012–13 Jamillah James: Before you became CW: I don’t know if there have been artists in residence, Steffani Jemison, artists in residence here at the Studio any challenges but there are differ- Jennifer Packer and Cullen Museum, what had your relationship ences in this program compared Washington Jr., took time from their to the Museum been? with others I have participated in. busy schedules and preparation for I think what stands out in any pro- their summer 2013 exhibition, Things Cullen Washington Jr.: I’ve been an gram is the kind of support that is in Themselves, to have an informal admirer of the Studio Museum for given. For me, the Studio Museum conversation with Communications some time. I first became aware of it provides a gateway to the art world, Coordinator Jamillah James. They in 2005 as a graduate student at the substantial financial allowance and spoke about their year on 125th School of the Museum of Fine Arts the freedom to make the best work Street in Harlem, what’s influencing in Boston. From the first visit, I was I can possibly make. It’s really a holis- them and their respective artistic engaged with the exhibited work tic approach to support the artist. practices. and believed it to be some of the Even though the residency is for a best I had ever seen. The creativity, year, the benefits last well beyond. concept and intelligence behind the work moved me. Immediately, SJ: I’ve been fortunate to benefit I knew I wanted to be a part of this from a few residencies in New York institution. and elsewhere. This residency at the Studio Museum offers, by far, Steffani Jemison: I had been familiar the most financial support. I like that with the Studio Museum for many the Museum respects the different years. I came to the Museum often ways we work, whereas some resi- as an undergraduate. In 2011, I was dencies play a more hands-on role invited to join the Museum for a in providing feedback or support. micro-residency. At the time, I was All of the current artists in residence in the second year of an artist-in- were included in Fore, so as we were residence program at the Museum working here in the studio, our work of Fine Arts, Houston. I was invited was also on view in a museum in by [former Associate Curator] Naomi New York. This created an additional Beckwith to be at the Museum for a set of opportunities. It really shaped week. That was a really lovely intro- my experience of the residency and duction to the curatorial staff here. encouraged an interaction with the Then, last year, I was included in curatorial staff that we might not The Bearden Project. have had otherwise.
Jennifer Packer: The first time I JP: I love the feeling of indepen- came here was for the Lynette dence, that it’s hands-off, if I want it Yiadom-Boakye show, Any Number that way. In looking at other residen- of Preoccupations in 2011. cies, I feel like this is a really extraor- dinary experience—the financial sup- Opposite: JJ: Which other residencies have port and studio are great and I feel The Studio Museum in Harlem’s 2012–13 artists in residence (from left): you participated in, if any? What really thankful for it. Cullen Washington Jr., Steffani Jemison have the differences been? Were and Jennifer Packer Photo: Paul Mpagi Sepuya there challenges with working here? Summer/Fall 2013 12 Museum 13
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Organized by Jamillah James, Communications Coordinator
The Studio Museum’s 2012–13 Jamillah James: Before you became CW: I don’t know if there have been artists in residence, Steffani Jemison, artists in residence here at the Studio any challenges but there are differ- Jennifer Packer and Cullen Museum, what had your relationship ences in this program compared Washington Jr., took time from their to the Museum been? with others I have participated in. busy schedules and preparation for I think what stands out in any pro- their summer 2013 exhibition, Things Cullen Washington Jr.: I’ve been an gram is the kind of support that is in Themselves, to have an informal admirer of the Studio Museum for given. For me, the Studio Museum conversation with Communications some time. I first became aware of it provides a gateway to the art world, Coordinator Jamillah James. They in 2005 as a graduate student at the substantial financial allowance and spoke about their year on 125th School of the Museum of Fine Arts the freedom to make the best work Street in Harlem, what’s influencing in Boston. From the first visit, I was I can possibly make. It’s really a holis- them and their respective artistic engaged with the exhibited work tic approach to support the artist. practices. and believed it to be some of the Even though the residency is for a best I had ever seen. The creativity, year, the benefits last well beyond. concept and intelligence behind the work moved me. Immediately, SJ: I’ve been fortunate to benefit I knew I wanted to be a part of this from a few residencies in New York institution. and elsewhere. This residency at the Studio Museum offers, by far, Steffani Jemison: I had been familiar the most financial support. I like that with the Studio Museum for many the Museum respects the different years. I came to the Museum often ways we work, whereas some resi- as an undergraduate. In 2011, I was dencies play a more hands-on role invited to join the Museum for a in providing feedback or support. micro-residency. At the time, I was All of the current artists in residence in the second year of an artist-in- were included in Fore, so as we were residence program at the Museum working here in the studio, our work of Fine Arts, Houston. I was invited was also on view in a museum in by [former Associate Curator] Naomi New York. This created an additional Beckwith to be at the Museum for a set of opportunities. It really shaped week. That was a really lovely intro- my experience of the residency and duction to the curatorial staff here. encouraged an interaction with the Then, last year, I was included in curatorial staff that we might not The Bearden Project. have had otherwise.
Jennifer Packer: The first time I JP: I love the feeling of indepen- came here was for the Lynette dence, that it’s hands-off, if I want it Yiadom-Boakye show, Any Number that way. In looking at other residen- of Preoccupations in 2011. cies, I feel like this is a really extraor- dinary experience—the financial sup- Opposite: JJ: Which other residencies have port and studio are great and I feel The Studio Museum in Harlem’s 2012–13 artists in residence (from left): you participated in, if any? What really thankful for it. Cullen Washington Jr., Steffani Jemison have the differences been? Were and Jennifer Packer Photo: Paul Mpagi Sepuya there challenges with working here? Summer/Fall 2013 14 Museum 15
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Jennifer Packer's studio Photo: Marc Bernier
JJ: What are you currently reading? JP: Who’s in this group? CW: That’s an interesting point. How do these readings relate to your There’s definitely a paradox in terms work, if at all? CW: There were multiple groups of material being the means to with similar qualities that influenced express something that’s immaterial. JP: I was reading The Autobiography one another. The Dutch artist Piet I guess I’m forced to operate within of Malcolm X, until I felt it became Mondrian was a part of the De Stijl that realm, which is a good place problematic. And I’m reading Roland movement. Paul Klee, Kandinsky to be because I like to tear things up. Barthes’s Camera Lucida. Barthes and Josef Albers were affiliated with [Laughs.] If I’m tearing up canvas, talks about photography, and how its the Bauhaus and Kazmir Malevich I’m having fun, you know what I relationship to painting is so strong, with the Suprematists. There are mean? Urban space definitely plays particularly the way in which paint- similarities in all of their work that a role in how the work looks. The dirt ing has tried to take the place of seeks to show a sense of spiritual and grit of the streets and sidewalks photography in its attitude and pre- or psychological purity. is reflected in the neutral black tones sentation of information. The book and rugged surfaces of my work. feels applicable to a painter’s studio, JP: I’m interested in representa- The environment informs the work which surprised me for a man talking tions of purity in your work—the but a spiritual and intuitive nature about photography forty years ago. found object as it relates to the directs the assembly of information. It’s really on point. notion of purity. This reminds me of some of the con- versations that we’ve had about CW: I am currently reading about CW: In my current work, I’m not abstraction and figuration. Would the artists of the Bauhaus and De Stijl as dependent on the “found object.” you say that you search for purity movements. And I’m looking to get I found myself not wanting to be in figuration? my hands on a copy of [Vasily] at the mercy of my environment to Kandinsky’s “Concerning the Spiritual supply me with materials. Instead, JP: I don’t know if there is any. in Art,” a manifesto on the theory of I wanted more creative agency I don’t know what it would be, abstraction. What intrigued me about over the materials. I construct and and I don’t know that I actually the writings are the ideas of dissolving deconstruct the painting and reuse believe in the idea of purity in economy of fine art. When thinking between what it means for a work to my practice. The amount of stimula- distinctions between design, painting, the materials that once served as a [artistic] practice—unless we talk about the effort you put into making exist as a diagram, or an abstraction, tion, vibration, all the different noises, craft and sculpture. However, what means of support. For example, about integrity in the studio. a work of art, and the energy required or a model, and the different ways sounds and sights help inform the drew me initially was the use of geo- laying down tape aids in painting to behold, interpret or approach that those representations fail. work and make it non-static. I moved metric forms as a visual language. straight lines, but then I use the CW: What about you, Steffani? What work, the idea that those two activi- to Harlem initially out of convenience, Reading their thoughts affirmed my tape to become line. In a way, are the different ways you consider ties should be parallel or symmetrical JJ: How has it been working with but since I’ve been here, I’ve come own ways of thinking about abstrac- this is a more pure sense of object- objects or objecthood in your work? is an integral part of conceptual prac- 125th Street right outside the studios? to really like Harlem and New York. tion, my process and the impetus for ness; it’s almost as if the painting tice. He’s identified and challenged What are you favorite things about making my work. The similarity lies in creates itself. SJ: I’m still thinking a little bit about this impulse in ways that are really working in Harlem? Has it influenced SJ: On one hand, I would say that the use of formalist visual communi- the relationship between purity and interesting to me. your work since you’ve been here? much of what I’ve done since I’ve cation. For me, pure subjectivity JP: When I think about you in the integrity, particularly in some of the I read a lot of fiction in addition been here is an extension of what I creates infinite objectivity. This is studio, I think about how you are conceptual practices that influence to nonfiction or theoretical texts. JP: It’s great. I love to keep my win- was already thinking and doing. why I have drastically reduced the evi- without burden. Considering that my work or, as you said, that shape I return to the same books over and dows open and watch whatever’s One of the nice things about working dence of representation in my work. purity and how you often speak the landscape in which I work. over again—one of those is Painting going on downstairs. I have in a distinct environment and commu- The use of lines, squares, circles, and about the urban space as influential, [Conceptual artist] Charles Gaines as Model by Yve-Alain Bois. A chapter binoculars. nity is that it provides a brand-new neutral primary colors becomes the I feel like they come from two differ- has written and spoken in really inter- entitled “Painting as Model” has been context for thinking about the work basic building blocks that communi- ent places. Like maybe the spiritual esting ways about an expected sym- especially interesting to me recently CW: The specificity of being in an you’ve already been making, and how cate my ideas onto canvas. and natural? metry of labor in the intellectual as I think about the relationships urban environment is pertinent to the works are transformed by new Summer/Fall 2013 14 Museum 15
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Jennifer Packer's studio Photo: Marc Bernier
JJ: What are you currently reading? JP: Who’s in this group? CW: That’s an interesting point. How do these readings relate to your There’s definitely a paradox in terms work, if at all? CW: There were multiple groups of material being the means to with similar qualities that influenced express something that’s immaterial. JP: I was reading The Autobiography one another. The Dutch artist Piet I guess I’m forced to operate within of Malcolm X, until I felt it became Mondrian was a part of the De Stijl that realm, which is a good place problematic. And I’m reading Roland movement. Paul Klee, Kandinsky to be because I like to tear things up. Barthes’s Camera Lucida. Barthes and Josef Albers were affiliated with [Laughs.] If I’m tearing up canvas, talks about photography, and how its the Bauhaus and Kazmir Malevich I’m having fun, you know what I relationship to painting is so strong, with the Suprematists. There are mean? Urban space definitely plays particularly the way in which paint- similarities in all of their work that a role in how the work looks. The dirt ing has tried to take the place of seeks to show a sense of spiritual and grit of the streets and sidewalks photography in its attitude and pre- or psychological purity. is reflected in the neutral black tones sentation of information. The book and rugged surfaces of my work. feels applicable to a painter’s studio, JP: I’m interested in representa- The environment informs the work which surprised me for a man talking tions of purity in your work—the but a spiritual and intuitive nature about photography forty years ago. found object as it relates to the directs the assembly of information. It’s really on point. notion of purity. This reminds me of some of the con- versations that we’ve had about CW: I am currently reading about CW: In my current work, I’m not abstraction and figuration. Would the artists of the Bauhaus and De Stijl as dependent on the “found object.” you say that you search for purity movements. And I’m looking to get I found myself not wanting to be in figuration? my hands on a copy of [Vasily] at the mercy of my environment to Kandinsky’s “Concerning the Spiritual supply me with materials. Instead, JP: I don’t know if there is any. in Art,” a manifesto on the theory of I wanted more creative agency I don’t know what it would be, abstraction. What intrigued me about over the materials. I construct and and I don’t know that I actually the writings are the ideas of dissolving deconstruct the painting and reuse believe in the idea of purity in economy of fine art. When thinking between what it means for a work to my practice. The amount of stimula- distinctions between design, painting, the materials that once served as a [artistic] practice—unless we talk about the effort you put into making exist as a diagram, or an abstraction, tion, vibration, all the different noises, craft and sculpture. However, what means of support. For example, about integrity in the studio. a work of art, and the energy required or a model, and the different ways sounds and sights help inform the drew me initially was the use of geo- laying down tape aids in painting to behold, interpret or approach that those representations fail. work and make it non-static. I moved metric forms as a visual language. straight lines, but then I use the CW: What about you, Steffani? What work, the idea that those two activi- to Harlem initially out of convenience, Reading their thoughts affirmed my tape to become line. In a way, are the different ways you consider ties should be parallel or symmetrical JJ: How has it been working with but since I’ve been here, I’ve come own ways of thinking about abstrac- this is a more pure sense of object- objects or objecthood in your work? is an integral part of conceptual prac- 125th Street right outside the studios? to really like Harlem and New York. tion, my process and the impetus for ness; it’s almost as if the painting tice. He’s identified and challenged What are you favorite things about making my work. The similarity lies in creates itself. SJ: I’m still thinking a little bit about this impulse in ways that are really working in Harlem? Has it influenced SJ: On one hand, I would say that the use of formalist visual communi- the relationship between purity and interesting to me. your work since you’ve been here? much of what I’ve done since I’ve cation. For me, pure subjectivity JP: When I think about you in the integrity, particularly in some of the I read a lot of fiction in addition been here is an extension of what I creates infinite objectivity. This is studio, I think about how you are conceptual practices that influence to nonfiction or theoretical texts. JP: It’s great. I love to keep my win- was already thinking and doing. why I have drastically reduced the evi- without burden. Considering that my work or, as you said, that shape I return to the same books over and dows open and watch whatever’s One of the nice things about working dence of representation in my work. purity and how you often speak the landscape in which I work. over again—one of those is Painting going on downstairs. I have in a distinct environment and commu- The use of lines, squares, circles, and about the urban space as influential, [Conceptual artist] Charles Gaines as Model by Yve-Alain Bois. A chapter binoculars. nity is that it provides a brand-new neutral primary colors becomes the I feel like they come from two differ- has written and spoken in really inter- entitled “Painting as Model” has been context for thinking about the work basic building blocks that communi- ent places. Like maybe the spiritual esting ways about an expected sym- especially interesting to me recently CW: The specificity of being in an you’ve already been making, and how cate my ideas onto canvas. and natural? metry of labor in the intellectual as I think about the relationships urban environment is pertinent to the works are transformed by new Summer/Fall 2013 16 Museum 17
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Cullen Washington Jr.’s studio Steffani Jemison’s studio Photo: Marc Bernier Photo: Marc Bernier
sights and sounds. On the other read him and feel his presence here. passing. The snippets of conversa- I lived a couple of blocks from thing you encounter. The sounds SJ: Beyoncé in a bottle. Dolce & hand, I also think concretely about You know, there’s something else tions you hear—it’s almost like flip- the Museum from 2002 to 2004. are really important. Gabbana in a bottle. It’s like a bazaar. the view from the studio and the vis- about Harlem, too—how eye con- ping through channels on the televi- I learned about the diverse ways I think one time we were talking ibility of the studio from the street— tact and the level of engagement sion. You know, like “free cell phone,” of being a black person in New York about the street vendors and how CW: Yes, definitely. the ways in which we are secluded differ. I like to make eye contact “I gotta get these new kicks,” ”would from living in Harlem. Many of intrusive they can be. But there’s from 125th Street but at the same with a lot of people all throughout you like a Final Call newspaper,” the images and ideas that come also something about them that’s so SJ: It’s so amazing. It’s immersive time open to it. All of that has Manhattan, but in Harlem, it some- “Newports! Newports!” and so forth. through in my work come from that. specific to this neighborhood and for all of the senses—sound, sight, worked its way into my studio work. times results in an automatic I get a chance to be an anonymous Cullen, you mentioned the sounds community. You know that if you smell. I think it’s safe to say 125th conversation. observer and slice through the coming from 125th Street—the idea want shea butter, you can come Street definitely has a unique scent, JP: I love Harlem. It’s always hum- crowd. I don’t think other streets have that the facade of this building is a up here and get it, and you can take a combination of . . . ming. I came to Harlem for conve- CW: I agree! that same buzz—I think it’s just 125th. permeable membrane is really fasci- your pick of tables. Or if you want nience as well, and I didn’t really nating. The distinction between the latest ”The Cartel” novel [from CW: Incense. know what to expect. Now I’m really JP: It’s like people are always ready SJ: Yeah, 125th is special. inside and outside becomes so ten- the series by Ashley and JaQuavis], invested in Harlem. [James] Baldwin to engage you. uous. What happens then is you or faux Calvin Klein essential oils, SJ: . . . incense, exactly, and . . . is one of my favorite writers and his CW: What do you like about it? end up not having control over your you can get them here. investment in Harlem was so strong. CW: Yeah, that’s true. I like the own body or experience, or you CW: Fried fish. What is the name of It’s nice to experience some of the sounds. You know there are all these SJ: I live in Brooklyn now, but have have your experiences shaped by JP: And it will say Beyoncé on that place? The Catchers of Men? things he was talking about. I can still different conversations you hear in lived in Harlem at different times. the people around you or every- the bottle. The Fishers of Men? Summer/Fall 2013 16 Museum 17
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
Cullen Washington Jr.’s studio Steffani Jemison’s studio Photo: Marc Bernier Photo: Marc Bernier
sights and sounds. On the other read him and feel his presence here. passing. The snippets of conversa- I lived a couple of blocks from thing you encounter. The sounds SJ: Beyoncé in a bottle. Dolce & hand, I also think concretely about You know, there’s something else tions you hear—it’s almost like flip- the Museum from 2002 to 2004. are really important. Gabbana in a bottle. It’s like a bazaar. the view from the studio and the vis- about Harlem, too—how eye con- ping through channels on the televi- I learned about the diverse ways I think one time we were talking ibility of the studio from the street— tact and the level of engagement sion. You know, like “free cell phone,” of being a black person in New York about the street vendors and how CW: Yes, definitely. the ways in which we are secluded differ. I like to make eye contact “I gotta get these new kicks,” ”would from living in Harlem. Many of intrusive they can be. But there’s from 125th Street but at the same with a lot of people all throughout you like a Final Call newspaper,” the images and ideas that come also something about them that’s so SJ: It’s so amazing. It’s immersive time open to it. All of that has Manhattan, but in Harlem, it some- “Newports! Newports!” and so forth. through in my work come from that. specific to this neighborhood and for all of the senses—sound, sight, worked its way into my studio work. times results in an automatic I get a chance to be an anonymous Cullen, you mentioned the sounds community. You know that if you smell. I think it’s safe to say 125th conversation. observer and slice through the coming from 125th Street—the idea want shea butter, you can come Street definitely has a unique scent, JP: I love Harlem. It’s always hum- crowd. I don’t think other streets have that the facade of this building is a up here and get it, and you can take a combination of . . . ming. I came to Harlem for conve- CW: I agree! that same buzz—I think it’s just 125th. permeable membrane is really fasci- your pick of tables. Or if you want nience as well, and I didn’t really nating. The distinction between the latest ”The Cartel” novel [from CW: Incense. know what to expect. Now I’m really JP: It’s like people are always ready SJ: Yeah, 125th is special. inside and outside becomes so ten- the series by Ashley and JaQuavis], invested in Harlem. [James] Baldwin to engage you. uous. What happens then is you or faux Calvin Klein essential oils, SJ: . . . incense, exactly, and . . . is one of my favorite writers and his CW: What do you like about it? end up not having control over your you can get them here. investment in Harlem was so strong. CW: Yeah, that’s true. I like the own body or experience, or you CW: Fried fish. What is the name of It’s nice to experience some of the sounds. You know there are all these SJ: I live in Brooklyn now, but have have your experiences shaped by JP: And it will say Beyoncé on that place? The Catchers of Men? things he was talking about. I can still different conversations you hear in lived in Harlem at different times. the people around you or every- the bottle. The Fishers of Men? Summer/Fall 2013 18 Museum 19
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
JP: The Fishers of Men II: The Sequel. SJ: So much of being in New York Steffani Jemison Untitled (X), 2013 [Laughter] Actually, 125th has a lot is filtered through this mask of irony. Courtesy the artist of positivity. It’s not just a presence— There’s a different sort of experience Left Image: there’s a lot of joy on the streets. here. There’s a lot of hope on the Cullen Washington Jr. There aren’t that many street ven- street, too. People come here to be Untitled # 6 (Mondrian), 2013 Courtesy the artist dors, but it’s just the energy. Like the their best selves. There’s so much certain time of day when they put possibility. Opposite: Jennifer Packer down their mats to pray, it’s very Structure, 2013 touching. It feels like a very sincere Courtesy the artist space, where people are invested in their interactions in a sincere way. Summer/Fall 2013 18 Museum 19
Catching Up with the Artists in Residence Catching Up with the Artists in Residence
JP: The Fishers of Men II: The Sequel. SJ: So much of being in New York Steffani Jemison Untitled (X), 2013 [Laughter] Actually, 125th has a lot is filtered through this mask of irony. Courtesy the artist of positivity. It’s not just a presence— There’s a different sort of experience Left Image: there’s a lot of joy on the streets. here. There’s a lot of hope on the Cullen Washington Jr. There aren’t that many street ven- street, too. People come here to be Untitled # 6 (Mondrian), 2013 Courtesy the artist dors, but it’s just the energy. Like the their best selves. There’s so much certain time of day when they put possibility. Opposite: Jennifer Packer down their mats to pray, it’s very Structure, 2013 touching. It feels like a very sincere Courtesy the artist space, where people are invested in their interactions in a sincere way. Summer/Fall 2013 20 Museum 21
Body Language Body Language Selections from the Permanent Collection
Organized by Abbe Schriber, Curatorial Assistant
Body Language explores how artists have used text to reflect on the physical body, and figurative imagery to con- sider how the body can be “read” visually. Drawn primarily from The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection, the artwork in this exhibition shows how language can be physical or gestural and, by the same token, how figurative imagery can reveal how we understand ourselves and oth- ers. How do artists insert the presence of the body into words? How can the body be “read” as a way of interpreting, or projecting one’s ideas onto, someone else? The collection offers a unique perspective on these ideas, particularly as a consideration of language in the construction and perception of racial identity. The works in this exhibition stem from the traditions Bruce Talamon of postwar artistic movements that have utilized text, espe- David Hammons, Slausson Studio, 1974 Promised gift of Ruthard C. Murphy PG12.19.1 cially conceptual and post-conceptual art. Artists have drawn or painted directly onto text to purposefully evoke the presence of the body; engaged literary sources, vernac- ular slang or secretarial shorthand; or contemplated self and others through painted meditations on identity. Other works appropriate the literal, functional texts of everyday life—parking tickets, passports—and imply larger questions about how the body is treated and regulated in the social world. Reading is itself a physical act, as several of the artists in the exhibition emphasize, as they layer, repeat and manipulate words to make them illegible and strain the eye. If text can reflect the body, the body can itself become a text. Body Language also explores figuration, considering the human form as a site of interpretation for which there is no simple reading or understanding. How might speech and writing play a role in imposing meaning onto bodies? In presenting expressive, straightforward images of figures, Charles Gaines String Theory: Romare Bearden, 2011 ranging from painterly portraits to photographic documen- Gift of the artist 12.7.1 tation, the exhibition examines how meaning rests with the viewer, and how images can reveal cultural constructions and perceptions of people. The body’s ability to “articulate,” in performance, gesture or movement, is also explored in this exhibition, with artists using their bodies, literally, as tools for mark-making. In conflating language with bodily presence, Body Language strives for, to quote participating artist Glenn Opposite: William Pope.L Ligon, “the knowledge of the body, in what your body Green People are Hope without Reason, 2004 memorizes that comes with the reading. It’s very different Museum purchase made possible by a gift from Barbara Karp Shuster, New York 05.4.1 than a printed page.” Summer/Fall 2013 20 Museum 21
Body Language Body Language Selections from the Permanent Collection
Organized by Abbe Schriber, Curatorial Assistant
Body Language explores how artists have used text to reflect on the physical body, and figurative imagery to con- sider how the body can be “read” visually. Drawn primarily from The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection, the artwork in this exhibition shows how language can be physical or gestural and, by the same token, how figurative imagery can reveal how we understand ourselves and oth- ers. How do artists insert the presence of the body into words? How can the body be “read” as a way of interpreting, or projecting one’s ideas onto, someone else? The collection offers a unique perspective on these ideas, particularly as a consideration of language in the construction and perception of racial identity. The works in this exhibition stem from the traditions Bruce Talamon of postwar artistic movements that have utilized text, espe- David Hammons, Slausson Studio, 1974 Promised gift of Ruthard C. Murphy PG12.19.1 cially conceptual and post-conceptual art. Artists have drawn or painted directly onto text to purposefully evoke the presence of the body; engaged literary sources, vernac- ular slang or secretarial shorthand; or contemplated self and others through painted meditations on identity. Other works appropriate the literal, functional texts of everyday life—parking tickets, passports—and imply larger questions about how the body is treated and regulated in the social world. Reading is itself a physical act, as several of the artists in the exhibition emphasize, as they layer, repeat and manipulate words to make them illegible and strain the eye. If text can reflect the body, the body can itself become a text. Body Language also explores figuration, considering the human form as a site of interpretation for which there is no simple reading or understanding. How might speech and writing play a role in imposing meaning onto bodies? In presenting expressive, straightforward images of figures, Charles Gaines String Theory: Romare Bearden, 2011 ranging from painterly portraits to photographic documen- Gift of the artist 12.7.1 tation, the exhibition examines how meaning rests with the viewer, and how images can reveal cultural constructions and perceptions of people. The body’s ability to “articulate,” in performance, gesture or movement, is also explored in this exhibition, with artists using their bodies, literally, as tools for mark-making. In conflating language with bodily presence, Body Language strives for, to quote participating artist Glenn Opposite: William Pope.L Ligon, “the knowledge of the body, in what your body Green People are Hope without Reason, 2004 memorizes that comes with the reading. It’s very different Museum purchase made possible by a gift from Barbara Karp Shuster, New York 05.4.1 than a printed page.” Summer/Fall 2013 22
Expanding Percitopia the Walls
by Gerald L. Leavell II, Expanding the Walls and Youth Programs Coordinator
New York is dramatic, serene and 1. Jeremy Valencia Untitled mysterious to its millions of inha- 1 4 bitants and visitors: At any turn it 2. Wesley Coram can offer a person deserving notice, Night Lights a building begging for attention, 3 3. Aviolah Joseph 2 5 a beautifully odd forest not expect- Essence ing guests or even a strange light in the sky querying one’s idea of 4. Nicholas Reyes by the tree by the tree reality. And they all represent some 6 7 8 of the city’s most alluring identities. 5. Hope Calderon The Expanding the Walls 2013 Frigid Horizon artists have been inspired by 6. Kelvin Hady 9 10 James VanDerZee’s early examples Wait, hold up! of photo manipulation and the ways 7. Paulette Henk in which he documented the Harlem Lorna 11 12 community. These artists are also attentive to idealist and surrealist 8. Clifford Temple Walking In concepts. They use rapid third-eye movement and augmented reality 9. Arnell Calderon to photographically explain their Mother Mother
ideas and surroundings. 10. Totieyanna Whatley The reflections shared here— Hidden Entities landscapes, lights and portraits of 11. Bryant Corona the known—offer flashes of insight Unexpected Visit into various perceptions of utopia within New York. These twelve art- 12. Dautchley “Max” Desmarais Blue Dreams ists passionately call this particular project Percitopia.
To see the Percitopia project, visit Expanding the Walls 2013's Tumblr at expandingthewalls2013.tumblr.com
See more work by these students in No Filter: Expanding the Walls 2013 on view July 18–October 27, 2013
Expanding the Walls is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; Colgate-Palmolive; Dedalus Foundation, Inc.; Joy of Giving Something; and Surdna Foundation. Summer/Fall 2013 22
Expanding Percitopia the Walls
by Gerald L. Leavell II, Expanding the Walls and Youth Programs Coordinator
New York is dramatic, serene and 1. Jeremy Valencia Untitled mysterious to its millions of inha- 1 4 bitants and visitors: At any turn it 2. Wesley Coram can offer a person deserving notice, Night Lights a building begging for attention, 3 3. Aviolah Joseph 2 5 a beautifully odd forest not expect- Essence ing guests or even a strange light in the sky querying one’s idea of 4. Nicholas Reyes by the tree by the tree reality. And they all represent some 6 7 8 of the city’s most alluring identities. 5. Hope Calderon The Expanding the Walls 2013 Frigid Horizon artists have been inspired by 6. Kelvin Hady 9 10 James VanDerZee’s early examples Wait, hold up! of photo manipulation and the ways 7. Paulette Henk in which he documented the Harlem Lorna 11 12 community. These artists are also attentive to idealist and surrealist 8. Clifford Temple Walking In concepts. They use rapid third-eye movement and augmented reality 9. Arnell Calderon to photographically explain their Mother Mother
ideas and surroundings. 10. Totieyanna Whatley The reflections shared here— Hidden Entities landscapes, lights and portraits of 11. Bryant Corona the known—offer flashes of insight Unexpected Visit into various perceptions of utopia within New York. These twelve art- 12. Dautchley “Max” Desmarais Blue Dreams ists passionately call this particular project Percitopia.
To see the Percitopia project, visit Expanding the Walls 2013's Tumblr at expandingthewalls2013.tumblr.com
See more work by these students in No Filter: Expanding the Walls 2013 on view July 18–October 27, 2013
Expanding the Walls is made possible with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; Colgate-Palmolive; Dedalus Foundation, Inc.; Joy of Giving Something; and Surdna Foundation. Summer/Fall 2013 24 Museum 25
Fall 2013 The Shadows Took Shape
by Naima J. Keith, Assistant Curator, and Zoe Whitley
In February 2012, we embarked on The Shadows Took Shape is an interdisciplinary exhibition that seeks to collaborative research for The explore contemporary art through the lens of Afrofuturist aesthetics. Shadows Took Shape, an exhibition With roots in avant-garde musical compositions by sonic innovator Sun Ra, examining the intersection between Afrofuturism is a creative and intellectual genre that emerged as a strategy Afrofuturism and contemporary art. to explore science fiction, fantasy, magical realism and pan-Africanism. Fascinated by the ways in which Artists, writers and theorists have used Afrofuturism as a way to prophesize artists today are inspired by the the future, redefine the present and reconceptualize the past. The term established genre as a site of unique "Afrofuturism" was coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay agency and expression, we sought “Black to the Future.” He linked the African-American use of science and to consider a range of practices technology to an examination of space, time, race and culture.1 While the that utilize the language of science term dates to the 1990s, the aesthetic and socio-cultural choices it so aptly fiction to construct visual narratives describes far pre-date the label. In the mid-1950s the music of Sun Ra blended about identity, politics and science fiction, mysticism, African culture and jazz fusion, coalescing in his technology. 1972 film Space Is the Place. In 1975, George Clinton formed his bands Parliament and Funkadelic, which took Afrofuturism to new and often kitschy heights. Today, the movement is invigorated by contemporary musicians such as Saul Williams, Janelle Monáe, Outkast and DJ Spooky, along with writers such as Colson Whitehead, Junot Diaz and Kodwo Eshun. Its reach is evident in cinema since Space Is the Place, in works such as The Brother from Another Planet (1984), The Last Angel of History (1996), The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) and, more recently, District 9 (2009) and Pumzi (2010). Opening November 2013, The Shadows Took Shape will be a major exhibi- tion exploring the ways in which this form of creative expression has been adopted internationally, and will highlight the range of work made over the past twenty-five years. Often cast as an exclusively black preserve, Afrofuturism has expansive dynamism and global influence, its protean phi- losophy embraced by artists seeking to create alternative futures while often grappling with present-day complexities. The exhibition title is drawn from a little-known Sun Ra poem, later assigned to a series of posthumously released recordings. Through this apt metaphor for the transnational and cross-generational long shadow cast by Sun Ra, the exhibition will feature artist and New York hip-hop pioneer RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, alongside an interna- tional selection of established and emerging practitioners, including Derrick Adams, John Akomfrah, Laylah Ali, Edgar Arceneaux, Sanford Biggers, William Cordova, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Ellen Gallagher, Khaled Hafez, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Kira Lynn Harris, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Wayne Hodge, David Huffman, Cyrus Kabiru, Wanuri Kahiu, Hew Locke, Cristina de Middel, Mehreen Murtaza, Wangechi Mutu, Harold Offeh, The Otolith Group, Robert Pruitt, Larissa Sansour, Cauleen Smith, William Villalongo, Saya Woolfalk and Sun Ra himself.
Opposite: Cyrus Kabiru Nairobian Baboon, 2012 Courtesy the artist and Amunga Eshuchi Summer/Fall 2013 24 Museum 25
Fall 2013 The Shadows Took Shape
by Naima J. Keith, Assistant Curator, and Zoe Whitley
In February 2012, we embarked on The Shadows Took Shape is an interdisciplinary exhibition that seeks to collaborative research for The explore contemporary art through the lens of Afrofuturist aesthetics. Shadows Took Shape, an exhibition With roots in avant-garde musical compositions by sonic innovator Sun Ra, examining the intersection between Afrofuturism is a creative and intellectual genre that emerged as a strategy Afrofuturism and contemporary art. to explore science fiction, fantasy, magical realism and pan-Africanism. Fascinated by the ways in which Artists, writers and theorists have used Afrofuturism as a way to prophesize artists today are inspired by the the future, redefine the present and reconceptualize the past. The term established genre as a site of unique "Afrofuturism" was coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay agency and expression, we sought “Black to the Future.” He linked the African-American use of science and to consider a range of practices technology to an examination of space, time, race and culture.1 While the that utilize the language of science term dates to the 1990s, the aesthetic and socio-cultural choices it so aptly fiction to construct visual narratives describes far pre-date the label. In the mid-1950s the music of Sun Ra blended about identity, politics and science fiction, mysticism, African culture and jazz fusion, coalescing in his technology. 1972 film Space Is the Place. In 1975, George Clinton formed his bands Parliament and Funkadelic, which took Afrofuturism to new and often kitschy heights. Today, the movement is invigorated by contemporary musicians such as Saul Williams, Janelle Monáe, Outkast and DJ Spooky, along with writers such as Colson Whitehead, Junot Diaz and Kodwo Eshun. Its reach is evident in cinema since Space Is the Place, in works such as The Brother from Another Planet (1984), The Last Angel of History (1996), The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) and, more recently, District 9 (2009) and Pumzi (2010). Opening November 2013, The Shadows Took Shape will be a major exhibi- tion exploring the ways in which this form of creative expression has been adopted internationally, and will highlight the range of work made over the past twenty-five years. Often cast as an exclusively black preserve, Afrofuturism has expansive dynamism and global influence, its protean phi- losophy embraced by artists seeking to create alternative futures while often grappling with present-day complexities. The exhibition title is drawn from a little-known Sun Ra poem, later assigned to a series of posthumously released recordings. Through this apt metaphor for the transnational and cross-generational long shadow cast by Sun Ra, the exhibition will feature artist and New York hip-hop pioneer RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, alongside an interna- tional selection of established and emerging practitioners, including Derrick Adams, John Akomfrah, Laylah Ali, Edgar Arceneaux, Sanford Biggers, William Cordova, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Ellen Gallagher, Khaled Hafez, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Kira Lynn Harris, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Wayne Hodge, David Huffman, Cyrus Kabiru, Wanuri Kahiu, Hew Locke, Cristina de Middel, Mehreen Murtaza, Wangechi Mutu, Harold Offeh, The Otolith Group, Robert Pruitt, Larissa Sansour, Cauleen Smith, William Villalongo, Saya Woolfalk and Sun Ra himself.
Opposite: Cyrus Kabiru Nairobian Baboon, 2012 Courtesy the artist and Amunga Eshuchi Summer/Fall 2013 26
Fall 2013 The Shadows Took Shape
The Otolith Group Hydra Decapita, 2010 Courtesy the artists
Crucial to the presentation of these works is the juxtaposition of established 1. Mark Dery, “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delaney, Greg Tate and and emerging artists. While the majority have long engaged with Afrofuturist Tricia Rose,” in Flame Wars: The Discourse aesthetics, for others it demonstrates a new direction in their practices. of Cyberculture, ed. Mark Dery (Durham: In response to the exhibition, a number of artists are making new commis- Duke University Press, 1994), 211 2. Okwui Enwezor, “The Postcolonial sions. New York–based artist (and 2007–08 Studio Museum artist in resi- Constellation: Contemporary Art in a State dence) Saya Woolfalk is creating a new site-specific work based on her of Permanent Transition.” Research in African ongoing series, “The Empathics,” a fictional group of women documented Literatures 34 (2003): 57–82 anthropologically, who blend racial and ethnic identities as they metamor- phose, taking on characteristics of both humans and plants. John Akomfrah, Zoe Whitley is an independent curator based in one of the United Kingdom’s foremost cinematic visionaries and a founder London. She is co-curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Fall/Winter 2013 exhibition, The of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, brings to the Studio Museum Shadows Took Shape (with Naima J. Keith, Studio his 1997 follow-up to The Last Angel of History (1995), Memory Room 451 Museum Assistant Curator).
(1997), an elegiac musing on the future’s commodification of dreams. From 2003–13, she was a curator at the Victoria The Studio Museum is also pleased to announce this as the first American & Albert Museum in London, and was named Ellen Gallagher and Edgar Cleijne museum exhibition of Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru. His wearable sculptures, their Curator of Contemporary Art in 2005. Osedax, 2013 During that time, she contributed to numerous Courtesy the artists “C-Stunners,” are fashioned from found materials and attest to an innate exhibitions and catalogues, including drive not only to create but also to reshape modes of self-representation. commissions by Anselm Kiefer (2006), Romuald Hazoume (2007), Yinka Shonibare MBE (2007) This exhibition presents a new picture that can aptly bear the title of and Mat Collishaw (2010), among many others. what Okwui Enwezor has called the “postcolonial constellation.”2 These She is the author of a forthcoming monograph works chart the evolution of Afrofuturist tendencies, spanning not only on graphic designer Paul Peter Piech (Four Corners Books) and coauthor of In Black and personal themes of identity and self-determination in the African-American White: Contemporary Prints of the African community, but also persistent concerns of technoculture, geographies Diaspora (V & A Publications, 2013). Whitley is currently a doctoral candidate at the University and hegemonies of the new Global South, utopias, dystopias and universal of Central Lancashire, researching contemporary preoccupations with time and space. black artists' engagement with institutions. Summer/Fall 2013 26
Fall 2013 The Shadows Took Shape
The Otolith Group Hydra Decapita, 2010 Courtesy the artists
Crucial to the presentation of these works is the juxtaposition of established 1. Mark Dery, “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delaney, Greg Tate and and emerging artists. While the majority have long engaged with Afrofuturist Tricia Rose,” in Flame Wars: The Discourse aesthetics, for others it demonstrates a new direction in their practices. of Cyberculture, ed. Mark Dery (Durham: In response to the exhibition, a number of artists are making new commis- Duke University Press, 1994), 211 2. Okwui Enwezor, “The Postcolonial sions. New York–based artist (and 2007–08 Studio Museum artist in resi- Constellation: Contemporary Art in a State dence) Saya Woolfalk is creating a new site-specific work based on her of Permanent Transition.” Research in African ongoing series, “The Empathics,” a fictional group of women documented Literatures 34 (2003): 57–82 anthropologically, who blend racial and ethnic identities as they metamor- phose, taking on characteristics of both humans and plants. John Akomfrah, Zoe Whitley is an independent curator based in one of the United Kingdom’s foremost cinematic visionaries and a founder London. She is co-curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Fall/Winter 2013 exhibition, The of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, brings to the Studio Museum Shadows Took Shape (with Naima J. Keith, Studio his 1997 follow-up to The Last Angel of History (1995), Memory Room 451 Museum Assistant Curator).
(1997), an elegiac musing on the future’s commodification of dreams. From 2003–13, she was a curator at the Victoria The Studio Museum is also pleased to announce this as the first American & Albert Museum in London, and was named Ellen Gallagher and Edgar Cleijne museum exhibition of Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru. His wearable sculptures, their Curator of Contemporary Art in 2005. Osedax, 2013 During that time, she contributed to numerous Courtesy the artists “C-Stunners,” are fashioned from found materials and attest to an innate exhibitions and catalogues, including drive not only to create but also to reshape modes of self-representation. commissions by Anselm Kiefer (2006), Romuald Hazoume (2007), Yinka Shonibare MBE (2007) This exhibition presents a new picture that can aptly bear the title of and Mat Collishaw (2010), among many others. what Okwui Enwezor has called the “postcolonial constellation.”2 These She is the author of a forthcoming monograph works chart the evolution of Afrofuturist tendencies, spanning not only on graphic designer Paul Peter Piech (Four Corners Books) and coauthor of In Black and personal themes of identity and self-determination in the African-American White: Contemporary Prints of the African community, but also persistent concerns of technoculture, geographies Diaspora (V & A Publications, 2013). Whitley is currently a doctoral candidate at the University and hegemonies of the new Global South, utopias, dystopias and universal of Central Lancashire, researching contemporary preoccupations with time and space. black artists' engagement with institutions. Summer/Fall 2013 28 Museum 29
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Black Performance in Contemporary Art by Thomas J. Lax, Assistant Curator, and Valerie Cassel Oliver
Organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver at the Contemporary Arts Museum I am ultimately fixated on inno- Houston (CAMH), Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art vations that happened in the art is the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists. world, and my charge at the The exhibition provides a critical framework for a discussion of the history museum is chronicling that history of black performance traditions within the visual arts—beginning with Fluxus over the last fifty years—the art of and conceptual art in the early 1960s, through the 1980s and into the current our times. That doesn’t happen in practices of emerging contemporary artists. Radical Presence features video a vacuum. I don’t situate my work and photo documentation, graphic scores, installations, interactive works in a fixed way or through identity and works created as a result of performance actions. In addition, the politics for that matter. It’s not about exhibition features a live performance series scheduled throughout its run. identity politics; it’s about trying Studio Museum Assistant Curator Thomas J. Lax spoke with Oliver about to capture the full complexity—the her exhibition history, the challenges of Radical Presence and the future of fullness of the story. We don’t have black performance art. those full stories.
TJL: Talk to me about the impetus Thomas J. Lax: Your exhibitions TJL: As you have described your for Radical Presence. have looked at a range of media— interests and in your scholarly con- film and video, sound and light— tributions, you’ve framed questions VCO: More and more artists are and focused on a variety of issues of social and personal identification coming to grips with the history in contemporary art, such as craft through formal, material and pro- of performance as it becomes a as a performance practice and the cess-oriented concerns. What are touchstone in their training, both contributions of black artists to the stakes of placing race, gender academic and informal. Finding a conceptual art. What through-lines and sexuality in exhibition-making considered way to engage a public do you see in your curatorial and artistic practice in this is important for artists again. To a interests? moment? large degree, I’m following the art- Senga Nengudi ists and seeing what they are inte- Performance Piece, 1978 Valerie Cassel Oliver: I’m inter- VCO: When you get into questions Courtesy the artist and grating in their own practices. All Thomas Erben Gallery, ested in uncovering what’s in plain about “identity,” you run the risk of that made me take a second look, New York sight and in bringing to light the of engaging in what some people and it became obvious that there’s way an artist or a group of artists would relegate as a dated conver- not a lot of information out there has worked for generations, even sation. That being said, I am a child about this history with relationship if those ways are not necessarily of the 1960s. I was born in the to black artists. It seemed to be a held up in the canon of the history 1960s and, in one sense, one could perfect opportunity to mine that. of art. Black artists have worked say I am a quintessential assimila- conceptually and engaged in per- tion baby. That provides insight into TJL: I know that you worked on a formance for generations. These how—as the young folks say—my project with Clifford Owens and practices are not new, they’re not mind pops. I’m constantly looking that your conversations with him anomalies, they’re not atypical— for the bridges between the past were in some ways a catalyst for Tameka Norris they’re part of a trajectory. If there’s and present, and I’m keenly aware the kind of historization that this Untitled (performance still), 2012 a through-line in all of my projects, that, in terms of chronicling the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, show proposes. Can you talk more November 17, 2012 it’s a bringing to the fore the story history of how artists of color work, about how artists have prompted Photo: Max Fields of how these artistic practices have you have to straddle multiple your curatorial investigation? been established historically, and worlds; you have to be both multi- challenging the expectations of cultural and multilingual. what black art looks like. Summer/Fall 2013 28 Museum 29
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Black Performance in Contemporary Art by Thomas J. Lax, Assistant Curator, and Valerie Cassel Oliver
Organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver at the Contemporary Arts Museum I am ultimately fixated on inno- Houston (CAMH), Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art vations that happened in the art is the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists. world, and my charge at the The exhibition provides a critical framework for a discussion of the history museum is chronicling that history of black performance traditions within the visual arts—beginning with Fluxus over the last fifty years—the art of and conceptual art in the early 1960s, through the 1980s and into the current our times. That doesn’t happen in practices of emerging contemporary artists. Radical Presence features video a vacuum. I don’t situate my work and photo documentation, graphic scores, installations, interactive works in a fixed way or through identity and works created as a result of performance actions. In addition, the politics for that matter. It’s not about exhibition features a live performance series scheduled throughout its run. identity politics; it’s about trying Studio Museum Assistant Curator Thomas J. Lax spoke with Oliver about to capture the full complexity—the her exhibition history, the challenges of Radical Presence and the future of fullness of the story. We don’t have black performance art. those full stories.
TJL: Talk to me about the impetus Thomas J. Lax: Your exhibitions TJL: As you have described your for Radical Presence. have looked at a range of media— interests and in your scholarly con- film and video, sound and light— tributions, you’ve framed questions VCO: More and more artists are and focused on a variety of issues of social and personal identification coming to grips with the history in contemporary art, such as craft through formal, material and pro- of performance as it becomes a as a performance practice and the cess-oriented concerns. What are touchstone in their training, both contributions of black artists to the stakes of placing race, gender academic and informal. Finding a conceptual art. What through-lines and sexuality in exhibition-making considered way to engage a public do you see in your curatorial and artistic practice in this is important for artists again. To a interests? moment? large degree, I’m following the art- Senga Nengudi ists and seeing what they are inte- Performance Piece, 1978 Valerie Cassel Oliver: I’m inter- VCO: When you get into questions Courtesy the artist and grating in their own practices. All Thomas Erben Gallery, ested in uncovering what’s in plain about “identity,” you run the risk of that made me take a second look, New York sight and in bringing to light the of engaging in what some people and it became obvious that there’s way an artist or a group of artists would relegate as a dated conver- not a lot of information out there has worked for generations, even sation. That being said, I am a child about this history with relationship if those ways are not necessarily of the 1960s. I was born in the to black artists. It seemed to be a held up in the canon of the history 1960s and, in one sense, one could perfect opportunity to mine that. of art. Black artists have worked say I am a quintessential assimila- conceptually and engaged in per- tion baby. That provides insight into TJL: I know that you worked on a formance for generations. These how—as the young folks say—my project with Clifford Owens and practices are not new, they’re not mind pops. I’m constantly looking that your conversations with him anomalies, they’re not atypical— for the bridges between the past were in some ways a catalyst for Tameka Norris they’re part of a trajectory. If there’s and present, and I’m keenly aware the kind of historization that this Untitled (performance still), 2012 a through-line in all of my projects, that, in terms of chronicling the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, show proposes. Can you talk more November 17, 2012 it’s a bringing to the fore the story history of how artists of color work, about how artists have prompted Photo: Max Fields of how these artistic practices have you have to straddle multiple your curatorial investigation? been established historically, and worlds; you have to be both multi- challenging the expectations of cultural and multilingual. what black art looks like. Summer/Fall 2013 30 Museum 31
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art
Jamal Cyrus Texas Fried Tenor (from the series “Learning to Work the Saxophone”), 2012 Courtesy the artist Photo: Jerry Jones
VCO: I’ve known Clifford since his Contemporary Arts Museum Arena [2012]. It’s a Houston undergrad days at the School of the Houston and its board. Activating institution in and of itself, where Art Institute of Chicago. When he the physical exhibition space at an Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, found out I was doing an exhibition ongoing basis required a tremen- trained at PABA with the Reverend on Benjamin Patterson [the founding dous amount of commitment of Ray Martin and George Foreman; Fluxus artist and musician’s first staff, energy, time and monetary they even prayed next door at the major retrospective, which travelled resources. In terms of a specific El Dorado Ballroom, which at the internationally] at CAMH, he was example, let’s take a work such as time was a mosque. We also part- very interested in having a conversa- Terry Adkins’s The Last Trumpet nered with the Houston Museum tion about the progenitors of black (1995). Not only did Terry come in of African American Culture to performance artists. We initially to activate his Akrhaphones—eigh- present Kalup Linzy’s concert, wanted to compile this in a book, teen-foot-tall, trumpet-like instru- Introducing Kaye (Romantic Loner) but that never materialized. Our ments that emit a wide range of [2012]. Moreover, Adam Pendleton research and conversations, how- sounds—for the opening night, came to give a lecture-perfor- ever, were invaluable and later pro- but he also worked with a group of mance at the Glassel School of vided frameworks for this exhibition horn players. The event became an Art. These activities, both within and Cliff’s subsequent art project. invocation of sorts for the exhibi- the gallery and the city itself, For Cliff, this eventually became the tion. Beyond the audience that was kept a nice momentum going for project and exhibition Anthology, there to physically experience the the exhibition. organized in 2011–12 by Christopher performance, the event resonated Our mandate as a museum is Lew at MoMA PS1. As a curator, through the telling of those experi- to bring contemporary art conver- I was grappling with what this ences by people at the event. The sations into the city, but also to be research and inquiry could look like piece continued to be performed diligent in understanding the con- physically as an exhibition. Radical in the world through word of mouth versations that are organic to the Presence became the manifestation and social media. So when people people who live in our backyard. of that quandary: How do you pres- came into the space, the sensibility It’s obviously great when the two ent performance art in an exhibition of the energy around those horns can be seamlessly integral to one that is not relegated to documenta- was alive and well. The object another. There’s a tremendous tion alone? The exhibition became itself retains the energy and the amount of activity in Houston. a curatorial experiment in how to power that’s been enacted within, The collective Otabenga Jones & keep the space and the work on and around it. Associates is here, as are younger infused with movement and anima- artists such as Nathaniel Donnett, tion. What I hope people will see TJL: Can you talk about the role of Lisa E. Harris, Autumn Knight, is that balancing act, of presenting Houston and the artists that live and Flash Gordon Parks and M’kina both documentation and living, make work there in terms of how Tapscott, who also came together breathing artwork. you go about making exhibitions at to engage these conversations the museum? around black performance in an TJL: Can you talk about how exhibition called The Stacks at the you came to choreograph that VCO: We partnered with several Art League around the same time. sense of animation in terms of organizations, Project Row a specific work? Houses, for example, as well as the TJL: Tell me about some of the Progressive Amateur Boxing themes that, together, the artists VCO: First let me say that I’m Association, where Shaun El C. in Radical Presence explore. immensely grateful to the Leonardo did a piece called The Summer/Fall 2013 30 Museum 31
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art
Jamal Cyrus Texas Fried Tenor (from the series “Learning to Work the Saxophone”), 2012 Courtesy the artist Photo: Jerry Jones
VCO: I’ve known Clifford since his Contemporary Arts Museum Arena [2012]. It’s a Houston undergrad days at the School of the Houston and its board. Activating institution in and of itself, where Art Institute of Chicago. When he the physical exhibition space at an Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, found out I was doing an exhibition ongoing basis required a tremen- trained at PABA with the Reverend on Benjamin Patterson [the founding dous amount of commitment of Ray Martin and George Foreman; Fluxus artist and musician’s first staff, energy, time and monetary they even prayed next door at the major retrospective, which travelled resources. In terms of a specific El Dorado Ballroom, which at the internationally] at CAMH, he was example, let’s take a work such as time was a mosque. We also part- very interested in having a conversa- Terry Adkins’s The Last Trumpet nered with the Houston Museum tion about the progenitors of black (1995). Not only did Terry come in of African American Culture to performance artists. We initially to activate his Akrhaphones—eigh- present Kalup Linzy’s concert, wanted to compile this in a book, teen-foot-tall, trumpet-like instru- Introducing Kaye (Romantic Loner) but that never materialized. Our ments that emit a wide range of [2012]. Moreover, Adam Pendleton research and conversations, how- sounds—for the opening night, came to give a lecture-perfor- ever, were invaluable and later pro- but he also worked with a group of mance at the Glassel School of vided frameworks for this exhibition horn players. The event became an Art. These activities, both within and Cliff’s subsequent art project. invocation of sorts for the exhibi- the gallery and the city itself, For Cliff, this eventually became the tion. Beyond the audience that was kept a nice momentum going for project and exhibition Anthology, there to physically experience the the exhibition. organized in 2011–12 by Christopher performance, the event resonated Our mandate as a museum is Lew at MoMA PS1. As a curator, through the telling of those experi- to bring contemporary art conver- I was grappling with what this ences by people at the event. The sations into the city, but also to be research and inquiry could look like piece continued to be performed diligent in understanding the con- physically as an exhibition. Radical in the world through word of mouth versations that are organic to the Presence became the manifestation and social media. So when people people who live in our backyard. of that quandary: How do you pres- came into the space, the sensibility It’s obviously great when the two ent performance art in an exhibition of the energy around those horns can be seamlessly integral to one that is not relegated to documenta- was alive and well. The object another. There’s a tremendous tion alone? The exhibition became itself retains the energy and the amount of activity in Houston. a curatorial experiment in how to power that’s been enacted within, The collective Otabenga Jones & keep the space and the work on and around it. Associates is here, as are younger infused with movement and anima- artists such as Nathaniel Donnett, tion. What I hope people will see TJL: Can you talk about the role of Lisa E. Harris, Autumn Knight, is that balancing act, of presenting Houston and the artists that live and Flash Gordon Parks and M’kina both documentation and living, make work there in terms of how Tapscott, who also came together breathing artwork. you go about making exhibitions at to engage these conversations the museum? around black performance in an TJL: Can you talk about how exhibition called The Stacks at the you came to choreograph that VCO: We partnered with several Art League around the same time. sense of animation in terms of organizations, Project Row a specific work? Houses, for example, as well as the TJL: Tell me about some of the Progressive Amateur Boxing themes that, together, the artists VCO: First let me say that I’m Association, where Shaun El C. in Radical Presence explore. immensely grateful to the Leonardo did a piece called The Summer/Fall 2013 32 Museum 33
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Black Performance in Contemporary Art
VCO: Clearly the use of the body and video. You also have seminal is true of any performance practice. texts such as Contextures [1977], By putting one’s body on the line, written by Linda Goode Bryant an artist puts all that that body rep- and Marcy Philips, that looked at resents into play and into discourse, ways of naming social issues in including gender, ethnicity, cultural art outside a logic of racial repre- identity, physicality, sexuality. So, sentation. But in terms of Radical for example, when Tameka Norris Presence, I’m hoping it becomes punctures her tongue and creates a framework for more investiga- a painting from her own saliva and tion, more focused attention into blood for Untitled [2012], with peo- the larger conversations about ple bearing witness to that as spec- performance and art by artists of tators, there’s a tangle of conversa- African descent. tions that interrogate history: the history of painting and the role of women in interrogating that history. Valerie Cassel Oliver is Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH). What does it mean to mine that At the CAMH, she has organized numerous history not with paints, not with a group exhibitions, including Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary brush, not on canvas, but on wall Art (2003); Double Consciousness: Black with blood and saliva? So the Conceptual Art Since the 1970s (2005); Black through-line is the embodiment of Light/White Noise (2007); Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the a politic and critique and engage- Moving Image Since 1970 (2008, co-organized ment through actions. It’s a walking with Andrea Barnwell Brownlee and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art); discourse in and of itself. and Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft (2010). In addition, her solo exhibitions include Benjamin Patterson: Born TJL: Looking forward, what are your in the State of FLUX/us (2010); Donald Moffett: hopes for what the show will yield, The Extravagant Vein (2011); and exhibitions on once it’s finished its tour, for the the work of Alvin Baltrop, McArthur Binion and Clifford Owens. She is the 2011 recipient of the discourse, history and creative David C. Driskell Prize. practices of artists of African The New York presentation of Radical descent working in performance? Presence is co-organized between New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and The Studio VCO: While the exhibition feels Museum in Harlem. It will be on view at the Grey from September 7 through December 10, somewhat comprehensive, there 2013. In addition, a festival of performance is much more scholarship to be will occur during Performa 13, the fifth visual art performance biennial, November 2013. done. Also, I know that I stood on other people’s shoulders and research in pulling this project together. Leslie King Hammond and Lowery Stokes Sims’s Art as a Verb [1988], for example, which took a different lens, but still asked questions about the mutable space Derrick Adams I Just Crush a Lot #3, 2011 between installation, performance Courtesy the artist Summer/Fall 2013 32 Museum 33
Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Fall 2013 Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art Black Performance in Contemporary Art
VCO: Clearly the use of the body and video. You also have seminal is true of any performance practice. texts such as Contextures [1977], By putting one’s body on the line, written by Linda Goode Bryant an artist puts all that that body rep- and Marcy Philips, that looked at resents into play and into discourse, ways of naming social issues in including gender, ethnicity, cultural art outside a logic of racial repre- identity, physicality, sexuality. So, sentation. But in terms of Radical for example, when Tameka Norris Presence, I’m hoping it becomes punctures her tongue and creates a framework for more investiga- a painting from her own saliva and tion, more focused attention into blood for Untitled [2012], with peo- the larger conversations about ple bearing witness to that as spec- performance and art by artists of tators, there’s a tangle of conversa- African descent. tions that interrogate history: the history of painting and the role of women in interrogating that history. Valerie Cassel Oliver is Senior Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH). What does it mean to mine that At the CAMH, she has organized numerous history not with paints, not with a group exhibitions, including Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary brush, not on canvas, but on wall Art (2003); Double Consciousness: Black with blood and saliva? So the Conceptual Art Since the 1970s (2005); Black through-line is the embodiment of Light/White Noise (2007); Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the a politic and critique and engage- Moving Image Since 1970 (2008, co-organized ment through actions. It’s a walking with Andrea Barnwell Brownlee and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art); discourse in and of itself. and Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft (2010). In addition, her solo exhibitions include Benjamin Patterson: Born TJL: Looking forward, what are your in the State of FLUX/us (2010); Donald Moffett: hopes for what the show will yield, The Extravagant Vein (2011); and exhibitions on once it’s finished its tour, for the the work of Alvin Baltrop, McArthur Binion and Clifford Owens. She is the 2011 recipient of the discourse, history and creative David C. Driskell Prize. practices of artists of African The New York presentation of Radical descent working in performance? Presence is co-organized between New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and The Studio VCO: While the exhibition feels Museum in Harlem. It will be on view at the Grey from September 7 through December 10, somewhat comprehensive, there 2013. In addition, a festival of performance is much more scholarship to be will occur during Performa 13, the fifth visual art performance biennial, November 2013. done. Also, I know that I stood on other people’s shoulders and research in pulling this project together. Leslie King Hammond and Lowery Stokes Sims’s Art as a Verb [1988], for example, which took a different lens, but still asked questions about the mutable space Derrick Adams I Just Crush a Lot #3, 2011 between installation, performance Courtesy the artist Summer/Fall 2013 34 Beyond 35 Beyond In Memoriam Merton D. Simpson
We remember an artist and connois- seur of African and tribal art, Merton D. Simpson (1928–2013). Simpson established a reputation as one of the most respected and knowledge- able African and tribal art dealers, in addition to being an accomplished Abstract Expressionist painter. Simpson, born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, began demonstrating artistic promise at a young age. Working mainly in an Abstract Expressionist mode, Simpson grew and developed his talents, benefiting from the tutelage of long-time mentor William Halsey. Studying with Hale Woodruff and William Baziotes at the Cooper Union in New York was pivotal in the solidi- fication of Simpson’s voice and the emergence of his interest in collect- ing African art. The Spiral group, in association with Woodruff and Romare Bearden, also played a heavy role in Simpson’s development with the “Confrontation” series, begun Simpson opened a gallery on Merton D. Simpson Confrontation (Harlem), 1964 in the 1960s. Simpson began his Madison Avenue in 1954, the Merton Courtesy Merton D. Simpson Gallery, New York career in collecting in the late 1940s, D. Simpson Gallery. and by the early 1950s he began to Featuring African and modern art, shift toward art dealing. Following the Merton D. Simpson Gallery trips to Africa in the 1960s to 1970s, collection continues to add to the Simpson began to truly emerge as cultural and visual discourse with a prominent dealer in the field in the monumental holdings in both tribal United States. and contemporary art. The Studio With his artistic work exhibited in Museum in Harlem thanks Merton locations such as the Metropolitan D. Simpson for his irreplaceable con- Museum of Art and the Guggenheim tribution to the historical lineage of Museum, and a growing collection African art and, in turn, its influence of his own from around the world, on all art communities. Summer/Fall 2013 34 Beyond 35 Beyond In Memoriam Merton D. Simpson
We remember an artist and connois- seur of African and tribal art, Merton D. Simpson (1928–2013). Simpson established a reputation as one of the most respected and knowledge- able African and tribal art dealers, in addition to being an accomplished Abstract Expressionist painter. Simpson, born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, began demonstrating artistic promise at a young age. Working mainly in an Abstract Expressionist mode, Simpson grew and developed his talents, benefiting from the tutelage of long-time mentor William Halsey. Studying with Hale Woodruff and William Baziotes at the Cooper Union in New York was pivotal in the solidi- fication of Simpson’s voice and the emergence of his interest in collect- ing African art. The Spiral group, in association with Woodruff and Romare Bearden, also played a heavy role in Simpson’s development with the “Confrontation” series, begun Simpson opened a gallery on Merton D. Simpson Confrontation (Harlem), 1964 in the 1960s. Simpson began his Madison Avenue in 1954, the Merton Courtesy Merton D. Simpson Gallery, New York career in collecting in the late 1940s, D. Simpson Gallery. and by the early 1950s he began to Featuring African and modern art, shift toward art dealing. Following the Merton D. Simpson Gallery trips to Africa in the 1960s to 1970s, collection continues to add to the Simpson began to truly emerge as cultural and visual discourse with a prominent dealer in the field in the monumental holdings in both tribal United States. and contemporary art. The Studio With his artistic work exhibited in Museum in Harlem thanks Merton locations such as the Metropolitan D. Simpson for his irreplaceable con- Museum of Art and the Guggenheim tribution to the historical lineage of Museum, and a growing collection African art and, in turn, its influence of his own from around the world, on all art communities. Summer/Fall 2013 36 Beyond 37
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Opinionated Hot Picks
by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator
Migrating Identities Understanding and exploring cul- Saya Woolfalk Nick Cave: Sojourn American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Chimera, 2013 June 28–September 29, 2013 tural contexts, Migrating Identities Courtesy the artist June 9–September 22, 2013 Paintings of the 1960s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts compiles a diverse group of U.S.– Denver Art Museum June 21–November 10, 2013 Opposite Left: San Francisco, California based artists, including past artists Nick Cave Denver, Colorado The National Museum of Women in the Arts ybca.org in residence Meleko Mokgosi and Untitled, 2013 denverartmuseum.org Washington, DC Courtesy the artist and Saya Woolfalk. Migrating Identities Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. nmwa.org illustrates a generation’s reflections Photo: James Prinz Photography, Chicago Nick Cave: Sojourn features approximately
and musings on diasporic ideals and Opposite Right: forty new artworks, including more than Before originating the African-American story cultural affiliation, while embracing Faith Ringgold twenty new Soundsuits. Cave’s multi- quilt revival in the 1970s, Faith Ringgold painted Early Works #25, Self-Portrait, 1965 and defining the fluidity of self. Private Collection sensory, immersive installation transports bold images in response to the Civil Rights and © Faith Ringgold, 1965 visitors to a magical world of color, texture, feminist movements. Her unprecedented explo- Photo: Jim Frank sound and movement. ration of race and gender in America is revealed through 45 rarely-exhibited paintings in which she developed expressive figures and adapted African designs to reflect on the momentous events that shaped America in the 1960s. Summer/Fall 2013 36 Beyond 37
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Opinionated Hot Picks
by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator
Migrating Identities Understanding and exploring cul- Saya Woolfalk Nick Cave: Sojourn American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Chimera, 2013 June 28–September 29, 2013 tural contexts, Migrating Identities Courtesy the artist June 9–September 22, 2013 Paintings of the 1960s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts compiles a diverse group of U.S.– Denver Art Museum June 21–November 10, 2013 Opposite Left: San Francisco, California based artists, including past artists Nick Cave Denver, Colorado The National Museum of Women in the Arts ybca.org in residence Meleko Mokgosi and Untitled, 2013 denverartmuseum.org Washington, DC Courtesy the artist and Saya Woolfalk. Migrating Identities Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. nmwa.org illustrates a generation’s reflections Photo: James Prinz Photography, Chicago Nick Cave: Sojourn features approximately
and musings on diasporic ideals and Opposite Right: forty new artworks, including more than Before originating the African-American story cultural affiliation, while embracing Faith Ringgold twenty new Soundsuits. Cave’s multi- quilt revival in the 1970s, Faith Ringgold painted Early Works #25, Self-Portrait, 1965 and defining the fluidity of self. Private Collection sensory, immersive installation transports bold images in response to the Civil Rights and © Faith Ringgold, 1965 visitors to a magical world of color, texture, feminist movements. Her unprecedented explo- Photo: Jim Frank sound and movement. ration of race and gender in America is revealed through 45 rarely-exhibited paintings in which she developed expressive figures and adapted African designs to reflect on the momentous events that shaped America in the 1960s. Summer/Fall 2013 38 Features 39
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks
In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall June 28–December, 2013 National Gallery of Art Washington, DC nga.gov
Kerry James Marshall’s first solo exhi- bition in Washington includes ten paintings and some twenty works on paper. Marshall’s 1994 painting Great America, recently acquired by the National Gallery, is the center- piece of the exhibition, which brings together a sequence of related paintings and drawings to explore important themes and imagery woven throughout Marshall’s work. In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall marks the sixth in the Tower Project series of installations in the National Gallery’s East Building Tower, focus- ing on developments in art since the mid-twentieth century.
Perspectives 182: Jennie C. Jones Directions: Jennie C. Jones: Music, art history and African- Directions: Jennie C. Jones: LaToya Ruby Frazier Higher Resonance (installation view), 2013 Higher Resonance American culture intermingle in June 21–October 13, 2013 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, May 16–October 27, 2013 the art of 2012 Joyce Alexander Washington, DC Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Photo: Cathy Carver Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Wein Prize recipient Jennie C. Jones. Houston, Texas Garden Jones creates audio collages, paint- Opposite Top: camh.org Kerry James Marshall Washington, DC ings, sculptures and works on paper Great America, 1994 hirshhorn.si.edu that explore the formal and concep- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; LaToya Ruby Frazier is at it again, gift of the Collectors Committee tual junctures between modernist exploring the psychological connec- abstraction and avant-garde music, Opposite Bottom: tions between the self and our sur- LaToya Ruby Frazier particularly jazz. Higher Resonance rounding communities. Featuring The Bottom, 2009 is an immersive installation that Courtesy the artist and the piercing black-and-white photog- Galerie Michel Rein, Paris reflects the extension of Jones’s raphy for which Frazier is known, practice to include acoustics this exhibition explores self-portrai- and architecture, and features a ture and its intersection with docu- listening area carved out of the mentary. She continues to investigate Hirshhorn’s unique building. issues of propaganda, politics and self, revitalizing questions about social and economic progress. Summer/Fall 2013 38 Features 39
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks
In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall June 28–December, 2013 National Gallery of Art Washington, DC nga.gov
Kerry James Marshall’s first solo exhi- bition in Washington includes ten paintings and some twenty works on paper. Marshall’s 1994 painting Great America, recently acquired by the National Gallery, is the center- piece of the exhibition, which brings together a sequence of related paintings and drawings to explore important themes and imagery woven throughout Marshall’s work. In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall marks the sixth in the Tower Project series of installations in the National Gallery’s East Building Tower, focus- ing on developments in art since the mid-twentieth century.
Perspectives 182: Jennie C. Jones Directions: Jennie C. Jones: Music, art history and African- Directions: Jennie C. Jones: LaToya Ruby Frazier Higher Resonance (installation view), 2013 Higher Resonance American culture intermingle in June 21–October 13, 2013 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, May 16–October 27, 2013 the art of 2012 Joyce Alexander Washington, DC Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Photo: Cathy Carver Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Wein Prize recipient Jennie C. Jones. Houston, Texas Garden Jones creates audio collages, paint- Opposite Top: camh.org Kerry James Marshall Washington, DC ings, sculptures and works on paper Great America, 1994 hirshhorn.si.edu that explore the formal and concep- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; LaToya Ruby Frazier is at it again, gift of the Collectors Committee tual junctures between modernist exploring the psychological connec- abstraction and avant-garde music, Opposite Bottom: tions between the self and our sur- LaToya Ruby Frazier particularly jazz. Higher Resonance rounding communities. Featuring The Bottom, 2009 is an immersive installation that Courtesy the artist and the piercing black-and-white photog- Galerie Michel Rein, Paris reflects the extension of Jones’s raphy for which Frazier is known, practice to include acoustics this exhibition explores self-portrai- and architecture, and features a ture and its intersection with docu- listening area carved out of the mentary. She continues to investigate Hirshhorn’s unique building. issues of propaganda, politics and self, revitalizing questions about social and economic progress. Summer/Fall 2013 40 Beyond 41
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks
Check out: studiomuseum.org/studio-blog for more Elsewhere picks!
Save the Date! Performa 13 November 1–24, 2013 performa-arts.org
Don’t miss some of our favorite Theaster Gates: 13th Ballad traveling exhibitions—coming soon May 18–October 6, 2013 to a museum near you! Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 30 Americans Chicago, Illinois June 14–September 8, 2013 mcachicago.org Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee, Wisconsin 13th Ballad extends Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates’s 12 Ballads Rashid Johnson: for Huguenot House, exhibited at Message to Our Folks Documenta 13, the 2012 iteration Ellen Gallagher: Don’t Axe Me Running concurrently in London of the international art exhibition June 8–September 8, 2013 June 19–September 15, 2013 and New York, Ellen Gallagher’s dual in Kassel, Germany (and profiled High Museum of Art New Museum exhibitions present works that span in the Winter/Spring 2013 Studio). Atlanta, Georgia New York, New York the past twenty years of her career. Gates and his collaborators par- September 20, 2013–January 6, 2014 newmuseum.org In London, check out key works such tially restored Kassel’s dilapidated Kemper Art Museum as DeLuxe (2004–05), and Bird in Huguenot House during the multi- Saint Louis, Missouri Ellen Gallagher: AxME Hand (2006). At the New Museum, disciplinary, participatory project. The Venice Biennale May 1–September 1, 2013 look for the first New York presenta- 13th Ballad features a monumental June 1–November 24, 2013 David Hartt: Stray Light Tate Modern tion of Osedax (2011), in collaboration sculpture showcasing objects Venice, Italy September 21, 2013–January 5, 2014 London, England with Edgar Cleijne, an immersive they left behind, along with a set labiennale.org Henry Art Gallery tate.org.uk/modern environment consisting of 16 mm film of repurposed pews from the Seattle, Washington and painted slide projections inspired University of Chicago’s Bond I’m so excited to see the work by Jack Whitten and Lynette Yiadom- many friends, colleagues and Boakye. The American Pavillion pre- Ellen Gallagher by a species of undersea worm that Chapel. This anchoring work Bird in Hand, 2006 burrows into the bones of whale alludes to how art museums, not Studio Museum alumni at the 55th sentation comes thanks to our © Courtesy the artist, Ellen Gallagher carcasses. Drawing inspiration from unlike churches, are sites of pil- International Art Exhibition, the lat- neighbor, The Bronx Museum of the literature, black popular culture, grimage and contemplation. In est edition of the Venice Biennale. Arts. Sarah Sze’s installation Triple music, science fiction and a variety addition, a video presentation The Encyclopedic Palace (Il Palazzo Pointe (2013) was co-commissioned of other sources, Gallagher addresses reprises key aspects of 12 Ballads. Enciclopedico), organized by by Holly Block, Director of the Bronx Biennale curator and New Museum Museum, and Carey Lovelace, a lot of questions and might leave Associate Director Massimilliano critic and independent curator. you with a few of your own. Theaster Gates Gioni, features more than 150 12 Ballads for the Huguenot House (installation view), 2012 artists from 37 countries, including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany Bouchra Khalili, Steve McQueen, J.D. Switcher, 2013 Image courtesy Kavi Gupta Courtesy the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New CHICAGO I BERLIN ‘Okhai Ojeikere, John Outterbridge, York and Corvi-Mora, London Summer/Fall 2013 40 Beyond 41
Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks Elsewhere Completely Biased, Entirely Opinionated Hot Picks
Check out: studiomuseum.org/studio-blog for more Elsewhere picks!
Save the Date! Performa 13 November 1–24, 2013 performa-arts.org
Don’t miss some of our favorite Theaster Gates: 13th Ballad traveling exhibitions—coming soon May 18–October 6, 2013 to a museum near you! Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 30 Americans Chicago, Illinois June 14–September 8, 2013 mcachicago.org Milwaukee Art Museum Milwaukee, Wisconsin 13th Ballad extends Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates’s 12 Ballads Rashid Johnson: for Huguenot House, exhibited at Message to Our Folks Documenta 13, the 2012 iteration Ellen Gallagher: Don’t Axe Me Running concurrently in London of the international art exhibition June 8–September 8, 2013 June 19–September 15, 2013 and New York, Ellen Gallagher’s dual in Kassel, Germany (and profiled High Museum of Art New Museum exhibitions present works that span in the Winter/Spring 2013 Studio). Atlanta, Georgia New York, New York the past twenty years of her career. Gates and his collaborators par- September 20, 2013–January 6, 2014 newmuseum.org In London, check out key works such tially restored Kassel’s dilapidated Kemper Art Museum as DeLuxe (2004–05), and Bird in Huguenot House during the multi- Saint Louis, Missouri Ellen Gallagher: AxME Hand (2006). At the New Museum, disciplinary, participatory project. The Venice Biennale May 1–September 1, 2013 look for the first New York presenta- 13th Ballad features a monumental June 1–November 24, 2013 David Hartt: Stray Light Tate Modern tion of Osedax (2011), in collaboration sculpture showcasing objects Venice, Italy September 21, 2013–January 5, 2014 London, England with Edgar Cleijne, an immersive they left behind, along with a set labiennale.org Henry Art Gallery tate.org.uk/modern environment consisting of 16 mm film of repurposed pews from the Seattle, Washington and painted slide projections inspired University of Chicago’s Bond I’m so excited to see the work by Jack Whitten and Lynette Yiadom- many friends, colleagues and Boakye. The American Pavillion pre- Ellen Gallagher by a species of undersea worm that Chapel. This anchoring work Bird in Hand, 2006 burrows into the bones of whale alludes to how art museums, not Studio Museum alumni at the 55th sentation comes thanks to our © Courtesy the artist, Ellen Gallagher carcasses. Drawing inspiration from unlike churches, are sites of pil- International Art Exhibition, the lat- neighbor, The Bronx Museum of the literature, black popular culture, grimage and contemplation. In est edition of the Venice Biennale. Arts. Sarah Sze’s installation Triple music, science fiction and a variety addition, a video presentation The Encyclopedic Palace (Il Palazzo Pointe (2013) was co-commissioned of other sources, Gallagher addresses reprises key aspects of 12 Ballads. Enciclopedico), organized by by Holly Block, Director of the Bronx Biennale curator and New Museum Museum, and Carey Lovelace, a lot of questions and might leave Associate Director Massimilliano critic and independent curator. you with a few of your own. Theaster Gates Gioni, features more than 150 12 Ballads for the Huguenot House (installation view), 2012 artists from 37 countries, including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany Bouchra Khalili, Steve McQueen, J.D. Switcher, 2013 Image courtesy Kavi Gupta Courtesy the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New CHICAGO I BERLIN ‘Okhai Ojeikere, John Outterbridge, York and Corvi-Mora, London Summer/Fall 2013 42 Beyond 43
If You Like . . . If You Like . . .
by Monique Long, Curatorial Fellow
If you like . . . Check out . . . If you like . . . Check out . . .
Faith Ringgold Sanford Biggers Lyle Ashton Harris Deana Lawson (born 1930, New York, New York) (born 1970, Los Angeles, California) (born 1965, New York, New York) (born 1979, Rochester, New York)
Echoes of Harlem, 1980 Codex (installation view), 2012 Miss America, 1987–88 Thai, 2009 Gift of Altria Group, Inc. 08.13.10 Courtesy the artist and The John and Anonymous gift 03.6.1 Courtesy the artist Mable Ringling Museum of Art Photo: Giovanni Lunardi
Much has been said about how quilts and quilting are regarded in our culture. They serve as foundational texts in Deana Lawson’s enigmatic photographs investigate perceptions of beauty, womanhood, family relationships and the narrative of American history, mnemonic devices, grids for family memories and the basis for a code devised for aspects of subculture. Lawson creates a rapport with her subjects, an intimacy that carries through to her portraits. communicating along the Underground Railroad. Consider the quilt and its evolution from domestic necessity to Her photographs recall those of Lyle Ashton Harris in their striking candor. Harris has been exploring representations objet d’art. Faith Ringgold’s painted story quilts document African-American life, her family and landmark moments of gender since his earliest works of the late 1980s, often using his own body a primary resource. Both Harris and both real and imagined. For Sanford Biggers, Civil War–era quilts function as supports and compositions for his Lawson occasionally employ a mask motif in their work as a means to both reveal and obscure. painted star charts, and paintings of other mapping symbols or cultural signifiers that reference the periods from which they came—variant and compelling all at once. Summer/Fall 2013 42 Beyond 43
If You Like . . . If You Like . . .
by Monique Long, Curatorial Fellow
If you like . . . Check out . . . If you like . . . Check out . . .
Faith Ringgold Sanford Biggers Lyle Ashton Harris Deana Lawson (born 1930, New York, New York) (born 1970, Los Angeles, California) (born 1965, New York, New York) (born 1979, Rochester, New York)
Echoes of Harlem, 1980 Codex (installation view), 2012 Miss America, 1987–88 Thai, 2009 Gift of Altria Group, Inc. 08.13.10 Courtesy the artist and The John and Anonymous gift 03.6.1 Courtesy the artist Mable Ringling Museum of Art Photo: Giovanni Lunardi
Much has been said about how quilts and quilting are regarded in our culture. They serve as foundational texts in Deana Lawson’s enigmatic photographs investigate perceptions of beauty, womanhood, family relationships and the narrative of American history, mnemonic devices, grids for family memories and the basis for a code devised for aspects of subculture. Lawson creates a rapport with her subjects, an intimacy that carries through to her portraits. communicating along the Underground Railroad. Consider the quilt and its evolution from domestic necessity to Her photographs recall those of Lyle Ashton Harris in their striking candor. Harris has been exploring representations objet d’art. Faith Ringgold’s painted story quilts document African-American life, her family and landmark moments of gender since his earliest works of the late 1980s, often using his own body a primary resource. Both Harris and both real and imagined. For Sanford Biggers, Civil War–era quilts function as supports and compositions for his Lawson occasionally employ a mask motif in their work as a means to both reveal and obscure. painted star charts, and paintings of other mapping symbols or cultural signifiers that reference the periods from which they came—variant and compelling all at once. Summer/Fall 2013 44 Beyond 45
If You Like . . . If You Like . . .
If you like . . . Check out . . . If you like . . . Check out . . .
Gordon Parks LaToya Ruby Frazier Yinka Shonibare MBE Elizabeth Colomba (born 1912, Fort Scott, Kansas; died 2006) (born 1982, Braddock, Pennsylvania) (born 1962, London, United Kingdom) (born 1973, Paris, France)
Fontenelle Children Outside Their Grandma Ruby and Me, 2005 Party-Time: Reimagine America, 2009 The Ants, 2011 Harlem Tenement, 1967 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee 01.25.1
Among the constellation of artistic achievements of Gordon Parks, his revelatory photographs documenting abject The life-size installations of Yinka Shonibare MBE convey so much through humor and gorgeous costume design. poverty in America have become part of the American cultural narrative. LaToya Ruby Frazier’s project addresses His critique of European imperialism works through his trademark use of Dutch wax prints imported from Indonesia, invisibility, class and race in the poetic portraits of the residents of her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, in her which have been diffused and reinterpreted in the African marketplace. With her lush paintings, Elizabeth Colomba inaugural exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital, on view through August 2013. presents textured narratives replete with religious symbols, history and canonical art historical references. They feature female protagonists as central figures—exquisite and alone in domestic spaces. Summer/Fall 2013 44 Beyond 45
If You Like . . . If You Like . . .
If you like . . . Check out . . . If you like . . . Check out . . .
Gordon Parks LaToya Ruby Frazier Yinka Shonibare MBE Elizabeth Colomba (born 1912, Fort Scott, Kansas; died 2006) (born 1982, Braddock, Pennsylvania) (born 1962, London, United Kingdom) (born 1973, Paris, France)
Fontenelle Children Outside Their Grandma Ruby and Me, 2005 Party-Time: Reimagine America, 2009 The Ants, 2011 Harlem Tenement, 1967 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee 01.25.1
Among the constellation of artistic achievements of Gordon Parks, his revelatory photographs documenting abject The life-size installations of Yinka Shonibare MBE convey so much through humor and gorgeous costume design. poverty in America have become part of the American cultural narrative. LaToya Ruby Frazier’s project addresses His critique of European imperialism works through his trademark use of Dutch wax prints imported from Indonesia, invisibility, class and race in the poetic portraits of the residents of her hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania, in her which have been diffused and reinterpreted in the African marketplace. With her lush paintings, Elizabeth Colomba inaugural exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, LaToya Ruby Frazier: A Haunted Capital, on view through August 2013. presents textured narratives replete with religious symbols, history and canonical art historical references. They feature female protagonists as central figures—exquisite and alone in domestic spaces. Summer/Fall 2013 46 Beyond 47
Book Picks Book Picks
by Edwin Ramoran, Manager of Public Programs and Community Engagement
Jean-Paul Goude Jungle Fever Xavier Moreau, 1981
Grace Jones, French graphic Keith Boykin, ed. Laina Dawes Taiye Selasi Vivek Bald Nyuol Lueth Tong, ed. designer and photographer Jean- For Colored Boys Who Have What Are You Doing Here? A Black Ghana Must Go Bengali Harlem and the Lost There Is a Country: New Fiction from Paul Goude’s muse, growls from Considered Suicide When the Woman’s Life and Liberation in Viking, 2013 Histories of South Asian America the New Nation of South Sudan a cage on the cover of this out-of- Rainbow Is Still Not Enough Heavy Metal Harvard University Press, 2012 McSweeney’s, 2013 print hardcover book. It presents Magnus Books, 2012 Bazillion Points, 2012 This is the first novel by Selasi, the provocative style and tricks of who calls New York, New Delhi and Based on South Asian migration It’s not every day we get to witness an artist at his creative peak during Though Jason Collins came out as With a foreword by Skin of the Rome home, and was included on to the United States from the 1880s the birth of a new national literary the disco era and right before the the first openly gay NBA player, British band Skunk Anansie, this year’s Granta list of twenty Best through the 1960s, and delving tradition! So we’re super-excited dawn of digital manipulation. the suicide rate among queer youth this book dives headlong into the Young British Novelists. The narra- into issues of labor and public pol- about There Is a Country, featuring remains higher than that of their lives of black women active in tive focuses on the Sai family— icy, such as anti-Asian immigration eight pieces by South Sudanese straight counterparts. This anthol- the milieus of the predominately comprised of a Ghanaian father, laws, this book focuses on the lives authors. The first collection of its ogy highlights works by emerging male punk, heavy metal and hard- a Nigerian mother and their four of the primarily male working-class kind from the world’s newest coun- and established writers of color, core music scenes. Tracking her children—and their lives throughout migrants, many of them Bengali try, this anthology is an exciting including Hassan Beyah, Clay Cane, personal experience getting the United States and West Africa. Muslims who have settled in New landmark. James Earl Hardy, Nathan Hale beyond ostracism, Dawes reaffirms York, Detroit, Baltimore and New Williams, B. Scott, Will Sheridan Jr., the inherent diversity in musical Orleans. Bald is currently working José David Sierra, André St. Clair communities and the freedom to on a documentary feature film on Thompson and Emanuel Xavier. listen to whatever we want. this unearthed history. Summer/Fall 2013 46 Beyond 47
Book Picks Book Picks
by Edwin Ramoran, Manager of Public Programs and Community Engagement
Jean-Paul Goude Jungle Fever Xavier Moreau, 1981
Grace Jones, French graphic Keith Boykin, ed. Laina Dawes Taiye Selasi Vivek Bald Nyuol Lueth Tong, ed. designer and photographer Jean- For Colored Boys Who Have What Are You Doing Here? A Black Ghana Must Go Bengali Harlem and the Lost There Is a Country: New Fiction from Paul Goude’s muse, growls from Considered Suicide When the Woman’s Life and Liberation in Viking, 2013 Histories of South Asian America the New Nation of South Sudan a cage on the cover of this out-of- Rainbow Is Still Not Enough Heavy Metal Harvard University Press, 2012 McSweeney’s, 2013 print hardcover book. It presents Magnus Books, 2012 Bazillion Points, 2012 This is the first novel by Selasi, the provocative style and tricks of who calls New York, New Delhi and Based on South Asian migration It’s not every day we get to witness an artist at his creative peak during Though Jason Collins came out as With a foreword by Skin of the Rome home, and was included on to the United States from the 1880s the birth of a new national literary the disco era and right before the the first openly gay NBA player, British band Skunk Anansie, this year’s Granta list of twenty Best through the 1960s, and delving tradition! So we’re super-excited dawn of digital manipulation. the suicide rate among queer youth this book dives headlong into the Young British Novelists. The narra- into issues of labor and public pol- about There Is a Country, featuring remains higher than that of their lives of black women active in tive focuses on the Sai family— icy, such as anti-Asian immigration eight pieces by South Sudanese straight counterparts. This anthol- the milieus of the predominately comprised of a Ghanaian father, laws, this book focuses on the lives authors. The first collection of its ogy highlights works by emerging male punk, heavy metal and hard- a Nigerian mother and their four of the primarily male working-class kind from the world’s newest coun- and established writers of color, core music scenes. Tracking her children—and their lives throughout migrants, many of them Bengali try, this anthology is an exciting including Hassan Beyah, Clay Cane, personal experience getting the United States and West Africa. Muslims who have settled in New landmark. James Earl Hardy, Nathan Hale beyond ostracism, Dawes reaffirms York, Detroit, Baltimore and New Williams, B. Scott, Will Sheridan Jr., the inherent diversity in musical Orleans. Bald is currently working José David Sierra, André St. Clair communities and the freedom to on a documentary feature film on Thompson and Emanuel Xavier. listen to whatever we want. this unearthed history. Winter/Spring 2013 48
Studio Visit Torkwase Dyson
by Monique Long, Curatorial Fellow
Torkwase Dyson is a Brooklyn-based artist who earned blage and abstract, minimal painting to render Elmina her undergraduate degree in painting and printmaking and other sites of historical significance, namely major from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2001 and an slave ports around the world. This geopolitical approach MFA in the same discipline from Yale University in 2003. can be traced back to the lyrical prose of Frederick She also works with video, photography, site-specific Douglass’s first narrative. So faithful was he in describ- installation and performance. She has taught at several ing the landscape of the Maryland plantation where institutions, including Spelman College in Atlanta. he was enslaved, that archaeologists have used his first Recently she took a break from teaching to turn her book as a map to excavate the site. From a bird’s-eye full attention toward developing a new approach. view (the perspective of the omniscient narrator), Those familiar with Dyson’s work will be surprised to Dyson establishes place, vegetation, water and all ambi- learn that she has returned to painting, a medium she ent surroundings. Off-center but prominent, an internal has not worked with since graduate school. For the last staircase in the castle is a focal point. She then departs several years, she has been known for creating large- from documenting the structure and takes poetic license scale, sculptural installations constructed of found to reimagine the site to pay homage to the women who materials. She has always been interested in nature and passed through the “door of no return,” juxtaposing the ecology, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the visual data with the castle’s troubled history. The draw- oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, where she has familial ings are abstracted and painted white, with subtle blue roots, provided the impetus for incorporating issues undertones. The canvases uncannily resemble what dis- about the environment vis-á-vis blackness in her work. tant memory looks like in the mind’s eye. Dyson calls the She brings to her practice the conviction that those paintings a “love letter” to her ancestors. events exposed the vulnerability of people of color to These love letters are whispered across the ocean the effects of climate change. and then echoed back to the viewer. That is not to say The basis for her new paintings is notes and sketches the paintings are at all sentimental. The compositions she made during a trip to Elmina Castle in Ghana in are not peopled with tormented bodies. Nor are they 2002. The experience of visiting the castle, where explicit attempts to show the brutality of slavery. Africans were held to be enslaved in the Americas from Instead, they are decidedly about dematerializing 1637 to 1814, stayed with her for over a decade before her practice. Dyson hopes the viewer will have a more it began to manifest in her work this year. visceral, intimate response to her work by reading In this project, Dyson conflates the visual language the minimal landscapes with the understanding of all of landscape architecture with the practices of assem- that is implied.
Top Image: Climbing Stairs, 2013 Courtesy the artist
Bottom Image: Fifteen Steps and Fifty Trees, 2013 Courtesy the artist Winter/Spring 2013 48
Studio Visit Torkwase Dyson
by Monique Long, Curatorial Fellow
Torkwase Dyson is a Brooklyn-based artist who earned blage and abstract, minimal painting to render Elmina her undergraduate degree in painting and printmaking and other sites of historical significance, namely major from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2001 and an slave ports around the world. This geopolitical approach MFA in the same discipline from Yale University in 2003. can be traced back to the lyrical prose of Frederick She also works with video, photography, site-specific Douglass’s first narrative. So faithful was he in describ- installation and performance. She has taught at several ing the landscape of the Maryland plantation where institutions, including Spelman College in Atlanta. he was enslaved, that archaeologists have used his first Recently she took a break from teaching to turn her book as a map to excavate the site. From a bird’s-eye full attention toward developing a new approach. view (the perspective of the omniscient narrator), Those familiar with Dyson’s work will be surprised to Dyson establishes place, vegetation, water and all ambi- learn that she has returned to painting, a medium she ent surroundings. Off-center but prominent, an internal has not worked with since graduate school. For the last staircase in the castle is a focal point. She then departs several years, she has been known for creating large- from documenting the structure and takes poetic license scale, sculptural installations constructed of found to reimagine the site to pay homage to the women who materials. She has always been interested in nature and passed through the “door of no return,” juxtaposing the ecology, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the visual data with the castle’s troubled history. The draw- oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, where she has familial ings are abstracted and painted white, with subtle blue roots, provided the impetus for incorporating issues undertones. The canvases uncannily resemble what dis- about the environment vis-á-vis blackness in her work. tant memory looks like in the mind’s eye. Dyson calls the She brings to her practice the conviction that those paintings a “love letter” to her ancestors. events exposed the vulnerability of people of color to These love letters are whispered across the ocean the effects of climate change. and then echoed back to the viewer. That is not to say The basis for her new paintings is notes and sketches the paintings are at all sentimental. The compositions she made during a trip to Elmina Castle in Ghana in are not peopled with tormented bodies. Nor are they 2002. The experience of visiting the castle, where explicit attempts to show the brutality of slavery. Africans were held to be enslaved in the Americas from Instead, they are decidedly about dematerializing 1637 to 1814, stayed with her for over a decade before her practice. Dyson hopes the viewer will have a more it began to manifest in her work this year. visceral, intimate response to her work by reading In this project, Dyson conflates the visual language the minimal landscapes with the understanding of all of landscape architecture with the practices of assem- that is implied.
Top Image: Climbing Stairs, 2013 Courtesy the artist
Bottom Image: Fifteen Steps and Fifty Trees, 2013 Courtesy the artist Summer/Fall 2013 50 Ballroom Audobon Features
by Jayne Cortez 1934–2012
come on home to Harlem & I’ll be waiting in uptown Manhattan with my cultural lifeline my primary school for psychological headaches & my emergency exit for flirting lovers & violent showdowns Yes, yes I party with all parties chant with all chanters concert with all concert goers and collaborate with famous faith healers funeral directors newscasters beauticians preachers & political activists check it out
Jayne Cortez I’m listed in the dictionary of who’s who Photo: Courtesy Hanging Loose Press and I have spots made by ingredients of every cleanser known in the universe can you believe it Ballroom Audobon I carry fingerprints of each person that’s me that ever touched this microphone I don’t have to sit still & my floorboards are matted with split reeds I don’t have to wait for corroboration sealed with the strong-smelling resin of my tables are blessed grieving widows with the exaggerated teeth marks of embedded with players & dancers shouts & screams & circling & swinging chairs the scrambling footsteps of an audience in search of spiritual intervention betrayed by someone & yes I have dust from a million encounters we once called beloved my walls have tobacco stains, green reefer grime you hear what I’m saying black cherry lipstick smears it was a nasty fonky day nut brown face powder sweat a day dominated by royal crown hair pomade dots, coco chanel self-hatred & the misplaced loyalty of toilet water splashes negro killer convicts & little specks of smack sent on a suicide mission that’s a fact to blow holes through why not the X of my Malcolm the secrets in this world & now belong to me frozen in that blood I’m the delivery room for new organizations I am Ballroom Audobon & the cancellation hall for irrelevant ideologies sweet-smelling birthplace of a martyr listen up if the Solomon Islands
are being swallowed by the ocean Reprinted from On the Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems people from there will just have to © 2009, by Jayne Cortez, by permission of Hanging Loose Press. Summer/Fall 2013 50 Ballroom Audobon Features
by Jayne Cortez 1934–2012
come on home to Harlem & I’ll be waiting in uptown Manhattan with my cultural lifeline my primary school for psychological headaches & my emergency exit for flirting lovers & violent showdowns Yes, yes I party with all parties chant with all chanters concert with all concert goers and collaborate with famous faith healers funeral directors newscasters beauticians preachers & political activists check it out
Jayne Cortez I’m listed in the dictionary of who’s who Photo: Courtesy Hanging Loose Press and I have spots made by ingredients of every cleanser known in the universe can you believe it Ballroom Audobon I carry fingerprints of each person that’s me that ever touched this microphone I don’t have to sit still & my floorboards are matted with split reeds I don’t have to wait for corroboration sealed with the strong-smelling resin of my tables are blessed grieving widows with the exaggerated teeth marks of embedded with players & dancers shouts & screams & circling & swinging chairs the scrambling footsteps of an audience in search of spiritual intervention betrayed by someone & yes I have dust from a million encounters we once called beloved my walls have tobacco stains, green reefer grime you hear what I’m saying black cherry lipstick smears it was a nasty fonky day nut brown face powder sweat a day dominated by royal crown hair pomade dots, coco chanel self-hatred & the misplaced loyalty of toilet water splashes negro killer convicts & little specks of smack sent on a suicide mission that’s a fact to blow holes through why not the X of my Malcolm the secrets in this world & now belong to me frozen in that blood I’m the delivery room for new organizations I am Ballroom Audobon & the cancellation hall for irrelevant ideologies sweet-smelling birthplace of a martyr listen up if the Solomon Islands
are being swallowed by the ocean Reprinted from On the Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems people from there will just have to © 2009, by Jayne Cortez, by permission of Hanging Loose Press. Summer/Fall 2013 52 Features 53 Artist × Artist: Odili Donald Odita on Ayé A. Aton
By Odili Donald Odita
Organized in spring 2013, Ayé A. Aton: Space-Time Continuum was musician and painter Ayé A. Aton’s first solo museum presentation. With over 200 slides and an accompanying soundtrack, the presentation included photographic docu- mentations of murals the artist made in the homes of African-Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Referencing ancient Egypt, Christianity and outer space, Aton’s murals provide an intimate glimpse into the domestic lives of a com- munity in the midst of cultural transformation. Ayé A. Aton: Space-Time Continuum was organized by Assistant Curator Thomas J. Lax.
Artist Donald Odili Odita reflects on Aton’s contributions to the development of Afrofuturism and on the vibrant street life in today’s Philadelphia.
My first real encounter with Sun Ra’s music came when the early 1970s, Aton made murals, primarily on walls in I was working as a gallery assistant at the renowned private homes in Chicago, Philadelphia and his home state Kenkeleba House in New York, on Second Street and of Kentucky. These murals show the great influence of Sun Avenue B, in the heart of Alphabet City. It was 1993, Ra, carrying his themes surrounding a possible future with and I had just finished installing Howardena Pindell’s an Afrocentric perspective—later called “Afrofuturism.” retrospective with Kenkeleba’s Director at the time, Aton was born Robert Underwood in 1940 in Versailles, Sur Rodney Sur. Our next job was to install new work by Kentucky. He studied at Kentucky State University, and sculptor Peter Bradley. It was an all-day job. I worked then moved to Harlem and later Chicago, in 1960. Starting alone, with the radio on WKCR, which was playing in 1961 and continuing for eleven years, Aton maintained Sun Ra all day long to commemorate his passing. I heard a long-distance phone discourse with Sun Ra, speaking great music that day, and I marveled out loud at the man’s almost on a daily basis. Sun Ra inspired him to investi- genius. It was amazing to listen to his words of wisdom gate his life experience as an African American to move echoing throughout the space as I contemplated my own beyond the standardized confines of cultural stereotype. life and prospects as an artist in the city. His words on He also encouraged Aton to expand on these themes action and life stuck in my head, and I became a fan from through painting. Aton’s murals from this period are that moment on. testaments to his exploration into the future of his Sun Ra had many devotees around the world for his potential—as an artist of this community. words, insight and music. Ayé A. Aton is special among Many of the works in Aton’s Studio Museum exhibition the legion of Sun Ra followers, and would become an depict pulsating spaces, or radiating spaces with a center, instrumental part of the Sun Ra legend. Like Sun Ra, Aton or probable center, within the painting. The radiating made work for the future and about the future. As the points often start from nowhere, making a proposition “space” drummer of the timeless jazz band, the Sun Ra for the infinite, and in some cases indicating a sun, moon Arkestra, Aton not only provided the rhythmic percussion or nebula, giving the implication of a space of origin, or that pushed the band in its exploratory drive for space, of a return home. The colors in several of the murals are but also made works of art that contributed to advancing derived from the Earth as a cornucopia. In other instances, the band’s aesthetic ethos. During the late 1960s, through the colors might define a cosmos seen and imagined from Summer/Fall 2013 52 Features 53 Artist × Artist: Odili Donald Odita on Ayé A. Aton
By Odili Donald Odita
Organized in spring 2013, Ayé A. Aton: Space-Time Continuum was musician and painter Ayé A. Aton’s first solo museum presentation. With over 200 slides and an accompanying soundtrack, the presentation included photographic docu- mentations of murals the artist made in the homes of African-Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Referencing ancient Egypt, Christianity and outer space, Aton’s murals provide an intimate glimpse into the domestic lives of a com- munity in the midst of cultural transformation. Ayé A. Aton: Space-Time Continuum was organized by Assistant Curator Thomas J. Lax.
Artist Donald Odili Odita reflects on Aton’s contributions to the development of Afrofuturism and on the vibrant street life in today’s Philadelphia.
My first real encounter with Sun Ra’s music came when the early 1970s, Aton made murals, primarily on walls in I was working as a gallery assistant at the renowned private homes in Chicago, Philadelphia and his home state Kenkeleba House in New York, on Second Street and of Kentucky. These murals show the great influence of Sun Avenue B, in the heart of Alphabet City. It was 1993, Ra, carrying his themes surrounding a possible future with and I had just finished installing Howardena Pindell’s an Afrocentric perspective—later called “Afrofuturism.” retrospective with Kenkeleba’s Director at the time, Aton was born Robert Underwood in 1940 in Versailles, Sur Rodney Sur. Our next job was to install new work by Kentucky. He studied at Kentucky State University, and sculptor Peter Bradley. It was an all-day job. I worked then moved to Harlem and later Chicago, in 1960. Starting alone, with the radio on WKCR, which was playing in 1961 and continuing for eleven years, Aton maintained Sun Ra all day long to commemorate his passing. I heard a long-distance phone discourse with Sun Ra, speaking great music that day, and I marveled out loud at the man’s almost on a daily basis. Sun Ra inspired him to investi- genius. It was amazing to listen to his words of wisdom gate his life experience as an African American to move echoing throughout the space as I contemplated my own beyond the standardized confines of cultural stereotype. life and prospects as an artist in the city. His words on He also encouraged Aton to expand on these themes action and life stuck in my head, and I became a fan from through painting. Aton’s murals from this period are that moment on. testaments to his exploration into the future of his Sun Ra had many devotees around the world for his potential—as an artist of this community. words, insight and music. Ayé A. Aton is special among Many of the works in Aton’s Studio Museum exhibition the legion of Sun Ra followers, and would become an depict pulsating spaces, or radiating spaces with a center, instrumental part of the Sun Ra legend. Like Sun Ra, Aton or probable center, within the painting. The radiating made work for the future and about the future. As the points often start from nowhere, making a proposition “space” drummer of the timeless jazz band, the Sun Ra for the infinite, and in some cases indicating a sun, moon Arkestra, Aton not only provided the rhythmic percussion or nebula, giving the implication of a space of origin, or that pushed the band in its exploratory drive for space, of a return home. The colors in several of the murals are but also made works of art that contributed to advancing derived from the Earth as a cornucopia. In other instances, the band’s aesthetic ethos. During the late 1960s, through the colors might define a cosmos seen and imagined from Summer/Fall 2013 54 Features 55
Previous Page: Ayé A. Aton Ayé A. Aton Ayé A. Aton Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist
Earth. Many of the compositions envision solar systems, one finds a mix of the ancestral and the contemporary— Odili Donald Odita is an artist based in Philadelphia and New York. Recent projects from the traditional dress of African Muslims to the include wall paintings at the Savannah College of Art & Design Museum of Art (2013) and possible space ways, new constellations and the force of the New Orleans Museum of Art (2011). Odita has exhibited at the Contemporary Art movement and light cutting through these spaces. What contemporary outfits of native-born American Muslims. Museum, Houston, Texas (2010); the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University (2009); emerges from these images is a state of community—com- There are Jewish Africans and West Indians, as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2008); and the Contemporary Art suited dandies and the beautiful-hat ladies who accompany Center, Cincinnati (2007). Group exhibitions include Magical Visions: 10 Contemporary munity implied in the collected forms and collective read- African American Artists at the Mechanical Hall Gallery, University of Delaware (2012); ing of this visual iconography. Sun Ra spoke of communica- them. You can find new-age, dashiki-clad hippies with ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2011); The Global Africa Project, tion to and from the cosmos—through space, culture and organics and incense alongside skateboarding kids, and Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2010); Wallworks, Yerba Buena Center for the the death-defying cyclists and motorcyclists who brave Arts, San Francisco (20009); and the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). In 2007, Odita was time. Sun Ra spoke about both origins and futures, and the awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. In the same year, he inaugurated the great power that existed before time. What he wanted for the streets among unobservant motorists. And all the Project Space at The Studio Museum in Harlem with his exhibition Equalizer. himself and others to understand was the responsibility of rest wear the latest hip-hop street gear or daily business accepting this reality. Aton’s work can be seen as a celebra- wear. Diversity, multiplicity and the acknowledgement tion of these forces within and around all of us. of difference are whole and real in this community; it is Today I live in Germantown, Philadelphia, minutes about freedom of mind and choice in one’s own voice. from the house that Sun Ra lived in so many years ago. This multiplicity is an escape from a reductive, immobiliz- The house still radiates with his gathered community. ing and censoring monoculture. Sun Ra preached that we In Germantown, the Afronauts of past and present still all have the opportunity to place ourselves on a pathway of walk the streets, spreading the gospel according to Sun freedom. In his space, creativity, vision and agency can, in Ra, but they do not wear the stellar silver and colorful silk fact, be our cornucopias. The mental space of Sun Ra was of their inspiration. Rather, their dress is of the current a stellar place, and Aton visualized and represented this environment and surroundings. From street to street, clearly, with future-minded, polychromatic intensity.
Exterior view of the Sun Ra Arkestra’s House, Philadelphia Photo: Odili Donald Odita Summer/Fall 2013 54 Features 55
Previous Page: Ayé A. Aton Ayé A. Aton Ayé A. Aton Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Untitled, 1963–76/2013 Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist
Earth. Many of the compositions envision solar systems, one finds a mix of the ancestral and the contemporary— Odili Donald Odita is an artist based in Philadelphia and New York. Recent projects from the traditional dress of African Muslims to the include wall paintings at the Savannah College of Art & Design Museum of Art (2013) and possible space ways, new constellations and the force of the New Orleans Museum of Art (2011). Odita has exhibited at the Contemporary Art movement and light cutting through these spaces. What contemporary outfits of native-born American Muslims. Museum, Houston, Texas (2010); the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University (2009); emerges from these images is a state of community—com- There are Jewish Africans and West Indians, as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2008); and the Contemporary Art suited dandies and the beautiful-hat ladies who accompany Center, Cincinnati (2007). Group exhibitions include Magical Visions: 10 Contemporary munity implied in the collected forms and collective read- African American Artists at the Mechanical Hall Gallery, University of Delaware (2012); ing of this visual iconography. Sun Ra spoke of communica- them. You can find new-age, dashiki-clad hippies with ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2011); The Global Africa Project, tion to and from the cosmos—through space, culture and organics and incense alongside skateboarding kids, and Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2010); Wallworks, Yerba Buena Center for the the death-defying cyclists and motorcyclists who brave Arts, San Francisco (20009); and the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). In 2007, Odita was time. Sun Ra spoke about both origins and futures, and the awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. In the same year, he inaugurated the great power that existed before time. What he wanted for the streets among unobservant motorists. And all the Project Space at The Studio Museum in Harlem with his exhibition Equalizer. himself and others to understand was the responsibility of rest wear the latest hip-hop street gear or daily business accepting this reality. Aton’s work can be seen as a celebra- wear. Diversity, multiplicity and the acknowledgement tion of these forces within and around all of us. of difference are whole and real in this community; it is Today I live in Germantown, Philadelphia, minutes about freedom of mind and choice in one’s own voice. from the house that Sun Ra lived in so many years ago. This multiplicity is an escape from a reductive, immobiliz- The house still radiates with his gathered community. ing and censoring monoculture. Sun Ra preached that we In Germantown, the Afronauts of past and present still all have the opportunity to place ourselves on a pathway of walk the streets, spreading the gospel according to Sun freedom. In his space, creativity, vision and agency can, in Ra, but they do not wear the stellar silver and colorful silk fact, be our cornucopias. The mental space of Sun Ra was of their inspiration. Rather, their dress is of the current a stellar place, and Aton visualized and represented this environment and surroundings. From street to street, clearly, with future-minded, polychromatic intensity.
Exterior view of the Sun Ra Arkestra’s House, Philadelphia Photo: Odili Donald Odita Summer/Fall 2013 56 Features 57 Artists and the Curatorial Impulse
by Kristina Maria Lopez, Curatorial Intern
Artists have held a central role in the energy of The Studio communities and include more art by artists that had Museum in Harlem since its opening in 1968 through their historically been absent in their spaces. As an artist, I efforts to engage the Museum's immediate community knew the Studio Museum was the perfect place for me and a larger local, national and international network. to experience how these issues are addressed when plan- In 1968, the opening exhibition was Tom Lloyd’s Electronic ning exhibitions within the context of a museum. The Refractions, a series of abstract light and kinetic sculp- close relationships that artists can share with institu- tures that pushed away from the popular Social Realist tions became clearer to me during my time here as a approach to engaging with the visual dynamics of black Curatorial Intern. experience. Despite trepidation from his predecessors The role of artists as creative and cultural producers and even contemporaries, with regard to understanding in their communities has often been intertwined with the inherent political motives within geometric forms, the institutions that display their works to larger publics. Lloyd did not feel separated from the social implications Artists have self-organized exhibitions, performances of his work. “The rhythms in my work are the rhythms and protests that rub against the mythological and physi- of our city environment—regular and hard,” he said.1 cal facades of such institutions. Andrea Fraser asks us William T. Williams, another artist working in the realm not to fall into the traps of the rhetoric of institutional of abstract forms, through hard-edge painting, was the critique, but rather to question “what kind of institu- first Director of the Artist-in-Residence program. tion we are, what kind of values we institutionalize, what Artists such as Lloyd and Williams helped prepare the forms of practice we reward, and what kinds of rewards groundwork for the Museum’s budding film series and we aspire to.”2 When artists engage with different forms exhibitions. As part of the Art Workers’ Coalition, Lloyd, of the spread of knowledge, they create contact with along with other artists, filmmakers, critics and museum and between people and places both near and far. This workers, pressured various New York museums to reform engagement creates new sets of relations that reshape, their exhibition practices to address their immediate revitalize and review multiple histories.
Opposite Top: Opposite Bottom: Sean Shim-Boyle Exterior view of Round 34 opening, Salt House, (installation view), 2013 Courtesy Project Row Houses, Houston Courtesy Project Row Houses, Houston Photo: Eric Hester Photo: Eric Hester Summer/Fall 2013 56 Features 57 Artists and the Curatorial Impulse
by Kristina Maria Lopez, Curatorial Intern
Artists have held a central role in the energy of The Studio communities and include more art by artists that had Museum in Harlem since its opening in 1968 through their historically been absent in their spaces. As an artist, I efforts to engage the Museum's immediate community knew the Studio Museum was the perfect place for me and a larger local, national and international network. to experience how these issues are addressed when plan- In 1968, the opening exhibition was Tom Lloyd’s Electronic ning exhibitions within the context of a museum. The Refractions, a series of abstract light and kinetic sculp- close relationships that artists can share with institu- tures that pushed away from the popular Social Realist tions became clearer to me during my time here as a approach to engaging with the visual dynamics of black Curatorial Intern. experience. Despite trepidation from his predecessors The role of artists as creative and cultural producers and even contemporaries, with regard to understanding in their communities has often been intertwined with the inherent political motives within geometric forms, the institutions that display their works to larger publics. Lloyd did not feel separated from the social implications Artists have self-organized exhibitions, performances of his work. “The rhythms in my work are the rhythms and protests that rub against the mythological and physi- of our city environment—regular and hard,” he said.1 cal facades of such institutions. Andrea Fraser asks us William T. Williams, another artist working in the realm not to fall into the traps of the rhetoric of institutional of abstract forms, through hard-edge painting, was the critique, but rather to question “what kind of institu- first Director of the Artist-in-Residence program. tion we are, what kind of values we institutionalize, what Artists such as Lloyd and Williams helped prepare the forms of practice we reward, and what kinds of rewards groundwork for the Museum’s budding film series and we aspire to.”2 When artists engage with different forms exhibitions. As part of the Art Workers’ Coalition, Lloyd, of the spread of knowledge, they create contact with along with other artists, filmmakers, critics and museum and between people and places both near and far. This workers, pressured various New York museums to reform engagement creates new sets of relations that reshape, their exhibition practices to address their immediate revitalize and review multiple histories.
Opposite Top: Opposite Bottom: Sean Shim-Boyle Exterior view of Round 34 opening, Salt House, (installation view), 2013 Courtesy Project Row Houses, Houston Courtesy Project Row Houses, Houston Photo: Eric Hester Photo: Eric Hester Summer/Fall 2013 58 Features 59
Tom Lloyd and assistants at The Courtesy the Artists (Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade) Studio Museum in Harlem, c. 1968 The Meeting, 2012 MoMA PS1, October 21, 2012 Courtesy the artists
Prime examples of such community-based initiatives (1992–93). However, this method has become a practice and Alexandro Segade, presented The Meeting, a perfor- established by artists can be found in geographically in and of itself, as spaces where art is displayed are increas- mance program in conjunction with the opening of Now specific projects led by Edgar Arceneaux and Rick Lowe. ingly inviting artists to participate as exhibition-makers. Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, curated by From 1999 to 2012, Arceneaux was Director of the Watts In 2012, Ellen Gallagher was invited to organize Printin’, Kellie Jones at MoMA PS1 in late 2012. The geodesic dome House Project, an artist-driven neighborhood redevelop- a satellite exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, with in PS1’s courtyard, where this program was held, was built ment project. Artists, architects, designers and volun- Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator in the Department of specifically to host a wide array of programs including teers came together to reimagine the possibilities of Prints and Illustrated Books. In tandem with a larger survey performance art, film, dance and other multidisciplinary the immediate environment in the Watts district of Los of prints and books, Print/Out, Printin’ utilized Gallagher’s projects—quite literally works that don’t fit within the Angeles. Originally conceptualized by Lowe, the Watts complex portfolio of sixty prints, DeLuxe (2004–05), as museum’s main building. As part of The Meeting, local House Project is a direct reflection of his earlier propo- its central point. Gallagher reworked images from mid- artists, such as niv Acosta, Adam Pendleton and Xaviera sition, Project Row Houses. Since 1993, Project Row twentieth-century black lifestyle magazines with a variety Simmons, among others, were invited to respond to Houses has invigorated Houston’s Third Ward with a of technical processes, including tattoo machine engrav- a song from activist and Black Panther leader Elaine sense of community through displaying art and celebrat- ing and laser-cutting. By surrounding DeLuxe with works Brown’s 1969 agitprop album Seize the Time. The duo ing African-American history and culture. The success by a full range of artists, from Dutch engraver Experiens behind Courtesy the Artists each performed their own Volunteer Day at The Platform, 2011 Courtesy Watts House Project, Los Angeles of both projects is rooted in thinking about art as a form Sillemans’s seventeenth-century penschilderingen3 to responses, deliberately shifting their roles from organiz- of social activity. The projects facilitate multiple conver- pioneering graffiti writer and multidisciplinary artist ers to collaborative performers. sations between creative workers and residents, rather RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ's Gold Letter Racers (1987–89), Gallagher The curatorial impulse by artists is often inseparable than dictate the forms that the neighborhood takes. initiated a new discourse on how her own work could be from their visual practices, thus leading to openly subjec-
Another example of artists working in the realm of the understood and placed in a larger history of art. tive approaches toward making meaning. When artists’ 1. Julie Baumgold, “Black Museums,” New York Magazine, curatorial happens when an artist is invited to represent This rerouting of accepted art histories becomes practices leak into the shaping of exhibitions, they not only October, 21, 1968, 19 the collection of a museum. Perhaps the most pertinent doubly focused when it involves practices that cannot be are collaborating and performing with other institutions 2. Andrea Fraser, “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” Artforum, September 2005, 284. instance of this would be Fred Wilson’s installation at contained within square rooms. Courtesy the Artists, a and artists, but also are inviting viewers to join them in the 3. Penschilderingen are pen paintings on prepared canvas the Maryland Historical Society, Mining the Museum curatorial and artistic collaboration between Malik Gaines spread of knowledge. or wood panel. Summer/Fall 2013 58 Features 59
Tom Lloyd and assistants at The Courtesy the Artists (Malik Gaines and Alexandro Segade) Studio Museum in Harlem, c. 1968 The Meeting, 2012 MoMA PS1, October 21, 2012 Courtesy the artists
Prime examples of such community-based initiatives (1992–93). However, this method has become a practice and Alexandro Segade, presented The Meeting, a perfor- established by artists can be found in geographically in and of itself, as spaces where art is displayed are increas- mance program in conjunction with the opening of Now specific projects led by Edgar Arceneaux and Rick Lowe. ingly inviting artists to participate as exhibition-makers. Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, curated by From 1999 to 2012, Arceneaux was Director of the Watts In 2012, Ellen Gallagher was invited to organize Printin’, Kellie Jones at MoMA PS1 in late 2012. The geodesic dome House Project, an artist-driven neighborhood redevelop- a satellite exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, with in PS1’s courtyard, where this program was held, was built ment project. Artists, architects, designers and volun- Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator in the Department of specifically to host a wide array of programs including teers came together to reimagine the possibilities of Prints and Illustrated Books. In tandem with a larger survey performance art, film, dance and other multidisciplinary the immediate environment in the Watts district of Los of prints and books, Print/Out, Printin’ utilized Gallagher’s projects—quite literally works that don’t fit within the Angeles. Originally conceptualized by Lowe, the Watts complex portfolio of sixty prints, DeLuxe (2004–05), as museum’s main building. As part of The Meeting, local House Project is a direct reflection of his earlier propo- its central point. Gallagher reworked images from mid- artists, such as niv Acosta, Adam Pendleton and Xaviera sition, Project Row Houses. Since 1993, Project Row twentieth-century black lifestyle magazines with a variety Simmons, among others, were invited to respond to Houses has invigorated Houston’s Third Ward with a of technical processes, including tattoo machine engrav- a song from activist and Black Panther leader Elaine sense of community through displaying art and celebrat- ing and laser-cutting. By surrounding DeLuxe with works Brown’s 1969 agitprop album Seize the Time. The duo ing African-American history and culture. The success by a full range of artists, from Dutch engraver Experiens behind Courtesy the Artists each performed their own Volunteer Day at The Platform, 2011 Courtesy Watts House Project, Los Angeles of both projects is rooted in thinking about art as a form Sillemans’s seventeenth-century penschilderingen3 to responses, deliberately shifting their roles from organiz- of social activity. The projects facilitate multiple conver- pioneering graffiti writer and multidisciplinary artist ers to collaborative performers. sations between creative workers and residents, rather RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ's Gold Letter Racers (1987–89), Gallagher The curatorial impulse by artists is often inseparable than dictate the forms that the neighborhood takes. initiated a new discourse on how her own work could be from their visual practices, thus leading to openly subjec-
Another example of artists working in the realm of the understood and placed in a larger history of art. tive approaches toward making meaning. When artists’ 1. Julie Baumgold, “Black Museums,” New York Magazine, curatorial happens when an artist is invited to represent This rerouting of accepted art histories becomes practices leak into the shaping of exhibitions, they not only October, 21, 1968, 19 the collection of a museum. Perhaps the most pertinent doubly focused when it involves practices that cannot be are collaborating and performing with other institutions 2. Andrea Fraser, “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” Artforum, September 2005, 284. instance of this would be Fred Wilson’s installation at contained within square rooms. Courtesy the Artists, a and artists, but also are inviting viewers to join them in the 3. Penschilderingen are pen paintings on prepared canvas the Maryland Historical Society, Mining the Museum curatorial and artistic collaboration between Malik Gaines spread of knowledge. or wood panel. Summer/Fall 2013 60 Features 61
Cristina de Middel Untitled (from the series ”The Afronauts”), 2007 Positive Courtesy the artist Obsession by Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006)
In celebration of our exhibition The Shadows Took Shape, we are excited to reproduce an excerpt from “Positive Obsession,” an essay from Bloodchild and Other Stories (Seven Stories Press, 1995) by Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006). Butler, who was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995, is one of the best known female African-American writers of science fiction.
1 3 4 6 My mother read me bedtime stories until I was six years I was shy, afraid of most people, most situations. I My aunt and I were in her kitchen, talking. She was My mother did day work. She had a habit of bringing old. It was a sneak attack on her part. As soon as I really didn’t stop to ask myself how things could hurt me, cooking something that smelled good, and I was sitting home any books her employers threw out. She had been got to like the stories, she said, “Here’s the book. Now you or even whether they could hurt me. I was just afraid. at her table, watching. Luxury. At home, my mother permitted only three years of school. Then she had been read.” She didn’t know what she was setting us both up for. I crept into my first bookstore full of vague fears. would have had me helping. put to work. Oldest daughter. She believed passionately I had managed to save about five dollars, mostly in “I want to be a writer when I grow up,” I said. in books and education. She wanted me to have what she change. It was 1957. Five dollars was a lot of money for “Do you?” my aunt asked. “Well, that’s nice, but you’ll had been denied. She wasn’t sure which books I might a ten-year-old. The public library had been my second have to get a job, too.” be able to use, so she brought whatever she found in the 2 home since I was six, and I owned a number of hand- “Writing will be my job,” I said. trash. I had books yellow with age, books without cov- “I think,” my mother said to me one day when I was ten, me-down books. But now I wanted a new book—one “You can write any time. It’s a nice hobby. But you’ll ers, books written in, crayoned in, spilled on, cut, torn, “that everyone has something that they can do better than I had chosen, one I could keep. have to earn a living.” even partly burned. I stacked them in wooden crates and they can do anything else. It’s up to them to find out what “Can kids come in here?” I asked the woman at the “As a writer.” second-hand bookcases and read them when I was ready that something is.” cash register once I was inside. I meant could Black kids “Don’t be silly.” for them. Some were years too advanced for me when I We were in the kitchen by the stove. She was pressing come in. My mother, born in rural Louisiana and raised “I mean it.” got them, but I grew into them. my hair while I sat bent over someone’s cast-off notebook, amid strict racial segregation, had warned me that I “Honey . . . Negroes can’t be writers.” writing. I had decided to write down some of the stories I’d might not be welcome everywhere, even in California. “Why not?” been telling myself over the years. When I didn’t have sto- The cashier glanced at me. “Of course you can come “They just can’t.” ries to read, I learned to make them up. Now I was learning in,” she said. Then, as though it were an afterthought, “Yes, they can, too!” to write them down. she smiled. I relaxed. I was most adamant when I didn’t know what I was The first book I bought described the characteristics talking out. In all my thirteen years, I had never read a of different breeds of horses. The second described printed word that I knew to have been written by a Black stars and planets, asteroids, moons, and comets. person. My aunt was a grown woman. She knew more than I did. What if she were right? . . . Summer/Fall 2013 60 Features 61
Cristina de Middel Untitled (from the series ”The Afronauts”), 2007 Positive Courtesy the artist Obsession by Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006)
In celebration of our exhibition The Shadows Took Shape, we are excited to reproduce an excerpt from “Positive Obsession,” an essay from Bloodchild and Other Stories (Seven Stories Press, 1995) by Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006). Butler, who was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995, is one of the best known female African-American writers of science fiction.
1 3 4 6 My mother read me bedtime stories until I was six years I was shy, afraid of most people, most situations. I My aunt and I were in her kitchen, talking. She was My mother did day work. She had a habit of bringing old. It was a sneak attack on her part. As soon as I really didn’t stop to ask myself how things could hurt me, cooking something that smelled good, and I was sitting home any books her employers threw out. She had been got to like the stories, she said, “Here’s the book. Now you or even whether they could hurt me. I was just afraid. at her table, watching. Luxury. At home, my mother permitted only three years of school. Then she had been read.” She didn’t know what she was setting us both up for. I crept into my first bookstore full of vague fears. would have had me helping. put to work. Oldest daughter. She believed passionately I had managed to save about five dollars, mostly in “I want to be a writer when I grow up,” I said. in books and education. She wanted me to have what she change. It was 1957. Five dollars was a lot of money for “Do you?” my aunt asked. “Well, that’s nice, but you’ll had been denied. She wasn’t sure which books I might a ten-year-old. The public library had been my second have to get a job, too.” be able to use, so she brought whatever she found in the 2 home since I was six, and I owned a number of hand- “Writing will be my job,” I said. trash. I had books yellow with age, books without cov- “I think,” my mother said to me one day when I was ten, me-down books. But now I wanted a new book—one “You can write any time. It’s a nice hobby. But you’ll ers, books written in, crayoned in, spilled on, cut, torn, “that everyone has something that they can do better than I had chosen, one I could keep. have to earn a living.” even partly burned. I stacked them in wooden crates and they can do anything else. It’s up to them to find out what “Can kids come in here?” I asked the woman at the “As a writer.” second-hand bookcases and read them when I was ready that something is.” cash register once I was inside. I meant could Black kids “Don’t be silly.” for them. Some were years too advanced for me when I We were in the kitchen by the stove. She was pressing come in. My mother, born in rural Louisiana and raised “I mean it.” got them, but I grew into them. my hair while I sat bent over someone’s cast-off notebook, amid strict racial segregation, had warned me that I “Honey . . . Negroes can’t be writers.” writing. I had decided to write down some of the stories I’d might not be welcome everywhere, even in California. “Why not?” been telling myself over the years. When I didn’t have sto- The cashier glanced at me. “Of course you can come “They just can’t.” ries to read, I learned to make them up. Now I was learning in,” she said. Then, as though it were an afterthought, “Yes, they can, too!” to write them down. she smiled. I relaxed. I was most adamant when I didn’t know what I was The first book I bought described the characteristics talking out. In all my thirteen years, I had never read a of different breeds of horses. The second described printed word that I knew to have been written by a Black stars and planets, asteroids, moons, and comets. person. My aunt was a grown woman. She knew more than I did. What if she were right? . . . Summer/Fall 2013 62
7 13 An obsession, according to my old Random House dic- I was twenty-three when, finally, I sold my first two short tionary, is “the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings stories. I sold both to writer-editors who were teaching by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.” Obsession can at Clarion, a science-fiction writers’ workshop that I be a useful tool if it’s positive obsession. Using it is like was attending. One story was eventually published. aiming carefully in archery. The other wasn’t. I didn’t sell another word for five years. I took archery in high school because it wasn’t a team Then, finally, I sold my first novel. Thank God no one sport. I liked some of the team sports, but in archery you told me selling would take so long—not that I would did well or badly according to your own efforts. No one have believed it. I’ve sold eight novels since then. Last else to blame. I wanted to see what I could do. I learned to Christmas, I paid off the mortgage on my mother’s house. aim high. Aim above the target. Aim just there! Relax. Let go. If you aimed right, you hit the bull’s-eye. I saw positive obsession as a way of aiming yourself, your life, at your 14 chosen target. Decide what you want. Aim high. Go for it. So, then, I write science fiction and fantasy for a living. I wanted to sell a story. Before I knew how to type, I As far as I know I’m still the only Black woman who does wanted to sell a story. this. When I began to do a little public speaking, one I pecked my stories out two fingered on the Remington of the questions I heard most often was, “What good portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had is science fiction to Black people?” I was usually asked begged for it when I was ten, and she had bought it. this by a Black person. I gave bits and pieces of answers “You’ll spoil that child!” one of her friends told her. that didn’t satisfy me and that probably didn’t satisfy my “What does she need with a typewriter at her age? It questioners. I resented the question. Why should I have will soon be sitting in the closet with dust on it. All that to justify my profession to anyone? money wasted!” But the answer to that was obvious. There was exactly I asked my science teacher, Mr. Pfaff, to type one of my one other Black science-fiction writer working success- stories for me—type it the way it was supposed to be with fully when I sold my first novel: Samuel R. Delany, Jr. no holes erased into the paper and no strike-overs. He did. Now there are four of us. Delany, Steven Barnes, Charles R. He even corrected my terrible spelling and punctuation. Saunders, and me. So few. Why? Lack of interest? Lack To this day I’m amazed and grateful. of confidence? A young Black woman once said to me, . . . “I always wanted to write science fiction, but I didn’t think there were any Black women doing it.” Doubts show them- selves in all sorts of ways. But still I’m asked, what good is 10 science fiction to Black people? I badgered friends and acquaintances into reading my What good is any form of literature to Black people? work, and they seemed to like it. Teachers read it and said What good is science fiction’s thinking about the pres- kindly, unhelpful things. But there were no creative writing ent, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency classes at my high school, and no useful criticism. At col- to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and lege (in California at that time, junior college was almost doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects free), I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote of science and technology, or social organization and children’s stories. She was polite about the science fiction political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off exasperation, “Can’t you write anything normal?” the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what A schoolwide contest was held. All submissions had “everyone” is saying, doing, thinking—whoever “every- to be made anonymously. My short story won first prize. one” happens to be this year. I was an eighteen-year-old freshman, and I won in spite And what good is all this to Black people? of competition from older, more experienced people. Beautiful. The $15.00 prize was the first money my writing earned me. Copyright © 1995 by Octavia E. Butler. Reprinted with the permission . . . of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Seven Stories Press, www.sevenstories.com.
Wayne Hodge Android Negro #2, 2011 Courtesy the artist Summer/Fall 2013 62
7 13 An obsession, according to my old Random House dic- I was twenty-three when, finally, I sold my first two short tionary, is “the domination of one’s thoughts or feelings stories. I sold both to writer-editors who were teaching by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.” Obsession can at Clarion, a science-fiction writers’ workshop that I be a useful tool if it’s positive obsession. Using it is like was attending. One story was eventually published. aiming carefully in archery. The other wasn’t. I didn’t sell another word for five years. I took archery in high school because it wasn’t a team Then, finally, I sold my first novel. Thank God no one sport. I liked some of the team sports, but in archery you told me selling would take so long—not that I would did well or badly according to your own efforts. No one have believed it. I’ve sold eight novels since then. Last else to blame. I wanted to see what I could do. I learned to Christmas, I paid off the mortgage on my mother’s house. aim high. Aim above the target. Aim just there! Relax. Let go. If you aimed right, you hit the bull’s-eye. I saw positive obsession as a way of aiming yourself, your life, at your 14 chosen target. Decide what you want. Aim high. Go for it. So, then, I write science fiction and fantasy for a living. I wanted to sell a story. Before I knew how to type, I As far as I know I’m still the only Black woman who does wanted to sell a story. this. When I began to do a little public speaking, one I pecked my stories out two fingered on the Remington of the questions I heard most often was, “What good portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had is science fiction to Black people?” I was usually asked begged for it when I was ten, and she had bought it. this by a Black person. I gave bits and pieces of answers “You’ll spoil that child!” one of her friends told her. that didn’t satisfy me and that probably didn’t satisfy my “What does she need with a typewriter at her age? It questioners. I resented the question. Why should I have will soon be sitting in the closet with dust on it. All that to justify my profession to anyone? money wasted!” But the answer to that was obvious. There was exactly I asked my science teacher, Mr. Pfaff, to type one of my one other Black science-fiction writer working success- stories for me—type it the way it was supposed to be with fully when I sold my first novel: Samuel R. Delany, Jr. no holes erased into the paper and no strike-overs. He did. Now there are four of us. Delany, Steven Barnes, Charles R. He even corrected my terrible spelling and punctuation. Saunders, and me. So few. Why? Lack of interest? Lack To this day I’m amazed and grateful. of confidence? A young Black woman once said to me, . . . “I always wanted to write science fiction, but I didn’t think there were any Black women doing it.” Doubts show them- selves in all sorts of ways. But still I’m asked, what good is 10 science fiction to Black people? I badgered friends and acquaintances into reading my What good is any form of literature to Black people? work, and they seemed to like it. Teachers read it and said What good is science fiction’s thinking about the pres- kindly, unhelpful things. But there were no creative writing ent, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency classes at my high school, and no useful criticism. At col- to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and lege (in California at that time, junior college was almost doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects free), I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote of science and technology, or social organization and children’s stories. She was polite about the science fiction political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off exasperation, “Can’t you write anything normal?” the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what A schoolwide contest was held. All submissions had “everyone” is saying, doing, thinking—whoever “every- to be made anonymously. My short story won first prize. one” happens to be this year. I was an eighteen-year-old freshman, and I won in spite And what good is all this to Black people? of competition from older, more experienced people. Beautiful. The $15.00 prize was the first money my writing earned me. Copyright © 1995 by Octavia E. Butler. Reprinted with the permission . . . of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Seven Stories Press, www.sevenstories.com.
Wayne Hodge Android Negro #2, 2011 Courtesy the artist Summer/Fall 2013 64 Features 65
back, since I was living in Chicago at the time. Fast- forward to 2010, when I was on a curatorial fellowship at the Queens Museum after a few years of working independently as a curator in Baltimore. Tom Finklepearl [Director of Queens Museum] suggested I schedule a time Fellow to Fellow: to meet with Thelma Golden about any sort of writing opportunities at the Studio Museum because I expressed an interest in getting some more writing under my belt. She suggested that I contribute to Studio, which is how my Jamillah James & formal relationship with the institution began. ML: What was the first exhibition you curated?
JJ: The first exhibition I ever did was in 2004, a sound art show called Imaginary Landscape at at an alternative Monique Long space I co-directed in Chicago. It coalesced my interests in music—which at the time, I was playing in a band and organizing live shows in my living room—and the art world. Sound is somewhat underrepresented in institu- tional spaces. There are places, particularly here in New York, that are dedicated to presenting sound as an experi- ential medium, such as Roulette, Diapason Sound Art and ISSUE Project Room. Jennie C. Jones had that remarkable 2011 show, Absorb/ Diffuse at The Kitchen that was both visual and aural; Christian Marclay had his retrospective In April 2013, the Studio Museum’s 2012–13 Curatorial Fellow Jamillah at the Whitney that incorporated a number of perfor- mances; and the Studio Museum hosted American Cypher: James sat down with Monique Long, the 2013–14 Curatorial Fellow, Mendi and Keith Obadike this spring, as well as the series Monique Long , 2013–14 Curatorial Fellow to discuss their shared experiences and provide insight into their and Jamillah James, 2012–13 Curatorial Fellow StudioSound for a couple of years. But all these are a bit respective interests as emerging curators. Photo: Liz Gwinn anomalous. Exhibition-making is problem-solving, and with that first show, I wanted to address what I saw as an issue. I still think that way about my practice.
Jamillah James: Tell us about your background. JJ: What are the differences between the art scenes in I was fortunate enough to work with Lowery Stokes- ML: What were the highlights of your fellowship? Philly and New York? Sims (former Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Monique Long: I’m from Philadelphia. I don’t know Museum) on the Global Africa Project. JJ: The last year was great, especially working with the how that has shaped my interest, but Philly has one ML: As someone who developed as a thinker about art three curators of Fore from the very beginning, making of the best modern art museums in the country [the here, and not in Philly, it’s a hard question to answer. JJ: How did you find out about the fellowship at the catalogue and brochure. It was amazing to work on Philadelphia Museum of Art], and I grew up going I think people generally think that New York is the place Studio Museum? an exhibition that would be a part of the legacy of black, there. I stared at academic paintings. They have great where things happen, but in art, music and fashion, emerging artist exhibitions for which the Museum is well contemporary art as well, and a great costume collec- there's always influence from Philadelphia that comes ML: I had been working independently after Art Table, noted. And, of course, working on Brothers and Sisters was tion. I went to Columbia University and I think the first up in surprising ways. and had made some significant connections. The appli- really reflective of my change in interests since complet- fashion exhibition I saw was at the Corcoran Gallery of cation came to me in an email. I was in the middle of a ing my undergraduate degree—a shift to focusing on post- Art in Washington, DC, where I spent some of my youth. JJ: Before you came to the Studio Museum, which other time-consuming project, so I just cranked it out. I love war abstract painting and sculpture, which is radically The exhibition focused on Jacqueline Kennedy. The institutions did you work with? Harlem and its community, and I thought the fellowship different from where I was, say, seven years ago. I knew we clothes themselves weren’t sartorially spectacular, but would be a great opportunity to give back in some way. had a number of works by Beauford Delaney in the collec- they told a story. I found it interesting that you could ML: Columbia had a special arrangement with the When was the first time you came to the Studio tion, and wanted to somehow recontextualize his work in talk about history in a museum setting using clothes. It Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I worked in the Museum? tandem with that of people working at the same time or was kind of an epiphany. I studied American Studies so Thomas J. Watson Library as a page. After I finished school, contemporary artists working in a similar vein. I am inter- I could contextualize the art I was interested in within I got a curatorial internship at the Guggenheim. After that, JJ: It was in 2006, on the occasion of Frequency. ested in continuing to study his work beyond this exhibi- history, particularly the history of fashion, which is a I worked at the Museum of Arts and Design as the Art Table My twenty-five-year-old mind was effectively blown. tion. I think he made a number of important contribu- niche within academia. I wrote my thesis arguing the mentee. The mentorship is structured so you get to work At that time I decided to reinvest my energies toward tions. To have access to the Museum’s collection, nearly premise that by reading clothes as texts, one could with someone in the field that you’re interested in, and you working as a curator rather than as a critic or writer 2,000 works, was an incredible experience, to see all the create narratives around historical moments. work intensively on a project over the course of a summer. of theory. It was many years before I was able to come history. I love that we’re an active, collecting institution Summer/Fall 2013 64 Features 65
back, since I was living in Chicago at the time. Fast- forward to 2010, when I was on a curatorial fellowship at the Queens Museum after a few years of working independently as a curator in Baltimore. Tom Finklepearl [Director of Queens Museum] suggested I schedule a time Fellow to Fellow: to meet with Thelma Golden about any sort of writing opportunities at the Studio Museum because I expressed an interest in getting some more writing under my belt. She suggested that I contribute to Studio, which is how my Jamillah James & formal relationship with the institution began. ML: What was the first exhibition you curated?
JJ: The first exhibition I ever did was in 2004, a sound art show called Imaginary Landscape at at an alternative Monique Long space I co-directed in Chicago. It coalesced my interests in music—which at the time, I was playing in a band and organizing live shows in my living room—and the art world. Sound is somewhat underrepresented in institu- tional spaces. There are places, particularly here in New York, that are dedicated to presenting sound as an experi- ential medium, such as Roulette, Diapason Sound Art and ISSUE Project Room. Jennie C. Jones had that remarkable 2011 show, Absorb/ Diffuse at The Kitchen that was both visual and aural; Christian Marclay had his retrospective In April 2013, the Studio Museum’s 2012–13 Curatorial Fellow Jamillah at the Whitney that incorporated a number of perfor- mances; and the Studio Museum hosted American Cypher: James sat down with Monique Long, the 2013–14 Curatorial Fellow, Mendi and Keith Obadike this spring, as well as the series Monique Long , 2013–14 Curatorial Fellow to discuss their shared experiences and provide insight into their and Jamillah James, 2012–13 Curatorial Fellow StudioSound for a couple of years. But all these are a bit respective interests as emerging curators. Photo: Liz Gwinn anomalous. Exhibition-making is problem-solving, and with that first show, I wanted to address what I saw as an issue. I still think that way about my practice.
Jamillah James: Tell us about your background. JJ: What are the differences between the art scenes in I was fortunate enough to work with Lowery Stokes- ML: What were the highlights of your fellowship? Philly and New York? Sims (former Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Monique Long: I’m from Philadelphia. I don’t know Museum) on the Global Africa Project. JJ: The last year was great, especially working with the how that has shaped my interest, but Philly has one ML: As someone who developed as a thinker about art three curators of Fore from the very beginning, making of the best modern art museums in the country [the here, and not in Philly, it’s a hard question to answer. JJ: How did you find out about the fellowship at the catalogue and brochure. It was amazing to work on Philadelphia Museum of Art], and I grew up going I think people generally think that New York is the place Studio Museum? an exhibition that would be a part of the legacy of black, there. I stared at academic paintings. They have great where things happen, but in art, music and fashion, emerging artist exhibitions for which the Museum is well contemporary art as well, and a great costume collec- there's always influence from Philadelphia that comes ML: I had been working independently after Art Table, noted. And, of course, working on Brothers and Sisters was tion. I went to Columbia University and I think the first up in surprising ways. and had made some significant connections. The appli- really reflective of my change in interests since complet- fashion exhibition I saw was at the Corcoran Gallery of cation came to me in an email. I was in the middle of a ing my undergraduate degree—a shift to focusing on post- Art in Washington, DC, where I spent some of my youth. JJ: Before you came to the Studio Museum, which other time-consuming project, so I just cranked it out. I love war abstract painting and sculpture, which is radically The exhibition focused on Jacqueline Kennedy. The institutions did you work with? Harlem and its community, and I thought the fellowship different from where I was, say, seven years ago. I knew we clothes themselves weren’t sartorially spectacular, but would be a great opportunity to give back in some way. had a number of works by Beauford Delaney in the collec- they told a story. I found it interesting that you could ML: Columbia had a special arrangement with the When was the first time you came to the Studio tion, and wanted to somehow recontextualize his work in talk about history in a museum setting using clothes. It Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I worked in the Museum? tandem with that of people working at the same time or was kind of an epiphany. I studied American Studies so Thomas J. Watson Library as a page. After I finished school, contemporary artists working in a similar vein. I am inter- I could contextualize the art I was interested in within I got a curatorial internship at the Guggenheim. After that, JJ: It was in 2006, on the occasion of Frequency. ested in continuing to study his work beyond this exhibi- history, particularly the history of fashion, which is a I worked at the Museum of Arts and Design as the Art Table My twenty-five-year-old mind was effectively blown. tion. I think he made a number of important contribu- niche within academia. I wrote my thesis arguing the mentee. The mentorship is structured so you get to work At that time I decided to reinvest my energies toward tions. To have access to the Museum’s collection, nearly premise that by reading clothes as texts, one could with someone in the field that you’re interested in, and you working as a curator rather than as a critic or writer 2,000 works, was an incredible experience, to see all the create narratives around historical moments. work intensively on a project over the course of a summer. of theory. It was many years before I was able to come history. I love that we’re an active, collecting institution Summer/Fall 2013 66 Studio Jr. 67 whose acquisitions will continue to historicize the ML: I don’t know if it is specific to this line of work or contributions of black artists for many years to come. just New York, but it seems like there’s no distinguishing What are some of the things you’re interested in between life and work. It’s fully integrated, but not in a exploring this year leading up to your fellowship negative way. Wouldn’t you agree? Studio Jr. exhibition next spring? JJ: I think that’s just the nature of living in New York. ML: Fashion exhibitions are seeing an emergence There’s always a constant changeover with the museums for a mass audience, which is very exciting. I hope and galleries here. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but I can continue and build on my interest in fashion you have to. Periodically, I take breaks. Everyone went and history while I’m here. My thesis was entitled on a forced break with Hurricane Sandy to deal with “Speaking Sartorially: Semiotics and African-American the recovery, but I feel that now there is a lot of activity, Clothing.” It was a historical narrative about blacks which is very exciting. in America, told through clothing choices since the antebellum period. I did a close reading of fugitive ML: One of the payoffs of working as much as possible slave ads, which had very detailed descriptions of what and being dynamic is making those connections that they were wearing. The slaves took clothing other than can lead to other opportunities. I feel lucky to be here, rags when they escaped so they could potentially pass and to be able to put faces to the names of people whose as free. I talked about the Harlem Renaissance, the work I know. I’m looking forward to looking back on emergence of a black middle class, the black national- the highlights of this experience—and it’s all been a ism movement and also hip-hop. I’m interested in the highlight thus far. I remember when I came to the Studio legacy of a people who were able to subvert through Museum, while I was an intern at the Guggenheim, and clothing choices. [former Associate Curator] Naomi Beckwith led a gallery tour. I remember her saying that I know you’re getting a JJ: It’s important to bring diverse ideas and interests lot of theory in school, but in the real world, you have to to the table. I wouldn’t consider myself a specialist in be able to engage with the art, talk about the work and African-American art or culture. I’m just a weirdo who not project meaning or construct meaning in the labora- likes a bunch of different things. I am still very much an tory of the classroom. That really stuck with me, and I Adrian Piper and William Pope.L fan, and also people couldn’t wait to have more practical experience, which such as Nayland Blake and Glenn Ligon are important is why I’m so glad to be here. to me, in terms of authoring LGBT art history. I have the flexibility to do my non-mission-specific work JJ: Naomi was totally right. You can have a handle on all outside of my time here. I have a few projects coming manners and directions of art history and theory, but you up later this year, and I’m concentrating on writing and have to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk at the teaching as well. same time. It’s crucial to have these kinds of opportuni- ties to learn new or different research methodologies and put them into practice. Otherwise what’s the point? Summer/Fall 2013 66 Studio Jr. 67 whose acquisitions will continue to historicize the ML: I don’t know if it is specific to this line of work or contributions of black artists for many years to come. just New York, but it seems like there’s no distinguishing What are some of the things you’re interested in between life and work. It’s fully integrated, but not in a exploring this year leading up to your fellowship negative way. Wouldn’t you agree? Studio Jr. exhibition next spring? JJ: I think that’s just the nature of living in New York. ML: Fashion exhibitions are seeing an emergence There’s always a constant changeover with the museums for a mass audience, which is very exciting. I hope and galleries here. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but I can continue and build on my interest in fashion you have to. Periodically, I take breaks. Everyone went and history while I’m here. My thesis was entitled on a forced break with Hurricane Sandy to deal with “Speaking Sartorially: Semiotics and African-American the recovery, but I feel that now there is a lot of activity, Clothing.” It was a historical narrative about blacks which is very exciting. in America, told through clothing choices since the antebellum period. I did a close reading of fugitive ML: One of the payoffs of working as much as possible slave ads, which had very detailed descriptions of what and being dynamic is making those connections that they were wearing. The slaves took clothing other than can lead to other opportunities. I feel lucky to be here, rags when they escaped so they could potentially pass and to be able to put faces to the names of people whose as free. I talked about the Harlem Renaissance, the work I know. I’m looking forward to looking back on emergence of a black middle class, the black national- the highlights of this experience—and it’s all been a ism movement and also hip-hop. I’m interested in the highlight thus far. I remember when I came to the Studio legacy of a people who were able to subvert through Museum, while I was an intern at the Guggenheim, and clothing choices. [former Associate Curator] Naomi Beckwith led a gallery tour. I remember her saying that I know you’re getting a JJ: It’s important to bring diverse ideas and interests lot of theory in school, but in the real world, you have to to the table. I wouldn’t consider myself a specialist in be able to engage with the art, talk about the work and African-American art or culture. I’m just a weirdo who not project meaning or construct meaning in the labora- likes a bunch of different things. I am still very much an tory of the classroom. That really stuck with me, and I Adrian Piper and William Pope.L fan, and also people couldn’t wait to have more practical experience, which such as Nayland Blake and Glenn Ligon are important is why I’m so glad to be here. to me, in terms of authoring LGBT art history. I have the flexibility to do my non-mission-specific work JJ: Naomi was totally right. You can have a handle on all outside of my time here. I have a few projects coming manners and directions of art history and theory, but you up later this year, and I’m concentrating on writing and have to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk at the teaching as well. same time. It’s crucial to have these kinds of opportuni- ties to learn new or different research methodologies and put them into practice. Otherwise what’s the point? Summer/Fall 2013 68 Studio Jr. 69
Exploring Art Together
by Erin K. Hylton, School Programs Coordinator
School may be out for the summer, but there are fun activities parents can do with their children at the Studio Museum to enrich out-of-school time through visual art. Art creation and exploration help children develop cognitive, social and creative skills, as well as help encourage imagination. Here are a few of my favorite activities for families when they visit the Museum.
Explore and Describe Scavenger Hunt A. Explore the galleries together to find a work of A. Explore the Museum’s website to discover what art that has your child’s favorite colors, shapes works of art are in the current exhibition season. or objects. B. Decide on a family theme for the day, based B. Discuss what materials the work is made from. on explorations of particular colors, textures, C. Find a work of art based on a descriptive word, movements and shapes. such as tall, short, colorful, shiny, smooth or rough. C. Create a sheet of particular objects or materials D. Keep an art journal for your family and ask your in the galleries that your family can search for. child or children to sketch what they explored in D. Include objects and materials familiar to and the Museum. outside of your family’s neighborhood to encourage family learning opportunities. E. Explore the Museum together to find objects on the list. F. Don’t forget to bring your pencil to check off items!
Postcard It! A. In the galleries, discuss with your child or children what work of art they would like to make into their own postcards. B. At home, have note cards and art-making materials handy to encourage your child to create their own postcard based on what was in the galleries. C. Crayons and markers are great art tools to use in this activity! D. Encourage your child to write a note to a pen pal on the back. (Younger children will need your assistance.) E. Finally, take the postcard, as a family, to mail to your child’s special friend.
Photos: Erin K. Hylton Summer/Fall 2013 68 Studio Jr. 69
Exploring Art Together
by Erin K. Hylton, School Programs Coordinator
School may be out for the summer, but there are fun activities parents can do with their children at the Studio Museum to enrich out-of-school time through visual art. Art creation and exploration help children develop cognitive, social and creative skills, as well as help encourage imagination. Here are a few of my favorite activities for families when they visit the Museum.
Explore and Describe Scavenger Hunt A. Explore the galleries together to find a work of A. Explore the Museum’s website to discover what art that has your child’s favorite colors, shapes works of art are in the current exhibition season. or objects. B. Decide on a family theme for the day, based B. Discuss what materials the work is made from. on explorations of particular colors, textures, C. Find a work of art based on a descriptive word, movements and shapes. such as tall, short, colorful, shiny, smooth or rough. C. Create a sheet of particular objects or materials D. Keep an art journal for your family and ask your in the galleries that your family can search for. child or children to sketch what they explored in D. Include objects and materials familiar to and the Museum. outside of your family’s neighborhood to encourage family learning opportunities. E. Explore the Museum together to find objects on the list. F. Don’t forget to bring your pencil to check off items!
Postcard It! A. In the galleries, discuss with your child or children what work of art they would like to make into their own postcards. B. At home, have note cards and art-making materials handy to encourage your child to create their own postcard based on what was in the galleries. C. Crayons and markers are great art tools to use in this activity! D. Encourage your child to write a note to a pen pal on the back. (Younger children will need your assistance.) E. Finally, take the postcard, as a family, to mail to your child’s special friend.
Photos: Erin K. Hylton Summer/Fall 2013 70 Features 71
DIY Body Language Watercolor Resist Project
by Elan Ferguson, Family Programs Coordinator
Our summer 2013 exhibition, Body Language looks at works from the per- You will need: manent collection that focus on text and language—from the written word •• 2 or 3 pieces of white cardstock to the body to spoken sound. Our DIY project for this season, Body Language •• Oil pastels or crayons, including Watercolor Resists, uses easy-to-find materials to create a piece of art from white ones your bodies and words to express how you feel. •• Cotton balls •• Cup of water Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 •• Stencil or body part Your parents should prep a space Pick a part of your body—a foot, arm, Trace the outline of your body part •• Watercolor, solid or liquid with newspaper and supplies. Keep hand or head—to trace. You can also and/or stencil onto the white paper •• Smock and newspaper for things close so the mess stays in use stencils of letters and/or shapes with the white oil pastel or crayon. easy cleanup one area. to add to the design. You will notice that the white on white •• Spray bottle (optional) is hard to see. Parents, remind your children that this is part of the water- color magic. Using the outline as a beginning, make a beautiful drawing by adding lines, letters, words, poems or more stencils.
Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Prep your watercolor by dipping Beginning with the lightest color When you are done with the water- cotton balls—one at a time—in the in your watercolor palette, use the color, let it dry for a few minutes. water for three seconds, but don’t cotton ball to dab the color onto Then you can continue to add to put the whole cotton ball in the the white paper. Layer color upon your artwork with more color, lines water. You want it to be wet, not color, getting darker as you go. and words using crayons and/or oil soaked and dripping. Place each The color will appear on the paper, pastels. Oil pastels are best wet cotton ball on top of a different but not on the parts you drew with because their colors are brighter. watercolor compartment until the white oil pastel or crayon, each color has a wet cotton ball revealing your design. of its own. Summer/Fall 2013 70 Features 71
DIY Body Language Watercolor Resist Project
by Elan Ferguson, Family Programs Coordinator
Our summer 2013 exhibition, Body Language looks at works from the per- You will need: manent collection that focus on text and language—from the written word •• 2 or 3 pieces of white cardstock to the body to spoken sound. Our DIY project for this season, Body Language •• Oil pastels or crayons, including Watercolor Resists, uses easy-to-find materials to create a piece of art from white ones your bodies and words to express how you feel. •• Cotton balls •• Cup of water Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 •• Stencil or body part Your parents should prep a space Pick a part of your body—a foot, arm, Trace the outline of your body part •• Watercolor, solid or liquid with newspaper and supplies. Keep hand or head—to trace. You can also and/or stencil onto the white paper •• Smock and newspaper for things close so the mess stays in use stencils of letters and/or shapes with the white oil pastel or crayon. easy cleanup one area. to add to the design. You will notice that the white on white •• Spray bottle (optional) is hard to see. Parents, remind your children that this is part of the water- color magic. Using the outline as a beginning, make a beautiful drawing by adding lines, letters, words, poems or more stencils.
Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Prep your watercolor by dipping Beginning with the lightest color When you are done with the water- cotton balls—one at a time—in the in your watercolor palette, use the color, let it dry for a few minutes. water for three seconds, but don’t cotton ball to dab the color onto Then you can continue to add to put the whole cotton ball in the the white paper. Layer color upon your artwork with more color, lines water. You want it to be wet, not color, getting darker as you go. and words using crayons and/or oil soaked and dripping. Place each The color will appear on the paper, pastels. Oil pastels are best wet cotton ball on top of a different but not on the parts you drew with because their colors are brighter. watercolor compartment until the white oil pastel or crayon, each color has a wet cotton ball revealing your design. of its own. Summer/Fall 2013 72 Studio Jr. 73
Five for the Family!
by Elan Ferguson, Family Programs Coordinator
When I was given the task of writing about family activities in Harlem, I was concerned—not because I didn’t want the assignment, but because in the last few years Harlem has bloomed into a community bursting with activities and places to go. I have lived in Harlem for thirteen years. Raising my two children here has given me insight into fun and easy ways to entertain the entire family at little or no cost. There are so many options, but I had to limit this list to just five of the best free options. I hope you agree.
The Studio Museum in Harlem: The Dream Center Target Free Sundays The Dream Center (203–205 West 119th Street) is I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but toot-toot. The excellent for preteen, teens and adults, as they look to Studio Museum’s Target Free Sundays offers free tours expand their early childhood workshops. They have a at 1 pm and free art workshops from 2 to 4 pm. The art large assortment of workshops, topics and programs workshops introduce visitors to artists of color, and artis- for teens and adults, such as dance, yoga, theater, self- tic techniques and materials. Topics are appropriate for esteem, fatherhood, art and much more—most for free all ages, and projects can be done by both novices and or a small donation. My son and daughter have taken a experts. Fun for all! free theater class there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. studiomuseum.org dreamcenterharlem.org
Cooper-Hewitt Design Center Sol La Ti’s Music Together Located in the Park Heights/Harlem neighborhood, the Sol La Ti is a Harlem extension of nationally known Cooper-Hewitt Design Center (111 Central Park North) is a Music Together, which began in 1987 as an educational new, 1,500-square-foot space dedicated to events, work- program of the Center for Music and Young Children shops and activities for students, families, educators and located in Princeton, New Jersey. It was founded adults. Cooper-Hewitt design educators lead creative by composer and early childhood educator Ken hands-on activities, as well as a free after-school drop-off Guilmartin and professor of early childhood education program for children ages five and older. Lili Levinowitz. Gabriele Tranchina, a certified voice cooperhewitt.org teacher, has directed Sol La Ti’s Music Together since 1997, with four locations in the Upper West Side (601 West 114th Street), Morningside Heights (100 LaSalle Photos: Elan Ferguson F.C. Harlem Street) and Harlem (310 West 139th Street and 318 West 139th Street). Music Together offers dance and If sports are more your thing, try F.C. Harlem soccer movement programs for babies, toddlers, preschoolers (441 Manhattan Avenue), a Harlem-based community and their parents/caretakers, as well as free demo Every destination is just a part of a journey. In this coloring page, called No youth development organization. My son attends the classes, usually every month. Coloring Page Space, traveling around in New York by subway is an adventure. Take time recreational league, for boys and girls of any skill level. mtsollati.com out to document something interesting you notice on the train and make a There are no prerequisites in terms of skill or experience, drawing of your own. Maybe you can show it to me next time you visit the and the sessions are about having fun while learning the Studio Museum! rules of the game. They also work with high school stu- dents, and have free-play days for parents on Sundays. by Elan Ferguson, fcharlemlions.org Family Programs Coordinator Turn the page to start coloring Summer/Fall 2013 72 Studio Jr. 73
Five for the Family!
by Elan Ferguson, Family Programs Coordinator
When I was given the task of writing about family activities in Harlem, I was concerned—not because I didn’t want the assignment, but because in the last few years Harlem has bloomed into a community bursting with activities and places to go. I have lived in Harlem for thirteen years. Raising my two children here has given me insight into fun and easy ways to entertain the entire family at little or no cost. There are so many options, but I had to limit this list to just five of the best free options. I hope you agree.
The Studio Museum in Harlem: The Dream Center Target Free Sundays The Dream Center (203–205 West 119th Street) is I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but toot-toot. The excellent for preteen, teens and adults, as they look to Studio Museum’s Target Free Sundays offers free tours expand their early childhood workshops. They have a at 1 pm and free art workshops from 2 to 4 pm. The art large assortment of workshops, topics and programs workshops introduce visitors to artists of color, and artis- for teens and adults, such as dance, yoga, theater, self- tic techniques and materials. Topics are appropriate for esteem, fatherhood, art and much more—most for free all ages, and projects can be done by both novices and or a small donation. My son and daughter have taken a experts. Fun for all! free theater class there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. studiomuseum.org dreamcenterharlem.org
Cooper-Hewitt Design Center Sol La Ti’s Music Together Located in the Park Heights/Harlem neighborhood, the Sol La Ti is a Harlem extension of nationally known Cooper-Hewitt Design Center (111 Central Park North) is a Music Together, which began in 1987 as an educational new, 1,500-square-foot space dedicated to events, work- program of the Center for Music and Young Children shops and activities for students, families, educators and located in Princeton, New Jersey. It was founded adults. Cooper-Hewitt design educators lead creative by composer and early childhood educator Ken hands-on activities, as well as a free after-school drop-off Guilmartin and professor of early childhood education program for children ages five and older. Lili Levinowitz. Gabriele Tranchina, a certified voice cooperhewitt.org teacher, has directed Sol La Ti’s Music Together since 1997, with four locations in the Upper West Side (601 West 114th Street), Morningside Heights (100 LaSalle Photos: Elan Ferguson F.C. Harlem Street) and Harlem (310 West 139th Street and 318 West 139th Street). Music Together offers dance and If sports are more your thing, try F.C. Harlem soccer movement programs for babies, toddlers, preschoolers (441 Manhattan Avenue), a Harlem-based community and their parents/caretakers, as well as free demo Every destination is just a part of a journey. In this coloring page, called No youth development organization. My son attends the classes, usually every month. Coloring Page Space, traveling around in New York by subway is an adventure. Take time recreational league, for boys and girls of any skill level. mtsollati.com out to document something interesting you notice on the train and make a There are no prerequisites in terms of skill or experience, drawing of your own. Maybe you can show it to me next time you visit the and the sessions are about having fun while learning the Studio Museum! rules of the game. They also work with high school stu- dents, and have free-play days for parents on Sundays. by Elan Ferguson, fcharlemlions.org Family Programs Coordinator Turn the page to start coloring Summer/Fall 2013 74 Studio Jr. 75 Summer/Fall 2013 74 Studio Jr. 75 Summer/Fall 2013 76 “I teach young adults with autism. We follow Talking with Teachers a functional curriculum, and although the content might not be as relevant to them, I can definitely use the images to allow them by Erin K. Hylton, School Programs Coordinator to express themselves and be creative.”
The Studio Museum in Harlem offers on- and off-site professional development programs for educators, from pre-K to twelfth grade, that focus on using the Museum as a resource for developing visual and cultural literacy. Designed “What I liked most about today’s presentation to focus on core curriculum areas, including the arts, English language arts, social studies, humanities and math, the workshops present creative methods for using and integrating art in the classroom. These programs encourage was that it was all practical. It made partnerships between teachers, artists and Museum professionals through in-depth gallery discussions and work- art shops around key issues in art created by artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally. available to everyone, whether or not you The Museum hosts monthly on-site opportunities for educators includes Open House for Educators, a seasonal see yourself as an artist.” preview of exhibitions and resources; Teaching and Learning Workshops for K–12 Educators, hands-on art-making workshops exploring art integration strategies for the classroom; and Professional Development for Educators, grade-specific training sessions. “Wonderful combination of hands-on work, discussion with working artists and time to visit exhibits.”
“I teach in the South Bronx—I feel the activity will help students transfer analysis from photo to text, which they normally struggle with.”
“It was really helpful seeing a lesson plan and the connection to the Common Core Standards. Great program—and inspiring.”
“Today’s activity can be used in so many Here are few highlights and comments different ways in the classroom. I’m already from educators who have attended one of the Museum’s professional excited to use materials in the classroom development programs in the 2012–13 school year. in a variety of ways.” Photos: Erin K. Hylton and Ivan Forde Summer/Fall 2013 76 “I teach young adults with autism. We follow Talking with Teachers a functional curriculum, and although the content might not be as relevant to them, I can definitely use the images to allow them by Erin K. Hylton, School Programs Coordinator to express themselves and be creative.”
The Studio Museum in Harlem offers on- and off-site professional development programs for educators, from pre-K to twelfth grade, that focus on using the Museum as a resource for developing visual and cultural literacy. Designed “What I liked most about today’s presentation to focus on core curriculum areas, including the arts, English language arts, social studies, humanities and math, the workshops present creative methods for using and integrating art in the classroom. These programs encourage was that it was all practical. It made partnerships between teachers, artists and Museum professionals through in-depth gallery discussions and work- art shops around key issues in art created by artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally. available to everyone, whether or not you The Museum hosts monthly on-site opportunities for educators includes Open House for Educators, a seasonal see yourself as an artist.” preview of exhibitions and resources; Teaching and Learning Workshops for K–12 Educators, hands-on art-making workshops exploring art integration strategies for the classroom; and Professional Development for Educators, grade-specific training sessions. “Wonderful combination of hands-on work, discussion with working artists and time to visit exhibits.”
“I teach in the South Bronx—I feel the activity will help students transfer analysis from photo to text, which they normally struggle with.”
“It was really helpful seeing a lesson plan and the connection to the Common Core Standards. Great program—and inspiring.”
“Today’s activity can be used in so many Here are few highlights and comments different ways in the classroom. I’m already from educators who have attended one of the Museum’s professional excited to use materials in the classroom development programs in the 2012–13 school year. in a variety of ways.” Photos: Erin K. Hylton and Ivan Forde Friends 79 Friends Happy Birthday Sam Gilliam!
by Naima J. Keith, Assistant Curator
Iconic artist Sam Gilliam turns eighty this year! To celebrate Assembly Required: Selections from the Permanent this momentous occasion, we are spotlighting Lion’s Arc Collection. A revolutionary figure in postwar American (1981), a landmark painting from the Studio Museum’s art, Gilliam is best known for his experimentations with permanent collection. Originally shown in the 1982 exhi- abstraction resulting from an interest in moving away bition Sam Gilliam: Journey Toward Red, Black and “D”, from figurative imagery to adopt color as the main Lion’s Arc was a highlight of the spring 2013 exhibition subject of his paintings.
Sam Gilliam, Lion’s Arc, 1981 Gift of Morton J. Roberts, M.D. 82.12.a,b,c Friends 79 Friends Happy Birthday Sam Gilliam!
by Naima J. Keith, Assistant Curator
Iconic artist Sam Gilliam turns eighty this year! To celebrate Assembly Required: Selections from the Permanent this momentous occasion, we are spotlighting Lion’s Arc Collection. A revolutionary figure in postwar American (1981), a landmark painting from the Studio Museum’s art, Gilliam is best known for his experimentations with permanent collection. Originally shown in the 1982 exhi- abstraction resulting from an interest in moving away bition Sam Gilliam: Journey Toward Red, Black and “D”, from figurative imagery to adopt color as the main Lion’s Arc was a highlight of the spring 2013 exhibition subject of his paintings.
Sam Gilliam, Lion’s Arc, 1981 Gift of Morton J. Roberts, M.D. 82.12.a,b,c Summer/Fall 2013 80 Friends 81
Gala 2012 Gala 2012
Carol Sutton Lewis, Jacqueline L. Bradley, Rescheduled for February 4, 2013, Gala 2012 raised nearly $1.7 million, Amelia Ogunlesi, Thelma Golden, Kathryn C. Chenault, Teri Trotter, celebrated the incomparable Agnes Gund and presented the seventh Joyce K. Haupt Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize to Jennie C. Jones. Check out some of our favorite pictures! For a complete list of supporters, please see the All photos: Julie Skarratt Winter/Spring 2013 issue of Studio.
Thelma Golden and Duro Olowu Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran Amber Patton
Star Jones Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Susan Fales-Hill George and Gail Knox
Glory Van Scott and George Wein Holly Phillips, MD and Jose Tavarez Glory Van Scott, Duro Olowu, Thelma Golden, Jennie C. Jones, George Wein Jean Shafiroff Catherine Gund, Agnes Gund, Darren Walker, Scott Rothkopf, Tenzin Gund-Morrow Marcus Samuelsson and Maya Haile Summer/Fall 2013 80 Friends 81
Gala 2012 Gala 2012
Carol Sutton Lewis, Jacqueline L. Bradley, Rescheduled for February 4, 2013, Gala 2012 raised nearly $1.7 million, Amelia Ogunlesi, Thelma Golden, Kathryn C. Chenault, Teri Trotter, celebrated the incomparable Agnes Gund and presented the seventh Joyce K. Haupt Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize to Jennie C. Jones. Check out some of our favorite pictures! For a complete list of supporters, please see the All photos: Julie Skarratt Winter/Spring 2013 issue of Studio.
Thelma Golden and Duro Olowu Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran Amber Patton
Star Jones Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Susan Fales-Hill George and Gail Knox
Glory Van Scott and George Wein Holly Phillips, MD and Jose Tavarez Glory Van Scott, Duro Olowu, Thelma Golden, Jennie C. Jones, George Wein Jean Shafiroff Catherine Gund, Agnes Gund, Darren Walker, Scott Rothkopf, Tenzin Gund-Morrow Marcus Samuelsson and Maya Haile Summer/Fall 2013 82 Friends 83
Gala 2012 Spring Luncheon 2013
Carol Sutton Lewis and Linda Johnson Rice The Studio Museum in Harlem held its sixth annual Spring Luncheon on
All photos: Julie Skarratt Friday, May 3, 2013, at the Mandarin Oriental New York. The Spring Luncheon is a fantastic occasion to celebrate the importance and continued success of arts education programming with a distinguished group of individuals. The afternoon acknowledges the Museum’s commitment to education and creativity. This year, guests saluted Linda Johnson Rice, Chairman, Johnson Publishing Company. Guests were also treated to a special presentation by Expanding the Walls artist Arnell Calderon of the NYC iSchool. Our arts edu- cation program is best known for its creative and bold approach to reaching out to traditionally underserved communities. Our education programming Harriette Cole David Monn and Judy Byrd Nyssa and Chris Lee highlights black art and culture through stimulating lectures, dialogues, Crystal McCrary and Gayle King Lise and Michael Evans Tai Beauchamp and guest panel discussions and performances, as well as interpretive programs for children and teachers, both on- and off-site. Teri Trotter and Joyce K. Haupt Judia E. Black and Nina Whittington-Cooper Frederick O. Terrell and Jonelle Procope
Thelma Golden, Valentino D. Carlotti, William M. Lewis, Jr. and Carol Sutton Lewis Agnes Gund and Darren Walker David Adjaye Summer/Fall 2013 82 Friends 83
Gala 2012 Spring Luncheon 2013
Carol Sutton Lewis and Linda Johnson Rice The Studio Museum in Harlem held its sixth annual Spring Luncheon on
All photos: Julie Skarratt Friday, May 3, 2013, at the Mandarin Oriental New York. The Spring Luncheon is a fantastic occasion to celebrate the importance and continued success of arts education programming with a distinguished group of individuals. The afternoon acknowledges the Museum’s commitment to education and creativity. This year, guests saluted Linda Johnson Rice, Chairman, Johnson Publishing Company. Guests were also treated to a special presentation by Expanding the Walls artist Arnell Calderon of the NYC iSchool. Our arts edu- cation program is best known for its creative and bold approach to reaching out to traditionally underserved communities. Our education programming Harriette Cole David Monn and Judy Byrd Nyssa and Chris Lee highlights black art and culture through stimulating lectures, dialogues, Crystal McCrary and Gayle King Lise and Michael Evans Tai Beauchamp and guest panel discussions and performances, as well as interpretive programs for children and teachers, both on- and off-site. Teri Trotter and Joyce K. Haupt Judia E. Black and Nina Whittington-Cooper Frederick O. Terrell and Jonelle Procope
Thelma Golden, Valentino D. Carlotti, William M. Lewis, Jr. and Carol Sutton Lewis Agnes Gund and Darren Walker David Adjaye Summer/Fall 2013 84 Features 85
Spring Luncheon 2013 Spring Luncheon 2013
Karen C. Phillips, Kathyrn C. Chenault, b michael, Jerri DeVard, Jean DeVard Kemp Amelia Ogunlesi, Saundra Cornwell Debra Abell, Megan Abell Amy Fine Collins, b michael Shannon Hale, Holly Phillips MD, Vanessa Y. Perez Kathryn C. Chenault
Audrey Smaltz Ashley Alston, Tonya Redding-Dennis Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Rebecca Eisenberg Nancy L. Lane, Tracey G. Riese Paul Goerg Champagne Joyce K. Haupt, Alicia Bythewood
Michael Brathwaite, Marilyn Booker Jennie C. Jones Tracy Reese, Thelma Golden Felicia Crabtree, Evans Richardson Kim Powell Tren’ness Woods-Black
Tables: Patron Crystal McCrary Donor Judith M. Davenport, DMD Lea K. Green/Christie’s Benefactor Jacqueline Avant Rhonda Adams Medina Shelley Fox Aarons Dawn L. Davis Camille Hackney Bloomberg Avon Foundation for Women Julie Mehretu & Jessica Rankin Debra Tanner Abell, M.D. Lisa E. Davis, Esq. Tiffany M. Hall Jacqueline L. Bradley & Teri Trotter Nicole A. Bernard/ FOX Audience Strategy Laura Michalchyshyn DD Allen Nina del Rio Joyce K. Haupt Valentino D. Carlotti Judia Black Brooke Garber Neidich Peg Alston Jerri Devard Joan Hornig Kathryn C. Chenault & Carol Sutton Lewis Susan Sarnoff Bram Holly Phillips MD Jennifer Arceneaux Tanji Dewberry Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Marie-Josée Kravis Pippa Cohen Karen C. Phillips Ariel Investments, LLC Suzanne Donaldson Rosemarie Ingleton MD Debra L. Lee/BET Networks Malaak Compton-Rock Tracey G. Riese Hope Atherton Janine Dorsett Sarah James Irby Raymond J. McGuire Gordon J. Davis and Peggy Cooper Davis Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Nadja Bellan-White Chloe Drew Lorrie King Dr. Amelia Ogunlesi Lisa Dennison Barbara Scott Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels Elizabeth Easton Jayme Koszyn & Thomas O’Handley Marva Smalls/Viacom Yolanda Ferrell-Brown Kathleen Tait Marianne Boesky Rebecca Eisenberg Jenny Laird Ann G. Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee Agnes Gund David Teiger Lisa Bonner Louise Eliasof Nancy L. Lane halley k harrisburg The Walker Marchant Group Michèle Lallemand Brazil Tiana Webb Evans/Phillips Courtney Lee-Mitchell ING U.S. Nina Mitchell Wells Marilyn Booker Sima Familant Miyoung Lee James Cohan Gallery Angela Westwater Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Denise B. Gardner Nyssa F. Lee Pamela J. Joyner Janice Savin Williams Peggy Byrd Emily Glasser Lehmann Maupin Gallery Dr. Shirley Madhère Saundra Williams-Cornwell Debra Martin Chase Gabrielle Glore Cindi Leive The Margaret and Daniel Loeb-Third Zubatkin Owner Representation, LLC Harriette Cole Jan F. Golann Loida Nicolas Lewis Point Foundation Jocelyn Cooley Elaine Goldman Susan Lowry Summer/Fall 2013 84 Features 85
Spring Luncheon 2013 Spring Luncheon 2013
Karen C. Phillips, Kathyrn C. Chenault, b michael, Jerri DeVard, Jean DeVard Kemp Amelia Ogunlesi, Saundra Cornwell Debra Abell, Megan Abell Amy Fine Collins, b michael Shannon Hale, Holly Phillips MD, Vanessa Y. Perez Kathryn C. Chenault
Audrey Smaltz Ashley Alston, Tonya Redding-Dennis Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Rebecca Eisenberg Nancy L. Lane, Tracey G. Riese Paul Goerg Champagne Joyce K. Haupt, Alicia Bythewood
Michael Brathwaite, Marilyn Booker Jennie C. Jones Tracy Reese, Thelma Golden Felicia Crabtree, Evans Richardson Kim Powell Tren’ness Woods-Black
Tables: Patron Crystal McCrary Donor Judith M. Davenport, DMD Lea K. Green/Christie’s Benefactor Jacqueline Avant Rhonda Adams Medina Shelley Fox Aarons Dawn L. Davis Camille Hackney Bloomberg Avon Foundation for Women Julie Mehretu & Jessica Rankin Debra Tanner Abell, M.D. Lisa E. Davis, Esq. Tiffany M. Hall Jacqueline L. Bradley & Teri Trotter Nicole A. Bernard/ FOX Audience Strategy Laura Michalchyshyn DD Allen Nina del Rio Joyce K. Haupt Valentino D. Carlotti Judia Black Brooke Garber Neidich Peg Alston Jerri Devard Joan Hornig Kathryn C. Chenault & Carol Sutton Lewis Susan Sarnoff Bram Holly Phillips MD Jennifer Arceneaux Tanji Dewberry Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Marie-Josée Kravis Pippa Cohen Karen C. Phillips Ariel Investments, LLC Suzanne Donaldson Rosemarie Ingleton MD Debra L. Lee/BET Networks Malaak Compton-Rock Tracey G. Riese Hope Atherton Janine Dorsett Sarah James Irby Raymond J. McGuire Gordon J. Davis and Peggy Cooper Davis Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Nadja Bellan-White Chloe Drew Lorrie King Dr. Amelia Ogunlesi Lisa Dennison Barbara Scott Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels Elizabeth Easton Jayme Koszyn & Thomas O’Handley Marva Smalls/Viacom Yolanda Ferrell-Brown Kathleen Tait Marianne Boesky Rebecca Eisenberg Jenny Laird Ann G. Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee Agnes Gund David Teiger Lisa Bonner Louise Eliasof Nancy L. Lane halley k harrisburg The Walker Marchant Group Michèle Lallemand Brazil Tiana Webb Evans/Phillips Courtney Lee-Mitchell ING U.S. Nina Mitchell Wells Marilyn Booker Sima Familant Miyoung Lee James Cohan Gallery Angela Westwater Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Denise B. Gardner Nyssa F. Lee Pamela J. Joyner Janice Savin Williams Peggy Byrd Emily Glasser Lehmann Maupin Gallery Dr. Shirley Madhère Saundra Williams-Cornwell Debra Martin Chase Gabrielle Glore Cindi Leive The Margaret and Daniel Loeb-Third Zubatkin Owner Representation, LLC Harriette Cole Jan F. Golann Loida Nicolas Lewis Point Foundation Jocelyn Cooley Elaine Goldman Susan Lowry Summer/Fall 2013 86 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 87
Spring Luncheon 2013 Members
Pamela J. Joyner, Alicia Bythewood, Brie Bythewood
The Museum’s Membership Marieluise Hessel Jo-Anne L. Bates Barbara Jakobson Linda K. Beauvil Program has played an important Elizabeth Szancer Kujawski Wayne Benjamin role in the institution’s growth for Daniel S. Loeb & Margaret Munzer Loeb Ann & Jonathan Binstock Harriette & Edgar Mandeville Hilary Blackman more than forty years. Thank you Robert L. Marcus Barbara Boyd to all the following who helped Gay McDougall William R. Brown Anthony Meier E. Maudette Brownlee, Ph.D. maintain our ambitious schedule Dr. Kenneth Montague Johanne Bryant-Reid of exhibitions and public programs Eileen Harris Norton Edward Blake Byrne Janice Carlson Oresman Anne B. Cammack during the 2012–13 season. Lacary Sharpe Elaine Carter Lyn & E. Thomas Williams Deborah Cates Corporate Members Aygul Charles 2x4, Inc Associate Rodney Clayton American Express Cynthia D. Adams Patricia G. Coates JPMorgan Chase Daryl & Rodney Alexander Garland Core, Jr. New York University Jennifer Arceneaux Lynda & Raymond Curtis Pfizer, Inc. Peggy & John Bader Ronald and Linda Daitz Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Jemina R. Bernard Tyrone M. Davenport Barbara J. Bloemink Carlton Davis SPECIAL MEMBERSHIPS Daniel Brathwaite Sasha Dees Studio Society Reginald Browne & Dr. Aliya Browne Ellyn & Saul Dennison Gerald and Gwen Adolph Randolph C. Cain Thelma & David Driskell Drs. Answorth and Rae Allen Valerie Cooper Mary Deupree Atty. Darwin F. Brown Tanya Crossley Georgia E. Ellis Jonathan Caplan & Angus Cook Charles Davis Toni G. Fay Veronica Chambers Sally Dill Katherine Finerty Anne Delaney & Steve Stuso Marquita & Knut Eckert Susan & Arthur Fleischer, Jr. Sarah and Derek Irby Regina Felton, Esq. Jack A. Fogle Noel Kirnon & Michael Paley Novella Ford Patricia Freeman Celia & Henry McGee Arti & Harold Freeman Ryann Galloway Alessandra Carnielli / Pierre and Tana Matisse Louis Gagliano & Stefan Handl Richard Gerrig Foundation Ira Goldberg Charlynn & Warren Goins Cheryl Russell Arthur I. Golden Carol and Arthur Goldberg Elizabeth D. Simmons Lea K. Green, Esq. Alvia Golden Francis H. Williams Steven Henry and Philip Shneidman Rita Green Antoinette Young Charla Jones Denise L. Greene Phyllis L. Kossoff Joan Greenfield GENERAL MEMBERSHIP Peter D. Lax Geraldine Gregg Benefactor Kerry James Marshall & Cheryl L. Bruce Maxine Griffith Anonymous Ernest Mensah Robert & Patricia Gwinn Douglas Baxter and Brian Hastings Marcus Mitchell & Courtney Lee-Mitchell Leon L. Haley Elizabeth & Scott Corwin Edward Nahem William A. Harper Liliahn Majeed S. Mona Sinha Contributors Agnes Gund Amy and Joe Perella Reginald D. Harris Ginger McKnight-Chavers Audrey Smaltz Linda Daitz Sondra Hodges Ron Person Sanjeanetta Harris Alicia Hall Moran South African Tourism Harriette Mandeville Tina & Lawrence Jones Tracey & Phillip Riese Alfonso Holloman Isobel Neal Kimberly A. Snead Nancy Novogrod Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Vivian D. Robinson Dorothy D. Holloway Deborah Needleman Michael Ward Stout Denise L. Quarles Gwen & Peter Norton Ingrid & Stan Savage Frances and Jeffrey Horne Monique Nelson Jane Sutherland Sharon G. Socol Connie & Jack Tilton Jason Stanley & Njeri Thande Johnnie R. Jackson Jacqueline Nickelberry, Esq. Candice Taylor-Horvath Susan Sosnick Beth Zubatkin Fabienne Stephan Marsha Y. Jackson Janice Oresman Connie Rogers Tilton Sophia Crichton Stuart Roger C. Tucker III Debra A. James Amber Patton Shirley Truman-Smith Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Thompson Donor Gwen & Arnold Webb Barry Jamison Vanessa Y. Perez Rima Vargas-Vetter Vincent Fremont Enterprises, Inc. Ellen Brathwaite Barbara Johnson Audrey P. Pickens Nicola Vassell Ernestine Washington Spencer Brownstone Supporter Carl E. Johnson Marquita Pool-Eckert Maria Weaver Watson Heather Rae Byer Anonymous Benjamin F. Jones Kim Powell Constance White List in formation as of April 23, 2013 Constance Caplan Malaika Adero Robert M. Jordan Jonelle Procope Anita Volz Wien Margarett Cooper Peg Alston Letitia Jowosimi Suzanne L. Randolph Dawanna Williams Dana Cranmer Barbara E. Anderson Mitchell Karp & Jonathan Bregman Tracy Reese Tren’ness Woods-Black Elizabeth De Cuevas Dr. Janna Andrews Wayne H. Kelton Deborah Roberts World Bride Magazine Robert Durst Richard Armstrong Mary M. Kresky Tamara L. Robinson Deborah C. Wright Sherman Edmiston Novisi Atadika Marguerite Lathan Kimberly Ayers Shariff Monica Zwirner and Lucy Wallace Eustice Mia Enell & Nicolas Fries Nicole Awai James D. Lax, M.D. Nadja Fidelia Joe M. Bacal & Anne Newman Jeffrey A. Leib Marla Guess Yona Backer Pierre Levai Joshua Guild & Carla Shedd Summer/Fall 2013 86 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 87
Spring Luncheon 2013 Members
Pamela J. Joyner, Alicia Bythewood, Brie Bythewood
The Museum’s Membership Marieluise Hessel Jo-Anne L. Bates Barbara Jakobson Linda K. Beauvil Program has played an important Elizabeth Szancer Kujawski Wayne Benjamin role in the institution’s growth for Daniel S. Loeb & Margaret Munzer Loeb Ann & Jonathan Binstock Harriette & Edgar Mandeville Hilary Blackman more than forty years. Thank you Robert L. Marcus Barbara Boyd to all the following who helped Gay McDougall William R. Brown Anthony Meier E. Maudette Brownlee, Ph.D. maintain our ambitious schedule Dr. Kenneth Montague Johanne Bryant-Reid of exhibitions and public programs Eileen Harris Norton Edward Blake Byrne Janice Carlson Oresman Anne B. Cammack during the 2012–13 season. Lacary Sharpe Elaine Carter Lyn & E. Thomas Williams Deborah Cates Corporate Members Aygul Charles 2x4, Inc Associate Rodney Clayton American Express Cynthia D. Adams Patricia G. Coates JPMorgan Chase Daryl & Rodney Alexander Garland Core, Jr. New York University Jennifer Arceneaux Lynda & Raymond Curtis Pfizer, Inc. Peggy & John Bader Ronald and Linda Daitz Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Jemina R. Bernard Tyrone M. Davenport Barbara J. Bloemink Carlton Davis SPECIAL MEMBERSHIPS Daniel Brathwaite Sasha Dees Studio Society Reginald Browne & Dr. Aliya Browne Ellyn & Saul Dennison Gerald and Gwen Adolph Randolph C. Cain Thelma & David Driskell Drs. Answorth and Rae Allen Valerie Cooper Mary Deupree Atty. Darwin F. Brown Tanya Crossley Georgia E. Ellis Jonathan Caplan & Angus Cook Charles Davis Toni G. Fay Veronica Chambers Sally Dill Katherine Finerty Anne Delaney & Steve Stuso Marquita & Knut Eckert Susan & Arthur Fleischer, Jr. Sarah and Derek Irby Regina Felton, Esq. Jack A. Fogle Noel Kirnon & Michael Paley Novella Ford Patricia Freeman Celia & Henry McGee Arti & Harold Freeman Ryann Galloway Alessandra Carnielli / Pierre and Tana Matisse Louis Gagliano & Stefan Handl Richard Gerrig Foundation Ira Goldberg Charlynn & Warren Goins Cheryl Russell Arthur I. Golden Carol and Arthur Goldberg Elizabeth D. Simmons Lea K. Green, Esq. Alvia Golden Francis H. Williams Steven Henry and Philip Shneidman Rita Green Antoinette Young Charla Jones Denise L. Greene Phyllis L. Kossoff Joan Greenfield GENERAL MEMBERSHIP Peter D. Lax Geraldine Gregg Benefactor Kerry James Marshall & Cheryl L. Bruce Maxine Griffith Anonymous Ernest Mensah Robert & Patricia Gwinn Douglas Baxter and Brian Hastings Marcus Mitchell & Courtney Lee-Mitchell Leon L. Haley Elizabeth & Scott Corwin Edward Nahem William A. Harper Liliahn Majeed S. Mona Sinha Contributors Agnes Gund Amy and Joe Perella Reginald D. Harris Ginger McKnight-Chavers Audrey Smaltz Linda Daitz Sondra Hodges Ron Person Sanjeanetta Harris Alicia Hall Moran South African Tourism Harriette Mandeville Tina & Lawrence Jones Tracey & Phillip Riese Alfonso Holloman Isobel Neal Kimberly A. Snead Nancy Novogrod Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Vivian D. Robinson Dorothy D. Holloway Deborah Needleman Michael Ward Stout Denise L. Quarles Gwen & Peter Norton Ingrid & Stan Savage Frances and Jeffrey Horne Monique Nelson Jane Sutherland Sharon G. Socol Connie & Jack Tilton Jason Stanley & Njeri Thande Johnnie R. Jackson Jacqueline Nickelberry, Esq. Candice Taylor-Horvath Susan Sosnick Beth Zubatkin Fabienne Stephan Marsha Y. Jackson Janice Oresman Connie Rogers Tilton Sophia Crichton Stuart Roger C. Tucker III Debra A. James Amber Patton Shirley Truman-Smith Mr. and Mrs. Larry D. Thompson Donor Gwen & Arnold Webb Barry Jamison Vanessa Y. Perez Rima Vargas-Vetter Vincent Fremont Enterprises, Inc. Ellen Brathwaite Barbara Johnson Audrey P. Pickens Nicola Vassell Ernestine Washington Spencer Brownstone Supporter Carl E. Johnson Marquita Pool-Eckert Maria Weaver Watson Heather Rae Byer Anonymous Benjamin F. Jones Kim Powell Constance White List in formation as of April 23, 2013 Constance Caplan Malaika Adero Robert M. Jordan Jonelle Procope Anita Volz Wien Margarett Cooper Peg Alston Letitia Jowosimi Suzanne L. Randolph Dawanna Williams Dana Cranmer Barbara E. Anderson Mitchell Karp & Jonathan Bregman Tracy Reese Tren’ness Woods-Black Elizabeth De Cuevas Dr. Janna Andrews Wayne H. Kelton Deborah Roberts World Bride Magazine Robert Durst Richard Armstrong Mary M. Kresky Tamara L. Robinson Deborah C. Wright Sherman Edmiston Novisi Atadika Marguerite Lathan Kimberly Ayers Shariff Monica Zwirner and Lucy Wallace Eustice Mia Enell & Nicolas Fries Nicole Awai James D. Lax, M.D. Nadja Fidelia Joe M. Bacal & Anne Newman Jeffrey A. Leib Marla Guess Yona Backer Pierre Levai Joshua Guild & Carla Shedd FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 88 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 89
Members Members
Dixie Lincoln-Nichols Michèle & Joseph Brazil Individual Vilma E. France Autumn D. McDonald Josef Vascovitz Joyce Lowinson, M.D. Frederick & Leslie Bright Jeanette Adams Jacqueline Francis Julie McGee Karen E. Venzen / KevKreations Frank C. Mahon Paule Bros Emma Amos Tiffany Frasier Jannie McInnes Sametta Vick Maureen Mahon YT Cabrera and D. Sanchez Keith D. Amparado James E. Frazier Christine McKay Carolyn Wade Daisy W. Martin George Calderaro Frank Anderson Alex Friedman George McKinley Martin Ernestine Washington Sheila Ann Mason-Gonzalez Jesse Owens and Lael Chappell Julie Anderson Linda Galietti Mary B. McRae Valerie Washington Michael McCollom Robert Clemons & Riina Okas Valerie Anderson Janet Gardner, DBA The Gardner Documentary Sonia Mendez Jackson Diane Weathers Cheryl & Eric McKissack Nancy L. Clipper Charles A. Archer, Esq. / EDCSPIN, Inc. Group Jeanne-Marie A. Miller Joy Wellington James & Vanessa McKnight Velma L. Cobb Mary Ellen Arrington Ervin J. Garrison Gary Mizel Louise West Rodney McMillian Kevin R. Curry & Abdou Seye George Arterberry Christa Giesecke Abdul Kareem Muhammad Doris D. White Sal Miele Alvaro A. Dalton Dr. Kenneth Ashley Lyndon K. Gill Eunice H. Murphy L. H. Whitehead Cerisa Mitchell Kay Deaux & Sam Glucksberg Lee Autry Pearl Gill Mary J. Murphy Michelle Joan Wilkinson Angeline Monroe-Mayo Karole Dill Barkley & Eric J. Barkley Grace H. Ayanru, M.D. Michael C. Gillespie Jeanine Myers Diane Williams Isolde McNicholl Motley & Joel W. Motley Ellen M. Donahue Janeen Azare Drew Gilmore Eileen Newman Hubert Williams Lucienne Muller Russell J. Drake and Rebecca C. Drake Jacqueline A. Bailey Marilyn T. Glater Derek G. Nichols Bobbie Willis Madeline Murphy Rabb Celia Dunn Gawanya Baity Lucy Godwin Jide Ojo Samuel Wilson, Jr. Robert Newman Vincent Falls Hilary M. Ballon Caren Golden Ayodele Oti Hilda L. Wradge Nell Painter Darrell & Helen Forbes Fields Ray Anthony Barrett Edward Gordon-Berroa Regina Page Jonathan W. Parker Lolita & Thomas Garvin, Jr. Gloria Batiste-Roberts Jo-Ann Graham Jeremiah Pam Senior Sharon Parker Kristen B. Glen Thelma V. Beale Gail Gray Monica Parham O’Neal Abel CCH Pounder-Koné Constance E. Golding & C. Ellen Golding Carolyn Bell Cheryll Y. Greene Shannel Parker Beverly C. Abisogun Martin Puryear & Jeanne Gordon Deborah L. Gould, M.D. Daniel Berger, MD Beth R. Greenwald Trupti Patel Kojo Ade Kellie Jones and Guthrie Ramsey Deborah Pilgrim Graham & Kenneth R. Graham Nils Bernstein Constance Grey Sandra M. Payne Ann B. Armistead Donville Reid Henry A. Grimes Rosemary Blake Therese A. Griffin Javier Peral Jimmy Arnold Sande Robinson Ruth Eisenberg & Greg Hendren Julia Boland Bleetstein Augusta Grubb Olivia E. and Paul Bruce Perkins Anna R. Austin William Seraile, Ph.D. Geoffrey Hendricks & Sur Rodney Regina Boyer Janice Guy Rochelle Perlman Frederic H. Bacon John Silberman Minnie & Brent Henry Carolyn A. Brown Tracie D. Hall Avon Pinckney Wanda Baker-Smith Kenneth Sills Mari Iki & Martin Maguss Farrah Brown Susie W. Hampton Valerie Pinckney-Williams Lillian M. Bartok Laura Skoler Al-lyce Eloise James Cathleen Campbell Robin Hayes Nancy Delman Portnoy Nubia Beazer Judith W. Smith Denise Jones & Dennis Jordan Milton G. Campbell Clemens Heiderhoff Jennifer Prince Dolores H. Bedford Seton Smith Amy B. Kuhn & Stuart L. Rosow Oslene C. Carrington Lesley Heller Sheila W. Quarterman Elizabeth T. Bolden Kimberly Snead Kimberly P. & Roderick E. Lane Nia Chambers Herbert Henry Ann Ranniar Bertha Brandon Clara R. Stanton Connie Lee Gulzar R. Charania Janet O. Henry Landon Reid Barbara A. Braxton Ernest L. Swiggett Rosalyn Lee & Beverly Tillery Edythe C. Cherry Valerie Hepburn Valerie A. Rhodes Lavonnie Brinkley Salim I. Talib Dawn Lille Liz Christensen Donaldson Hill Ayinde Ricco Burtt Brown Julian Taub Nashormeh and Delroy Lindo Scott Clugstone Marilyn Holifield Kenneth W. Richardson Laura D. Brown-Sands Beatrice Thomas J. Macarena-Avila Mike Cohen Camara Holloway Mary E. Riley Beverly Bryer Joseph Thompson Tulis McCall Pippa Cohen Demetria Irwin Ayana M. Rivers Jean Bunce Ellie & David B. Tweedy Robin J. Miller Holly Delany Cole Curtiss Jacobs Floree Roberson Larry Burton Alexa Verme Erica Motley Norman Cole Erica M. James Reginald Roberts Maryanne Byington Clara C. Villarosa Suzanne Y. Ogunsanya Paula Coleman Michael A. James Caralene Robinson Janice L. Bynum Margo & Anthony Viscusi Antonio & Jeanne Orrantia Sheryl Colyer DéVon Johnson Corane Robinson Diana Cagle Carolyn & Ed Wagner Robert E. Penn Nedra Janice Cook Michelle Johnson Jean A. Rock Flossie Canada Edward Walrond Gloria C. Phares & Richard Dannay Erica Corbin Robert O. Johnson & Ann M. Menting Verraine Rock Allison Carter Olivia & Carey White Jane Ratcliffe Nicole Cosby Patricia Jones Gregory Nada Rowand Sadie & Roberto Codling Merrin L. White Guy Roberts Kimberly Cowart Dorothy Elizabeth Kennedy Bobby Savinis Milton Collins Ben Widdicombe Francisco & Hope Rodriguez Chris V. Davis Klaus Kertess Margaret Scott Charlotte H. Crawford Gilbert S. Williams, Jr. Anna & Wolfgang E. G. Saxon Sylvia de Cuevas Eugene H. Knox Abukarriem Shabazz Brent Crayton Jeanne Willis Elza Rohan Sharpe Alice M. Dear Antoinette Lamb Ellen Shaffer Carl F. Davis Betty Wilson Carla & Edward Slomin Dennis Decker Lara Lauchheimer Regina Shanklin Diane D. Dean Hugh A. Wilson Eileen E. Smith-Grant & Robert D. Grant Bunny Dell Lee Lawrence Daryl Shore Veronica DeLuze Shirley Woodson Ira Statfeld Jessica DeMattos Marie LeDoux Stefanie Siegel D. DePrator Douglas Zywiczynski Alan Stricoff Edward Dew Mary Ann Lee Danielle Siegelbaum Joan Deroko Laura Sweeney Kathleen A. Dill Gregory Lenhardt Adelaide E. Simms Susan C. Dessel Family/Partner Carla & Cleophus Thomas Louise S. Dockery Jerome M. Lewine Andrea C. Skinner Guy L. deVeaux Vernona Adams William L. Thompson Danielle Dowrich Linda A. Lewis Sippio Small Evelyn Dill Brenda Aiken Thompson Edith Van Slyck & James R. Hammond Lori Dunston Lynn Lieberman Davon Snipes Dorothy H. Divins Barbara Andalcio Tshombe Walker Lonti Ebers Willie Logan Barry Stanley Gwen Dixon Beverly J. Anderson Tamara Waye Allison Ecung Whitney Love Jennifer E. Stern Betty Donerson Lisa Applebaum & George Haddad Harriet M. & Charles Weiss Sandra M. Epps Carrie Lowery Ethel Terrell Joan M. Eastmond Donna Ashe Amanda Fuller and Steve Whigham Peter Erickson David S. Lucas Susann Thomas George D. Everette Ard Berge and Alisa LaGamma Ernestine F. Willis Gertrude F. Erwin Karen Lumpkin Lloyd E. Thompson Lucille Eversley Yaëlle Biro Robert & Barbara Willner Ruth Fine Darryl J. Mack Anthony Todman Theodore C. Fair Lindy Blassingame Diane Wilson Ann Fluser Ruben Mahboobi John D. Treadwell Barbara Flemmings Edith Boyd Silvia Forni Andrea Mahon Rick Ulysse Marilyn Gailliard Suzanne McClelland Susanna G. Vapnek Ellen Rose Gasnick FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 88 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 89
Members Members
Dixie Lincoln-Nichols Michèle & Joseph Brazil Individual Vilma E. France Autumn D. McDonald Josef Vascovitz Joyce Lowinson, M.D. Frederick & Leslie Bright Jeanette Adams Jacqueline Francis Julie McGee Karen E. Venzen / KevKreations Frank C. Mahon Paule Bros Emma Amos Tiffany Frasier Jannie McInnes Sametta Vick Maureen Mahon YT Cabrera and D. Sanchez Keith D. Amparado James E. Frazier Christine McKay Carolyn Wade Daisy W. Martin George Calderaro Frank Anderson Alex Friedman George McKinley Martin Ernestine Washington Sheila Ann Mason-Gonzalez Jesse Owens and Lael Chappell Julie Anderson Linda Galietti Mary B. McRae Valerie Washington Michael McCollom Robert Clemons & Riina Okas Valerie Anderson Janet Gardner, DBA The Gardner Documentary Sonia Mendez Jackson Diane Weathers Cheryl & Eric McKissack Nancy L. Clipper Charles A. Archer, Esq. / EDCSPIN, Inc. Group Jeanne-Marie A. Miller Joy Wellington James & Vanessa McKnight Velma L. Cobb Mary Ellen Arrington Ervin J. Garrison Gary Mizel Louise West Rodney McMillian Kevin R. Curry & Abdou Seye George Arterberry Christa Giesecke Abdul Kareem Muhammad Doris D. White Sal Miele Alvaro A. Dalton Dr. Kenneth Ashley Lyndon K. Gill Eunice H. Murphy L. H. Whitehead Cerisa Mitchell Kay Deaux & Sam Glucksberg Lee Autry Pearl Gill Mary J. Murphy Michelle Joan Wilkinson Angeline Monroe-Mayo Karole Dill Barkley & Eric J. Barkley Grace H. Ayanru, M.D. Michael C. Gillespie Jeanine Myers Diane Williams Isolde McNicholl Motley & Joel W. Motley Ellen M. Donahue Janeen Azare Drew Gilmore Eileen Newman Hubert Williams Lucienne Muller Russell J. Drake and Rebecca C. Drake Jacqueline A. Bailey Marilyn T. Glater Derek G. Nichols Bobbie Willis Madeline Murphy Rabb Celia Dunn Gawanya Baity Lucy Godwin Jide Ojo Samuel Wilson, Jr. Robert Newman Vincent Falls Hilary M. Ballon Caren Golden Ayodele Oti Hilda L. Wradge Nell Painter Darrell & Helen Forbes Fields Ray Anthony Barrett Edward Gordon-Berroa Regina Page Jonathan W. Parker Lolita & Thomas Garvin, Jr. Gloria Batiste-Roberts Jo-Ann Graham Jeremiah Pam Senior Sharon Parker Kristen B. Glen Thelma V. Beale Gail Gray Monica Parham O’Neal Abel CCH Pounder-Koné Constance E. Golding & C. Ellen Golding Carolyn Bell Cheryll Y. Greene Shannel Parker Beverly C. Abisogun Martin Puryear & Jeanne Gordon Deborah L. Gould, M.D. Daniel Berger, MD Beth R. Greenwald Trupti Patel Kojo Ade Kellie Jones and Guthrie Ramsey Deborah Pilgrim Graham & Kenneth R. Graham Nils Bernstein Constance Grey Sandra M. Payne Ann B. Armistead Donville Reid Henry A. Grimes Rosemary Blake Therese A. Griffin Javier Peral Jimmy Arnold Sande Robinson Ruth Eisenberg & Greg Hendren Julia Boland Bleetstein Augusta Grubb Olivia E. and Paul Bruce Perkins Anna R. Austin William Seraile, Ph.D. Geoffrey Hendricks & Sur Rodney Regina Boyer Janice Guy Rochelle Perlman Frederic H. Bacon John Silberman Minnie & Brent Henry Carolyn A. Brown Tracie D. Hall Avon Pinckney Wanda Baker-Smith Kenneth Sills Mari Iki & Martin Maguss Farrah Brown Susie W. Hampton Valerie Pinckney-Williams Lillian M. Bartok Laura Skoler Al-lyce Eloise James Cathleen Campbell Robin Hayes Nancy Delman Portnoy Nubia Beazer Judith W. Smith Denise Jones & Dennis Jordan Milton G. Campbell Clemens Heiderhoff Jennifer Prince Dolores H. Bedford Seton Smith Amy B. Kuhn & Stuart L. Rosow Oslene C. Carrington Lesley Heller Sheila W. Quarterman Elizabeth T. Bolden Kimberly Snead Kimberly P. & Roderick E. Lane Nia Chambers Herbert Henry Ann Ranniar Bertha Brandon Clara R. Stanton Connie Lee Gulzar R. Charania Janet O. Henry Landon Reid Barbara A. Braxton Ernest L. Swiggett Rosalyn Lee & Beverly Tillery Edythe C. Cherry Valerie Hepburn Valerie A. Rhodes Lavonnie Brinkley Salim I. Talib Dawn Lille Liz Christensen Donaldson Hill Ayinde Ricco Burtt Brown Julian Taub Nashormeh and Delroy Lindo Scott Clugstone Marilyn Holifield Kenneth W. Richardson Laura D. Brown-Sands Beatrice Thomas J. Macarena-Avila Mike Cohen Camara Holloway Mary E. Riley Beverly Bryer Joseph Thompson Tulis McCall Pippa Cohen Demetria Irwin Ayana M. Rivers Jean Bunce Ellie & David B. Tweedy Robin J. Miller Holly Delany Cole Curtiss Jacobs Floree Roberson Larry Burton Alexa Verme Erica Motley Norman Cole Erica M. James Reginald Roberts Maryanne Byington Clara C. Villarosa Suzanne Y. Ogunsanya Paula Coleman Michael A. James Caralene Robinson Janice L. Bynum Margo & Anthony Viscusi Antonio & Jeanne Orrantia Sheryl Colyer DéVon Johnson Corane Robinson Diana Cagle Carolyn & Ed Wagner Robert E. Penn Nedra Janice Cook Michelle Johnson Jean A. Rock Flossie Canada Edward Walrond Gloria C. Phares & Richard Dannay Erica Corbin Robert O. Johnson & Ann M. Menting Verraine Rock Allison Carter Olivia & Carey White Jane Ratcliffe Nicole Cosby Patricia Jones Gregory Nada Rowand Sadie & Roberto Codling Merrin L. White Guy Roberts Kimberly Cowart Dorothy Elizabeth Kennedy Bobby Savinis Milton Collins Ben Widdicombe Francisco & Hope Rodriguez Chris V. Davis Klaus Kertess Margaret Scott Charlotte H. Crawford Gilbert S. Williams, Jr. Anna & Wolfgang E. G. Saxon Sylvia de Cuevas Eugene H. Knox Abukarriem Shabazz Brent Crayton Jeanne Willis Elza Rohan Sharpe Alice M. Dear Antoinette Lamb Ellen Shaffer Carl F. Davis Betty Wilson Carla & Edward Slomin Dennis Decker Lara Lauchheimer Regina Shanklin Diane D. Dean Hugh A. Wilson Eileen E. Smith-Grant & Robert D. Grant Bunny Dell Lee Lawrence Daryl Shore Veronica DeLuze Shirley Woodson Ira Statfeld Jessica DeMattos Marie LeDoux Stefanie Siegel D. DePrator Douglas Zywiczynski Alan Stricoff Edward Dew Mary Ann Lee Danielle Siegelbaum Joan Deroko Laura Sweeney Kathleen A. Dill Gregory Lenhardt Adelaide E. Simms Susan C. Dessel Family/Partner Carla & Cleophus Thomas Louise S. Dockery Jerome M. Lewine Andrea C. Skinner Guy L. deVeaux Vernona Adams William L. Thompson Danielle Dowrich Linda A. Lewis Sippio Small Evelyn Dill Brenda Aiken Thompson Edith Van Slyck & James R. Hammond Lori Dunston Lynn Lieberman Davon Snipes Dorothy H. Divins Barbara Andalcio Tshombe Walker Lonti Ebers Willie Logan Barry Stanley Gwen Dixon Beverly J. Anderson Tamara Waye Allison Ecung Whitney Love Jennifer E. Stern Betty Donerson Lisa Applebaum & George Haddad Harriet M. & Charles Weiss Sandra M. Epps Carrie Lowery Ethel Terrell Joan M. Eastmond Donna Ashe Amanda Fuller and Steve Whigham Peter Erickson David S. Lucas Susann Thomas George D. Everette Ard Berge and Alisa LaGamma Ernestine F. Willis Gertrude F. Erwin Karen Lumpkin Lloyd E. Thompson Lucille Eversley Yaëlle Biro Robert & Barbara Willner Ruth Fine Darryl J. Mack Anthony Todman Theodore C. Fair Lindy Blassingame Diane Wilson Ann Fluser Ruben Mahboobi John D. Treadwell Barbara Flemmings Edith Boyd Silvia Forni Andrea Mahon Rick Ulysse Marilyn Gailliard Suzanne McClelland Susanna G. Vapnek Ellen Rose Gasnick FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 90 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 91
Members Supporters Spring/Summer 2013
Frank Gimpaya Virginia Robinson The Studio Museum in Harlem makes every The Board of Trustees and Director Teri & Lloyd Trotter / GenNx360 Capital Nancy L. Lane Elaine L. Greene Donald Rubell effort to ensure the accuracy of its lists of Partners Nyssa & Chris Lee Iris Gumbs Christa Saffran members. If your name is not listed as you of The Studio Museum in Harlem Reginald Van Lee Glenn Ligon Lovette W. Harper Dr. Jacqueline Ann Sawyer prefer or if you believe your name has been extend deep gratitude to the Viacom, Inc. Bernard Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi Susan Harrigan Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz Wells Fargo Mehretu and Rankin Family omitted, please let us know by contacting the donors who supported the Museum Sheila Harris Gloria J. Scott Development Office at 212.864.4500 x244 The Winston Foundation Ruthard C. Murphy II Olivia C. Hector Wendy Simmons Brannen or [email protected]. from July 1, 2012 to May 1, 2013. New York University Vivian D. Hewitt Gwendolyn A. Simmons $10,000 to $24,999 Lisa & Richard Perry Kathryn Holmes Barbara O. Smith-Graves Luhring Augustine Gallery Cheryl & Phillip Milstein Bonnie Hornstein Thomas Smithwick $500,000 & above Douglas Baxter / The Pace Gallery Michael S. Smith James Herbert Howell Edward L. Snyder The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Francisco L. Borges Elena Jerome Stern Jon Hutton Thomas Southern The New York City Department of Cultural Citigroup Lois & Roland Betts Joanne & Charles Isaac Lillie Marie Stinsin Affairs The City University of New York The Margaret & Daniel Loeb Third Esther Jackson Margaret E. Stokes Pippa Cohen Point Foundation Faith R. Jacobs Edward Esty Stowell, Jr. $100,000 to $499,999 The Cowles Charitable Trust Melissa & Robert Soros Olga C. Jenkins Fred Sweets Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th C.D Joan S. Davidson & Neil S. Barsky Nancy and Milton Washington Mabel E. Johnson Tamara D. Tabb Raymond J. McGuire Peggy Cooper Davis & Gordon J. Davis DaWanna Williams Pat J. Johnson Charles Tarver, Sr. / Black Art Speaker Christine Quinn and the New York City Dedalus Foundation, Inc. Jason Wright Cynthia G. Jones Beverly Taylor Council EmblemHealth / David Flemister Hettie Jones Howard Terry New York State Council on the Arts Lise & Michael Evans $1,000 to $4,999 Natalie B. Jones Muriel F. Thomas Target Ford Foundation Anonymous William Jones Gloria B. Thompson The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation GE Asset Management Debra Tanner Abell, M.D. Susan C. Joseph Inez B. Vanable Gladstone Gallery Ann & Steven Ames Ronald June David Walters $50,000 to $99,999 Godfrey R. Gill Drs. Answorth and Rae Allen Lois M. Kahan Sylvia Waters Bloomberg Philanthrophies Gravity Tank, Inc. Andrea Rosen Gallery Ernece B. Kelly Winona Watson Booth Ferris Foundation halley k harrisburg & Michael Rosenfeld Charles A. Archer, Esq. / EDCSPIN, Inc. Patricia King Eva Welch Kathryn C. & Kenneth Chenault / American Joyce & Ira Haupt, II Darrell S. Gay / Arent Fox Regina M. King Judith Whitehead Express Dr. & Mrs. Michael L. Lomax Ariel Investments, LLC Beth M. Lawrence Barbara M. Wilson Jose Tavarez and Holly Phillips M.D / Bank of HBO / Henry McGee Nancy Armstrong Susan Lawrence Doris M. Wilson America Merrill Lynch T. Warren Jackson / Charles E. Simpson Art Production Fund Sandra Lee Dolores Winfrey Jacqueline Bradley & Clarence Otis, Jr. / J.P. Morgan Chase Bank Jacqueline Avant James N. Lewis Aaron Woods III Darden Restaurants Jerome Foundation Lyndon & Janine Barrios Janice Livingston Doris D. Wooten Warren & Mitzi Eisenberg Marie-Josée & Henry Kravis James G. Basker & Angela Vallot Eleanor Lowe Ruth C. Wright Valentino D. Carlotti / Goldman, Sachs & Co. Miyoung Lee & Neil Simpkins Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels / Delores E. Mack Elizabeth Young Agnes Gund Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. Jack Shainman Gallery Susan E. Madigan Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc. Jemina R. Bernard Frank B. Marshall III Student Joyce and George Wein Foundation Marcus Mitchell & Courtney Lee-Mitchell Ann & Jonathan Binstock Dynna Martin Bukola Afolayan JPMorgan Chase Bank The New York Community Trust Alvin & Terri Bowles Laine Massey Sherley Belizaire Rodney M. Miller New York Football Giants, Inc. Susan & Jonathan Bram Carmen Matthew Delia Burnett Morgan Stanley Urban Markets Group Eileen Harris Norton Mara Brock Akil Shirley McCain Charles Dey Amelia & Adebayo Ogunlesi Deryck A. Palmer and Mats G. Carlston Yolanda C. Brown Eugene McCray Malcolm Ebanks Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Inc. Amy and Joe Perella Charitable Fund Reginald Browne & Dr. Aliya Browne Dianne H. McDonald Uraline S. Hager Surdna Foundation Pfizer, Inc. Peggy Byrd / TV One Erich Meyerhoff Allison Janae Hamilton Carol Sutton Lewis & William M. Lewis, Jr. Robert Lehman Foundation Charlita Cardwell Herman Milligan Peter Alan Harper Ann Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee Tamara Harris Robinson Lisa & Dick Cashin Phoebe Morris Melody E. Harrison Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn & Nicolas S. Christie’s C. Moultrie LaToya Hobbs $25,000 to $49,999 Rohatyn Columbia University Kay C. Murray Suzanne Johnson Debra L. Lee / BET Networks Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Malaak Compton-Rock & Chris Rock Michael Myers, M.D. Karesha McGee Bloomberg Philanthropies James H. Simmons III Paula Cooper Gallery Isabel H. Neal Alexis Neider Ed Bradley Family Foundation / Marsha E. Simms Saundra Cornwell Jeanne Nedd Alfie Ravenell Patricia Blanchet Marilyn & Jim Simons The David Rockefeller Fund Robert Oba Cullins Desiree Rucker Joan Davidson & Neil S. Barsky Verizon Foundation Dawn L. Davis & Mac LaFollette Theodore V. O’Kelly Julia Sergeon Con Edison Xerox Foundation Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Dr. Ademola Olugebefola Vanessa Sergeon Teri & Lloyd Trotter / GenNx360 Sally Dill Oluyemi Omowale Kathleen C. Tolar Capital Partners $5,000 to $9,999 Russell J. Drake and Rebecca C. Drake Benjamin W. O’Nealos Salem Tsegaye Mr. & Mrs. John B. Hess Anonymous Elizabeth W. Easton Paul O’Neil Adejoke Tugbiyele ING, US / Rhonda Mims Raquel Chevremont Baylor & Corey M. Baylor Anthony Edson James T. Parker Dr. Nombasa Williams Ron Perelman and Anna Chapman Nicole A. Bernard / Fox Audience Strategy Muna El Fituri Stephen Pearlman Anthony Young Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s Judia & Daniel Black Sima Familant Robert Perree MetLife Foundation Lisa E. Davis, Esq. / Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz Becky and Ronald Feder Muriel Z. Pivalo National Endowment for the Arts Rebecca & Martin Eisenberg Charlotte & Bill Ford Giselle King Porter Frank & Nina Cooper / Pepsi-Cola Funny or Die Media, LLC Arti & Harold Freeman Hortense L. Powell Beverages North Americas Alvin D. Hall Robert Gober & Donald Moffet Andrea Ramsey Corine V. Pettey Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Elaine Goldman Rita I. Reid Jerry I. Speyer & Katherine G. Farley Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation Diana and William Gray Margaret A. Robbins The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. for the Arts Lea K. Green, Esq. FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 90 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 91
Members Supporters Spring/Summer 2013
Frank Gimpaya Virginia Robinson The Studio Museum in Harlem makes every The Board of Trustees and Director Teri & Lloyd Trotter / GenNx360 Capital Nancy L. Lane Elaine L. Greene Donald Rubell effort to ensure the accuracy of its lists of Partners Nyssa & Chris Lee Iris Gumbs Christa Saffran members. If your name is not listed as you of The Studio Museum in Harlem Reginald Van Lee Glenn Ligon Lovette W. Harper Dr. Jacqueline Ann Sawyer prefer or if you believe your name has been extend deep gratitude to the Viacom, Inc. Bernard Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi Susan Harrigan Joyce Pomeroy Schwartz Wells Fargo Mehretu and Rankin Family omitted, please let us know by contacting the donors who supported the Museum Sheila Harris Gloria J. Scott Development Office at 212.864.4500 x244 The Winston Foundation Ruthard C. Murphy II Olivia C. Hector Wendy Simmons Brannen or [email protected]. from July 1, 2012 to May 1, 2013. New York University Vivian D. Hewitt Gwendolyn A. Simmons $10,000 to $24,999 Lisa & Richard Perry Kathryn Holmes Barbara O. Smith-Graves Luhring Augustine Gallery Cheryl & Phillip Milstein Bonnie Hornstein Thomas Smithwick $500,000 & above Douglas Baxter / The Pace Gallery Michael S. Smith James Herbert Howell Edward L. Snyder The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Francisco L. Borges Elena Jerome Stern Jon Hutton Thomas Southern The New York City Department of Cultural Citigroup Lois & Roland Betts Joanne & Charles Isaac Lillie Marie Stinsin Affairs The City University of New York The Margaret & Daniel Loeb Third Esther Jackson Margaret E. Stokes Pippa Cohen Point Foundation Faith R. Jacobs Edward Esty Stowell, Jr. $100,000 to $499,999 The Cowles Charitable Trust Melissa & Robert Soros Olga C. Jenkins Fred Sweets Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th C.D Joan S. Davidson & Neil S. Barsky Nancy and Milton Washington Mabel E. Johnson Tamara D. Tabb Raymond J. McGuire Peggy Cooper Davis & Gordon J. Davis DaWanna Williams Pat J. Johnson Charles Tarver, Sr. / Black Art Speaker Christine Quinn and the New York City Dedalus Foundation, Inc. Jason Wright Cynthia G. Jones Beverly Taylor Council EmblemHealth / David Flemister Hettie Jones Howard Terry New York State Council on the Arts Lise & Michael Evans $1,000 to $4,999 Natalie B. Jones Muriel F. Thomas Target Ford Foundation Anonymous William Jones Gloria B. Thompson The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation GE Asset Management Debra Tanner Abell, M.D. Susan C. Joseph Inez B. Vanable Gladstone Gallery Ann & Steven Ames Ronald June David Walters $50,000 to $99,999 Godfrey R. Gill Drs. Answorth and Rae Allen Lois M. Kahan Sylvia Waters Bloomberg Philanthrophies Gravity Tank, Inc. Andrea Rosen Gallery Ernece B. Kelly Winona Watson Booth Ferris Foundation halley k harrisburg & Michael Rosenfeld Charles A. Archer, Esq. / EDCSPIN, Inc. Patricia King Eva Welch Kathryn C. & Kenneth Chenault / American Joyce & Ira Haupt, II Darrell S. Gay / Arent Fox Regina M. King Judith Whitehead Express Dr. & Mrs. Michael L. Lomax Ariel Investments, LLC Beth M. Lawrence Barbara M. Wilson Jose Tavarez and Holly Phillips M.D / Bank of HBO / Henry McGee Nancy Armstrong Susan Lawrence Doris M. Wilson America Merrill Lynch T. Warren Jackson / Charles E. Simpson Art Production Fund Sandra Lee Dolores Winfrey Jacqueline Bradley & Clarence Otis, Jr. / J.P. Morgan Chase Bank Jacqueline Avant James N. Lewis Aaron Woods III Darden Restaurants Jerome Foundation Lyndon & Janine Barrios Janice Livingston Doris D. Wooten Warren & Mitzi Eisenberg Marie-Josée & Henry Kravis James G. Basker & Angela Vallot Eleanor Lowe Ruth C. Wright Valentino D. Carlotti / Goldman, Sachs & Co. Miyoung Lee & Neil Simpkins Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels / Delores E. Mack Elizabeth Young Agnes Gund Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc. Jack Shainman Gallery Susan E. Madigan Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc. Jemina R. Bernard Frank B. Marshall III Student Joyce and George Wein Foundation Marcus Mitchell & Courtney Lee-Mitchell Ann & Jonathan Binstock Dynna Martin Bukola Afolayan JPMorgan Chase Bank The New York Community Trust Alvin & Terri Bowles Laine Massey Sherley Belizaire Rodney M. Miller New York Football Giants, Inc. Susan & Jonathan Bram Carmen Matthew Delia Burnett Morgan Stanley Urban Markets Group Eileen Harris Norton Mara Brock Akil Shirley McCain Charles Dey Amelia & Adebayo Ogunlesi Deryck A. Palmer and Mats G. Carlston Yolanda C. Brown Eugene McCray Malcolm Ebanks Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Inc. Amy and Joe Perella Charitable Fund Reginald Browne & Dr. Aliya Browne Dianne H. McDonald Uraline S. Hager Surdna Foundation Pfizer, Inc. Peggy Byrd / TV One Erich Meyerhoff Allison Janae Hamilton Carol Sutton Lewis & William M. Lewis, Jr. Robert Lehman Foundation Charlita Cardwell Herman Milligan Peter Alan Harper Ann Tenenbaum & Thomas H. Lee Tamara Harris Robinson Lisa & Dick Cashin Phoebe Morris Melody E. Harrison Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn & Nicolas S. Christie’s C. Moultrie LaToya Hobbs $25,000 to $49,999 Rohatyn Columbia University Kay C. Murray Suzanne Johnson Debra L. Lee / BET Networks Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Malaak Compton-Rock & Chris Rock Michael Myers, M.D. Karesha McGee Bloomberg Philanthropies James H. Simmons III Paula Cooper Gallery Isabel H. Neal Alexis Neider Ed Bradley Family Foundation / Marsha E. Simms Saundra Cornwell Jeanne Nedd Alfie Ravenell Patricia Blanchet Marilyn & Jim Simons The David Rockefeller Fund Robert Oba Cullins Desiree Rucker Joan Davidson & Neil S. Barsky Verizon Foundation Dawn L. Davis & Mac LaFollette Theodore V. O’Kelly Julia Sergeon Con Edison Xerox Foundation Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Dr. Ademola Olugebefola Vanessa Sergeon Teri & Lloyd Trotter / GenNx360 Sally Dill Oluyemi Omowale Kathleen C. Tolar Capital Partners $5,000 to $9,999 Russell J. Drake and Rebecca C. Drake Benjamin W. O’Nealos Salem Tsegaye Mr. & Mrs. John B. Hess Anonymous Elizabeth W. Easton Paul O’Neil Adejoke Tugbiyele ING, US / Rhonda Mims Raquel Chevremont Baylor & Corey M. Baylor Anthony Edson James T. Parker Dr. Nombasa Williams Ron Perelman and Anna Chapman Nicole A. Bernard / Fox Audience Strategy Muna El Fituri Stephen Pearlman Anthony Young Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s Judia & Daniel Black Sima Familant Robert Perree MetLife Foundation Lisa E. Davis, Esq. / Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz Becky and Ronald Feder Muriel Z. Pivalo National Endowment for the Arts Rebecca & Martin Eisenberg Charlotte & Bill Ford Giselle King Porter Frank & Nina Cooper / Pepsi-Cola Funny or Die Media, LLC Arti & Harold Freeman Hortense L. Powell Beverages North Americas Alvin D. Hall Robert Gober & Donald Moffet Andrea Ramsey Corine V. Pettey Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Elaine Goldman Rita I. Reid Jerry I. Speyer & Katherine G. Farley Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation Diana and William Gray Margaret A. Robbins The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. for the Arts Lea K. Green, Esq. FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 92 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 93
Supporters Spring/Summer 2013 Supporters Spring/Summer 2013
Anthony A. and Anne Cochran Grey Kathleen M. Tait Robert L. Marcus Nicole Cosby Elspeth Meyer Kevin V. Walkes Samuel L. Guillory David Teiger Kerry James Marshall & Cheryl L. Bruce Holland & John Cunningham Anthony Meyers Ernestine Washington L. Camille Hackney The James A. & Mary H. Bell Charitable Morgan Martin Linda Daitz Erica Motley Eugene H. Webb James and Sezelle Haddon Foundation Diane & Adam Max Monica Azare Davenport Ozier Muhammad Stephanie Weber Carla Harris & Victor Franklin The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Ginger McKnight-Chavers Charles Davis Kay C. Murray Margaret N. Weitzmann Steven Henry / Paula Cooper Gallery The Ronald & Jo Carole Lauder Foundation Anthony Meier Meredith Fife Day Sana Musasama Michele Morris Weston Paul & Alexandra Herzan The Studio in a School Association Maryanne Mott Laura de Gunzburg New York Life Insurance Company Yolanda White Joan & George Hornig Norma & John T. Thompson Isobel H. Neal Ingrid L. De Jongh Edris E. Nicholls L. H. Whitehead Thelma & A. C. Hudgins Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation Deborah Needleman Lisa Dennison Derek G. Nichols Celia & Landon H. Wickham Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Rima Vargas-Vetter Monique Nelson Joan Deroko Nancy Novogrod Emil K. Wilbekin James Cohan Gallery Gordon VeneKlasen Jacqueline & Kevin Nickelberry Kameelah A. Dixon Alberto O. Ojo Lyn & E. Thomas Williams Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. Carrie Mae Weems & Jeffrey Hoone Janice Carlson Oresman Louise S. Dockery Bolanle A. Oyesanya Eleanor D. & James D. Williams, Sr. Pamela J. Joyner George Wein Vanessa Y. Perez, Ph.D. Michelle C. & Benjamin Duncan Nell Painter Bobbie Willis June Kelly & Charles Storer Ted & Nina Wells Patricia & William Pickens Lonti Ebers James M. Palmer Barbara M. Wilson Dee Kerrison Angela Westwater Marquita & Knut Eckert Sonia Elliot Erica Papernik Audrey Woods George & Gail Knox Janice Savin Williams & Christopher J. Williams Kim Powell John E. Ellis, M.D. Patricia H. Peju Griffin David W. Wyckoff Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Donna Williams Danyale A. Price George D. Everette Olivia E. and Paul Bruce Perkins Courtney Lee-Mitchell Sheena Wright & Gregg Walker Suzanne L. Randolph & Charles A. Shorter, Jr. James E. Frazier Ron Person In Kind Cindi Leive Zubatkin Owner Representation, LLC Beverly and Raymond Ransom, M.D. Vincent Fremont Pfizer Foundation Matching Gifts Program 2x4, Inc. Richard H. Levy Monica Zwirner S. Mona Sinha Darlene Gillard-Jones Blondel Pinnock Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Loida Nicolas Lewis Audrey Smaltz Bobette R. Gillette Muriel Z. Pivalo Harlem Flo floral atelier Toby D. Lewis Philanthropic Fund $500 to $999 Kimberly Snead Eleanor & Lyle Gittens Fannie Porter Dorothy Lichtenstein Anonymous Jane Sutherland Sunny & Brad Goldberg CCH Pounder-Koné The Studio Museum in Harlem makes every Susan & Glenn Lowry Shelley Fox Aarons, M.D. Renée H. Sutton Francis Greenburger Patricia Hayling Price effort to ensure the accuracy of its lists of Shirley Madhère, M.D. Allison Allen Sylvia’s / Tren'ness Woods-Black Marguerite D. Greene Ramona Prioleau supporters. If your name is not listed as you The Walker Marchant Group DD Allen Courtney and Scott Taylor Geraldine Gregg Denise L. Quarles prefer or if you believe that your name has been Marian Goodman Gallery Karen M. Alston Candice Taylor-Horvath Constance Grey Razoo Foundation omitted, please let us know by contacting the Lehmann Maupin Peg Alston Connie Rogers Tilton Candace J. Groudine in memory of Michael Charles & Diana Revson Development Office at 212.864.4500x221 or Crystal McCrary Jennifer Arceneaux Shirley M. Truman-Smith Butter Asha Richards [email protected]. David & Renee McKee Hope Atherton Nicola Vassell Vimla Elizabeth Gupta Kenneth W. Richardson Spencer David Means Nadja Bellan-White Lucy Wallace Eustice Shannon Hales Jacqueline A. Roberts Rhonda Adams Medina Marianne Boesky Wendy Washington Lovette W. Harper Torrence Robinson Richard & Ronay Menschel Joyce Brayboy Tiana M. Webb-Evans & Guka Evans William A. Harper Vivian D. Robinson Laura Michalchyshyn Michèle Lallemand Brazil Constance White Reginald D. Harris Desiree Rucker Gregory R. Miller & Michael Wiener Yolanda & Alvin Brown Anita V. Wien Leila T. Heller Carol & Aaron B. Russell Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Carla Camacho / Lehmann Maupin Pauline Willis Illonka J. Hines Pancho Savery Marc Morial Deborah C. Wright Betty Wilson Angela Holton Marianna Schaffer Isolde McNicholl Motley & Joel W. Motley Debra Martin Chase John Young Laura Hoptman William Seraile, Ph.D. Angela Mwanza Jocelyn Cooley Heather Jason Sonnia Shields National Retail Foundation Sophie Crichton Stuart $499 and below Olga C. Jenkins Calla L. Siegel New York Council for the Humanities Judith & Ronald Davenport, Sr. Anonymous Rony & Catherine Shimony Joshua M. Siegel Amber and Charles Patton Tanji Dewberry Thorsten Albertz Dr. Christopher A. Johnson Xaviera Simmons José Tavarez & Holly Phillips, M.D. Suzanne T. Donaldson Emma Amos Patricia R. Johnson Jonathan B. Simon Karen A. Phillips Ex-Officio Janine Dorsett Rozlyn Anderson Flood Cynthia G. Jones Charles Sine Karen C. Phillips Gabrielle & Keith Downing June Anderson Louise Jones Sippio Small Lorraine & Richard Price Louise Eliasof Jimmy Arnold William Jones Henrietta M. Smith Jonelle Procope Galerie Lelong Susan Austin Robert M. Jordan Judith W. Smith Tracy Reese Denise B. Gardner Joe M. Bacal & Anne Newman Susan C. Joseph Keisha Smith Tracey & Phillip Riese Eboni S. Gates Jennifer Baltimore-Johnson John R. Keene Mary Alice Smith Deborah Roberts Emily L. Glasser Timothy Baum Wanda Kemp-King & Hubert King Howard & Sharon Socol Angela Robins Gabrielle Glore Christopher Bertholf Erika M. Kennerly Barney Softess Daryl & Steven Roth Jan and Steven Golann Monica Bertran Sherri Kent Galia Solomonoff Fiona & Eric Rudin Alicia Hall Moran Cynthia Blanchard Erika Klauer Susan M. Sosnick Phyllis A. Schwartz Tiffany M. Hall Linda Blumberg Margaret & Tilden J. Lemelle Valeria T. Spann Annette Mitchell Scott & Wendell A. Scott Ingleton Dermatology Jean C. Bond Marjorie A. Lewis Erana Stennett Barbara Scott Susan Fales-Hill & Aaron Hill Mahen & Luca Bonetti René Lumley-Hall Ardelia & Ronald L. Stewart Seavest Inc. Sarah and Derek Irby Lisa Bonner Eve MacSweeney Charles Stone Jean Shafiroff The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Ellen Brathwaite Maureen Mahon Ernest L. Swiggett Jack Shainman Foundation Sabine Breitwieser Harriette & Edgar Mandeville Michael Tate Kimberly Ayers Shariff Jim Neuberger and Stambler Neuberger Erika Irish Brown Larry Mantello Wilbert Tatum V. Joy Simmons, M.D. Foundation Sarah Buttrey Sheila Marmon Beverly Taylor Sotheby’s Lorrie King & Edbert Morales Alicia R. Bythewood Catherine S. Marquette Ann Temkin Bonita & Kevin Stewart Anthony Korner Veronica Chambers Tamara McCaw Brenda & Larry Thompson Nicole & Michael Stewart Jay Kriegel & Kathryn McAuliffe Evelyn Clarke Sheila McDaniel Milton A. Tingling Margaret E. Stokes Jenny Laird Sadie & Roberto Codling Sharon McFarland Karen A. Toulon Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer Liliahn Majeed Susanna Coffey Karesha McGee Jacqueline Tuggle FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 92 FriendsSummer/Fall 2013 93
Supporters Spring/Summer 2013 Supporters Spring/Summer 2013
Anthony A. and Anne Cochran Grey Kathleen M. Tait Robert L. Marcus Nicole Cosby Elspeth Meyer Kevin V. Walkes Samuel L. Guillory David Teiger Kerry James Marshall & Cheryl L. Bruce Holland & John Cunningham Anthony Meyers Ernestine Washington L. Camille Hackney The James A. & Mary H. Bell Charitable Morgan Martin Linda Daitz Erica Motley Eugene H. Webb James and Sezelle Haddon Foundation Diane & Adam Max Monica Azare Davenport Ozier Muhammad Stephanie Weber Carla Harris & Victor Franklin The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Ginger McKnight-Chavers Charles Davis Kay C. Murray Margaret N. Weitzmann Steven Henry / Paula Cooper Gallery The Ronald & Jo Carole Lauder Foundation Anthony Meier Meredith Fife Day Sana Musasama Michele Morris Weston Paul & Alexandra Herzan The Studio in a School Association Maryanne Mott Laura de Gunzburg New York Life Insurance Company Yolanda White Joan & George Hornig Norma & John T. Thompson Isobel H. Neal Ingrid L. De Jongh Edris E. Nicholls L. H. Whitehead Thelma & A. C. Hudgins Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation Deborah Needleman Lisa Dennison Derek G. Nichols Celia & Landon H. Wickham Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. Rima Vargas-Vetter Monique Nelson Joan Deroko Nancy Novogrod Emil K. Wilbekin James Cohan Gallery Gordon VeneKlasen Jacqueline & Kevin Nickelberry Kameelah A. Dixon Alberto O. Ojo Lyn & E. Thomas Williams Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. Carrie Mae Weems & Jeffrey Hoone Janice Carlson Oresman Louise S. Dockery Bolanle A. Oyesanya Eleanor D. & James D. Williams, Sr. Pamela J. Joyner George Wein Vanessa Y. Perez, Ph.D. Michelle C. & Benjamin Duncan Nell Painter Bobbie Willis June Kelly & Charles Storer Ted & Nina Wells Patricia & William Pickens Lonti Ebers James M. Palmer Barbara M. Wilson Dee Kerrison Angela Westwater Marquita & Knut Eckert Sonia Elliot Erica Papernik Audrey Woods George & Gail Knox Janice Savin Williams & Christopher J. Williams Kim Powell John E. Ellis, M.D. Patricia H. Peju Griffin David W. Wyckoff Melva Bucksbaum & Raymond Learsy Donna Williams Danyale A. Price George D. Everette Olivia E. and Paul Bruce Perkins Courtney Lee-Mitchell Sheena Wright & Gregg Walker Suzanne L. Randolph & Charles A. Shorter, Jr. James E. Frazier Ron Person In Kind Cindi Leive Zubatkin Owner Representation, LLC Beverly and Raymond Ransom, M.D. Vincent Fremont Pfizer Foundation Matching Gifts Program 2x4, Inc. Richard H. Levy Monica Zwirner S. Mona Sinha Darlene Gillard-Jones Blondel Pinnock Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Loida Nicolas Lewis Audrey Smaltz Bobette R. Gillette Muriel Z. Pivalo Harlem Flo floral atelier Toby D. Lewis Philanthropic Fund $500 to $999 Kimberly Snead Eleanor & Lyle Gittens Fannie Porter Dorothy Lichtenstein Anonymous Jane Sutherland Sunny & Brad Goldberg CCH Pounder-Koné The Studio Museum in Harlem makes every Susan & Glenn Lowry Shelley Fox Aarons, M.D. Renée H. Sutton Francis Greenburger Patricia Hayling Price effort to ensure the accuracy of its lists of Shirley Madhère, M.D. Allison Allen Sylvia’s / Tren'ness Woods-Black Marguerite D. Greene Ramona Prioleau supporters. If your name is not listed as you The Walker Marchant Group DD Allen Courtney and Scott Taylor Geraldine Gregg Denise L. Quarles prefer or if you believe that your name has been Marian Goodman Gallery Karen M. Alston Candice Taylor-Horvath Constance Grey Razoo Foundation omitted, please let us know by contacting the Lehmann Maupin Peg Alston Connie Rogers Tilton Candace J. Groudine in memory of Michael Charles & Diana Revson Development Office at 212.864.4500x221 or Crystal McCrary Jennifer Arceneaux Shirley M. Truman-Smith Butter Asha Richards [email protected]. David & Renee McKee Hope Atherton Nicola Vassell Vimla Elizabeth Gupta Kenneth W. Richardson Spencer David Means Nadja Bellan-White Lucy Wallace Eustice Shannon Hales Jacqueline A. Roberts Rhonda Adams Medina Marianne Boesky Wendy Washington Lovette W. Harper Torrence Robinson Richard & Ronay Menschel Joyce Brayboy Tiana M. Webb-Evans & Guka Evans William A. Harper Vivian D. Robinson Laura Michalchyshyn Michèle Lallemand Brazil Constance White Reginald D. Harris Desiree Rucker Gregory R. Miller & Michael Wiener Yolanda & Alvin Brown Anita V. Wien Leila T. Heller Carol & Aaron B. Russell Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Carla Camacho / Lehmann Maupin Pauline Willis Illonka J. Hines Pancho Savery Marc Morial Deborah C. Wright Betty Wilson Angela Holton Marianna Schaffer Isolde McNicholl Motley & Joel W. Motley Debra Martin Chase John Young Laura Hoptman William Seraile, Ph.D. Angela Mwanza Jocelyn Cooley Heather Jason Sonnia Shields National Retail Foundation Sophie Crichton Stuart $499 and below Olga C. Jenkins Calla L. Siegel New York Council for the Humanities Judith & Ronald Davenport, Sr. Anonymous Rony & Catherine Shimony Joshua M. Siegel Amber and Charles Patton Tanji Dewberry Thorsten Albertz Dr. Christopher A. Johnson Xaviera Simmons José Tavarez & Holly Phillips, M.D. Suzanne T. Donaldson Emma Amos Patricia R. Johnson Jonathan B. Simon Karen A. Phillips Ex-Officio Janine Dorsett Rozlyn Anderson Flood Cynthia G. Jones Charles Sine Karen C. Phillips Gabrielle & Keith Downing June Anderson Louise Jones Sippio Small Lorraine & Richard Price Louise Eliasof Jimmy Arnold William Jones Henrietta M. Smith Jonelle Procope Galerie Lelong Susan Austin Robert M. Jordan Judith W. Smith Tracy Reese Denise B. Gardner Joe M. Bacal & Anne Newman Susan C. Joseph Keisha Smith Tracey & Phillip Riese Eboni S. Gates Jennifer Baltimore-Johnson John R. Keene Mary Alice Smith Deborah Roberts Emily L. Glasser Timothy Baum Wanda Kemp-King & Hubert King Howard & Sharon Socol Angela Robins Gabrielle Glore Christopher Bertholf Erika M. Kennerly Barney Softess Daryl & Steven Roth Jan and Steven Golann Monica Bertran Sherri Kent Galia Solomonoff Fiona & Eric Rudin Alicia Hall Moran Cynthia Blanchard Erika Klauer Susan M. Sosnick Phyllis A. Schwartz Tiffany M. Hall Linda Blumberg Margaret & Tilden J. Lemelle Valeria T. Spann Annette Mitchell Scott & Wendell A. Scott Ingleton Dermatology Jean C. Bond Marjorie A. Lewis Erana Stennett Barbara Scott Susan Fales-Hill & Aaron Hill Mahen & Luca Bonetti René Lumley-Hall Ardelia & Ronald L. Stewart Seavest Inc. Sarah and Derek Irby Lisa Bonner Eve MacSweeney Charles Stone Jean Shafiroff The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Ellen Brathwaite Maureen Mahon Ernest L. Swiggett Jack Shainman Foundation Sabine Breitwieser Harriette & Edgar Mandeville Michael Tate Kimberly Ayers Shariff Jim Neuberger and Stambler Neuberger Erika Irish Brown Larry Mantello Wilbert Tatum V. Joy Simmons, M.D. Foundation Sarah Buttrey Sheila Marmon Beverly Taylor Sotheby’s Lorrie King & Edbert Morales Alicia R. Bythewood Catherine S. Marquette Ann Temkin Bonita & Kevin Stewart Anthony Korner Veronica Chambers Tamara McCaw Brenda & Larry Thompson Nicole & Michael Stewart Jay Kriegel & Kathryn McAuliffe Evelyn Clarke Sheila McDaniel Milton A. Tingling Margaret E. Stokes Jenny Laird Sadie & Roberto Codling Sharon McFarland Karen A. Toulon Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer Liliahn Majeed Susanna Coffey Karesha McGee Jacqueline Tuggle Summer/Fall 2013 94 Friends 95 Membership Join today! Membership Yes! I want to be a member Info Becoming a member Form of The Studio Museum has never been easier. in Harlem.
Mr. Ms. Mrs. 1 Year Renewal Gift Name of membership holder
Membership Benefactor $1,000 Name of additional member (Family/partner level members and above) Donor $500 Associate $250 Supporter $125 Address Family/Partner $75 Individual $50 Student $25* City State Zip Senior $25*
Studio Society
Work Phone Home Phone Studio Society $1500 Studio Society $2500 Photo: Scott Rudd *(Student/Senior Membership will not be Email Address processed without a copy of a valid ID) Individual $50 ($25 for Student/Senior) Associate $250 (Fully tax-deductible) ($220 tax-deductible) Please do not make my name, address and other information American Express — Free admission to the Studio Museum for one — All the preceding benefits plus: available to third-party providers. MasterCard — Personalized membership card — One complimentary Studio Museum Visa — One-year subscription to Studio exhibition catalogue Please list as Anonymous. — Invitations to exhibition opening receptions — 20% discount on exhibition catalogues Donor $500 I have enclosed my check (make check published by the Studio Museum ($450 tax-deductible) — 15% discount on all Museum Store purchases — All the preceding benefits, plus: payable to The Studio Museum in Harlem) — Invitations to member shopping days with — Invitations to behind-the-scenes tours and additional discount offers throughout the year talks with art connoisseurs and curators Name of cardholder — Free admission or discounted tickets — Two complimentary guest passes for to all Studio Museum educational and family and friends public programs — Special discount at select local Benefactor $1,000 Address Harlem businesses ($900 is tax-deductible) — Annual recognition in Studio — All the preceding benefits, plus: — A visit and/or tour of a private collection Family/Partner $75 — An invitation to a special gallery tour with Address State Zip (Fully tax-deductible) a Museum curator — All the preceding benefits, plus: — Free admission for two guests when — Free admission to the Studio Museum for accompanied by a Studio Museum member two adults (at the same address) and children — Seasonal listings of relevant exhibitions Work Phone Home Phone under eighteen years of age locally and internationally — Personalized membership cards for two » MAIL TO
Supporter $125 Card Number Expiration Date The Studio Museum in Harlem (Fully tax-deductible) — All the preceding benefits, plus: 144 W. 125th St. — Member privileges of the North American — Reciprocal Museum Program, allowing free or New York, NY 10027 member admission and discounts at hundreds Signature of museums across the United States — Free admission for one guest Summer/Fall 2013 94 Friends 95 Membership Join today! Membership Yes! I want to be a member Info Becoming a member Form of The Studio Museum has never been easier. in Harlem.
Mr. Ms. Mrs. 1 Year Renewal Gift Name of membership holder
Membership Benefactor $1,000 Name of additional member (Family/partner level members and above) Donor $500 Associate $250 Supporter $125 Address Family/Partner $75 Individual $50 Student $25* City State Zip Senior $25*
Studio Society
Work Phone Home Phone Studio Society $1500 Studio Society $2500 Photo: Scott Rudd *(Student/Senior Membership will not be Email Address processed without a copy of a valid ID) Individual $50 ($25 for Student/Senior) Associate $250 (Fully tax-deductible) ($220 tax-deductible) Please do not make my name, address and other information American Express — Free admission to the Studio Museum for one — All the preceding benefits plus: available to third-party providers. MasterCard — Personalized membership card — One complimentary Studio Museum Visa — One-year subscription to Studio exhibition catalogue Please list as Anonymous. — Invitations to exhibition opening receptions — 20% discount on exhibition catalogues Donor $500 I have enclosed my check (make check published by the Studio Museum ($450 tax-deductible) — 15% discount on all Museum Store purchases — All the preceding benefits, plus: payable to The Studio Museum in Harlem) — Invitations to member shopping days with — Invitations to behind-the-scenes tours and additional discount offers throughout the year talks with art connoisseurs and curators Name of cardholder — Free admission or discounted tickets — Two complimentary guest passes for to all Studio Museum educational and family and friends public programs — Special discount at select local Benefactor $1,000 Address Harlem businesses ($900 is tax-deductible) — Annual recognition in Studio — All the preceding benefits, plus: — A visit and/or tour of a private collection Family/Partner $75 — An invitation to a special gallery tour with Address State Zip (Fully tax-deductible) a Museum curator — All the preceding benefits, plus: — Free admission for two guests when — Free admission to the Studio Museum for accompanied by a Studio Museum member two adults (at the same address) and children — Seasonal listings of relevant exhibitions Work Phone Home Phone under eighteen years of age locally and internationally — Personalized membership cards for two » MAIL TO
Supporter $125 Card Number Expiration Date The Studio Museum in Harlem (Fully tax-deductible) — All the preceding benefits, plus: 144 W. 125th St. — Member privileges of the North American — Reciprocal Museum Program, allowing free or New York, NY 10027 member admission and discounts at hundreds Signature of museums across the United States — Free admission for one guest Summer/Fall 2013 96 Visitor Information
Address General Info Museum Hours 144 W. 125th St. New York, NY 10027 T 212.864.4500 Thursday and Friday, noon–9 pm; (between Malcolm X and Adam C. F 212.864.4800 Saturday, 10 am–6 pm; Powell Jr. boulevards) Sunday, noon–6 pm. Media Contact Admission 212.864.4500 x213 The Museum is closed to the public Suggested donation: $7 (adults), [email protected] on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday $3 (seniors and students). but available for school and group Public Programs Info Free for members and children tours by appointment on these days. 212.864.4500 x264 (12 and under). For more information on scheduling [email protected] a tour, visit studiomuseum.org Follow us on social media! Membership Info studiomuseum 212.864.4500 x221 [email protected]
W 132th St
By Bus: 125th Cross-town: W 131th St BX15 M60 M100 M101 W 130th St Up/Downtown M3 M10 M2 M7 W 129th St E 129th St M102 M1
Municipal Garage W 128th St E 128th St
W 127th St
5th Ave
Malcolm X Blvd
W 126th St A C 2 3 B D Jr Blvd Powell Clayton Adam 4 5 6 W 125th St
W 124th St
W 123rd St
7th Ave
Lenox Ave Lenox
Lexington Ave Lexington
Park Ave Park
Madison Ave
Frederick Douglass Blvd Frederick W 122nd St
Marcus Garvey Park W 121st St
W 120th St St Nicholas Ave Nicholas St W 121st St Studio Magazine Board Of Trustees This issue of Studio is underwritten, Editor-in-Chief Raymond J. McGuire, Chairman in part, with support from Elizabeth Gwinn Carol Sutton Lewis, Vice-Chair Rodney M. Miller, Treasurer Creative Director Teri Trotter, Secretary The Studio Museum in Harlem is sup- Thelma Golden ported, in part, with public funds provided Jacqueline L. Bradley Managing Editor by the following government agencies and Valentino D. Carlotti Jamillah James elected representatives: Kathryn C. Chenault Joan S. Davidson Copy Editor The New York City Department of Cultural Gordon J. Davis, Esq. Samir Patel Affairs; New York State Council on the Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arts, a state agency; National Endow- Design Sandra Grymes ment for the Arts; Council Member Inez Pentagram Arthur J. Humphrey, Jr. E. Dickens, 9th Council District, Speaker George L. Knox Printing Christine Quinn and the New York City Nancy L. Lane Allied Printing Services Council; Manhattan Borough President Dr. Michael L. Lomax Scott M. Stringer; and New York Council Original Design Concept Bernard Lumpkin on the Humanities. 2X4, Inc. Tracy Maitland Dr. Amelia Ogunlesi Studio is published two times a year The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply Corine Pettey by The Studio Museum in Harlem, grateful to the following institutional Ann G. Tenenbaum 144 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027. donors for their leadership support: John T. Thompson Reginald Van Lee Copyright ©2013 Studio Magazine. Bloomberg Philanthropies Booth Ferris Foundation All rights, including translation into other Hon. Kate D. Levin, ex-officio Ed Bradley Family Foundation languages, are reserved by the publisher. Karen A. Phillips, ex-officio Ford Foundation Nothing in this publication may be Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust reproduced without the permission of the The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation publisher. Lambent Foundation Cover Image and Inside Back Cover: Margaret A. Cargill Foundation Senga Nengudi Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation Performance Piece, 1978 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Image courtesy the artist and Thomas Erben MetLife Foundation Gallery, New York Photo: Harmon Outlaw Rockefeller Brothers Fund Surdna Foundation Target The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Joyce and George Wein Foundation Wells Fargo The Winston Foundation Summer/Fall 2013 Summer/Fall Magazine in Harlem Museum The Studio
The Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine Summer/Fall 2013