Recent
RSSEyeMinded
Kellie Jones on Living and Writing Contemporary Art
Working at the Studio Museum has offered many fantastic opportunities, including chances to meet people whose artwork or scholarship helped shape my thought processes and my career goals when I was in school. They are surreal and amazing moments. Meeting Kellie Jones was one of those moments. Her essays on and conversations with artists such as David Hammons, Lorna Simpson and Pat Ward Williams guided me, and her writings continue to be an incredible resource for us here at the Studio Museum. Her new book, EyeMinded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art, is a collection of some of her writing on contemporary art from the last twenty years.
Isaac Julien
Against the Tides of Globalization
Acclaimed British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien turns primarily to visually elaborate and technologically sophisticated installations of the moving image to express his urgent fascination with global human movement. Columbia University’s recent World Leaders Forum teamed up with the Mellon Visiting Artist & Thinkers Program to host a talk by Isaac Julien with Carol Becker, Dean of Faculty of the School of the Arts. Dean Becker highlighted this unique choice of featuring an artist for the World Leaders Forum – proclaiming that geopolitically-minded and creative innovators, such as Julien, are particularly significant cultural leaders today.
Three Trips Around the Block
Thelma Golden in Conversation with Rico Gatson at Exit Art
Rico Gatson sees the potential for art in everything: he allows his everyday experiences to inspire his work. Recently at Exit Art, Gatson and Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, treated an audience to an engaging conversation about Gatson, his artwork, and his influences. Three Trips Around the Block, now on view at Exit Art, is a survey of 15 years of Gatson’s work.
Who, What, Wear
Where Style Meets Substance
Who, What, Wear: Selections from the Permanent Collection, opening this Thursday at the Studio Museum in Harlem, frames style as substance. This exhibition aims to question how what one wears ultimately fashions the body as a symbolic vessel of meaning. Whether this meaning be social, cultural, or political, the clothing we put on our bodies speaks loudly – and if desired, proudly.
All About Bearden
The Studio Museum and P.S. 36 School Partnership
This year, the Studio Museum is proud to partner with Margaret Douglas School (P.S. 36) in Harlem for an eight-week collaboration in the classrooms of kindergarten teachers Ms. Kouassi and Ms. Hutton. Working with Studio Museum teaching artist Alisha Wormsley, both classes have been celebrating Romare Bearden’s centennial by exploring a theme prevalent in Bearden’s works: community. The students have been exploring and discussing the collages of Bearden as inspiration for a final photomontage project.
Drawing the Block
Guest Blog by Kira Lynn Harris
These photos are from the second day of installation. My assistants (Andrea Solstad, Stuart Lorimer and recent Studio Museum artist in residence Valerie Piraino) met in person for the first time the day before. We began our draw-a-thon in earnest on Friday afternoon and went through the weekend.
Aesthetic of the Cool
Dr. Robert Farris Thompson in conversation with Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims
“If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it,” Dr. Robert Farris Thompson stated at the start of his program at the Studio Museum two weeks ago –followed quickly by a spirited promise that he was, indeed, going to “mess with it.”
“It” being, of course, the topic of the evening: Afro-Atlantic art. Last Thursday the Studio Museum galleries were filled to the brim with guests, eager to hear from two of the most prestigious art historians of our time. On the occasion of the release of Dr. Thompson's Aesthetic of the Cool: Afro-Atlantic Art and Music, the author sat down with Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and former Studio Museum President, to discuss his concept of the “cool” in Afro-Atlantic culture.
Thank You Target Free Sunday's Families and Friends!
As October comes to a close and we say goodbye to the wonderful works in our summer exhibition season, we at the Studio Museum would like to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful friends and families who joined us for Target Free Sunday this season!
Whether making insightful comments about the works on view or sharing your creativity with us by donating your beautiful masterpieces to the Museum, we sincerely thank you for sharing your Sundays with us. For our fall/winter exhibition season, we will continue to have activities for all ages to enjoy including tours of our new exhibitions, hands-on activities such as greeting card making for the holidays, and a few other surprises!
30 Americans at the Corcoran Gallery
Every once in a while, we are gifted with an exhibition that reminds us just how spectacular black art can be—30 Americans is that exhibition. Now on display at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., 30 Americans features 76 works from the Rubell Family Collection by 31 black artists—many of whom sparked my interest in art.
Imagine three decades of artwork created by some of America’s most influential artists; the show was grand to say the least. It’s hard to pick highlights from a show with so many fantastic works, but visitors flocked to works by Kehinde Wiley, Nick Cave, Jean Michel Basquiat and Mickalene Thomas.
Absorb/Diffuse
Jennie C. Jones at The Kitchen
Fans of the Studio Museum's Studio Sound series will love Absorb/Diffuse, Jennie C. Jones's solo exhibition at The Kitchen that explores the mechanics of sound and how it is experienced. Curated by Matthew Lyons, the exhibition's focus is From the Low, an original score commissed by The Kitchen that Jones meticulously composed using samples culled from appropriated sources. Absorb/Diffuse also features Jones's Acoustic Paintings, mixed media works that combine soundproofing foam and other materials. The exhibition is currently on view but it ends October 29th so make sure to catch it before it closes!