(Never) As I Was: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2020–21
NEW YORK, October 21, 2021—The Studio Museum in Harlem’s annual Artist-in-Residence exhibition will be on view at MoMA PS1 from November 18, 2021 to February 27, 2022. Part of an ongoing collaboration between the Studio Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and PS1, (Never) as I Was: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2020–21 will feature new work by the 2020–21 cohort of the Studio Museum’s foundational residency program, artists Widline Cadet (b. 1992, Pétion-Ville, Haiti), Texas Isaiah (b. Brooklyn, NY), Genesis Jerez (b. 1993, Bronx, NY) and Jacolby Satterwhite (b. 1986, Columbia, SC). In response to the seismic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time in the Studio Museum’s history the artists participated entirely in remote form for the duration of the residency.
With practices spanning new media, painting, sculpture, and photography these artists propose dynamic ways of experiencing time, space, and locality set into this current moment of complex transformation. Widline Cadet’s photo and video work examines intergenerational memory, selfhood, and erasure within the diasporic experience. Texas Isaiah offers a space for mourning, celebration, prayer, and remembrance, asserting the significance of imagination in the abolition of gender while exploring the healing capacity of rest as a place of connection. Genesis Jerez’s collaged paintings layer family photographs, oil paint, and charcoal to create works that interrogate her own personal histories and reckon with questions of diasporic fracture. Jacolby Satterwhite’s multidimensional installation sees the artist’s return to painting, engaging fantasy and surrealism as a coping mechanism for healing and flaying open an existential psychic space for imagining transcendent futures. With communication deeply mediated by the digital, each artist took on the challenge of recharting the territories of domestic, social, and studio space. The outcomes are tender and lyrical explorations of family histories, memoir, spirituality, and memory.
(Never) As I Was is organized by Legacy Russell, former Associate Curator, Exhibitions, The Studio Museum in Harlem (now Executive Director & Chief Curator, The Kitchen), with Yelena Keller, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Jody Graf, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1. Exhibition research is provided by Angelique Rosales Salgado, former The Studio Museum in Harlem and MoMA Curatorial Fellow, and Elana Bridges, former Mellon Curatorial Fellow, The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Support for (Never) as I Was at MoMA PS1 is generously provided by the Tom Slaughter Exhibition Fund and the MoMA PS1 Trustee Annual Fund.
About the Artist-in-Residence Program
The Studio Museum’s foundational Artist-in-Residence program gives emerging artists of African and Afro-Latinx descent an unparalleled opportunity to develop their practice in an eleven-month residency and offers audiences the chance to view this work in an annual culminating exhibition. Alumni of the program, who now number nearly 150, include some of today’s most significant and innovative artists, including Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Jordan Casteel, Lauren Halsey, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Titus Kaphar, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley.
The artists in residence for 2021–22 are Cameron Granger, Jacob Mason-Macklin, and Qualeasha Wood.
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Artist-in-Residence program is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts; Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; and by endowments established by the Andrea Frank Foundation, the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Trust, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additional support is generously provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
About The Studio Museum in Harlem
Founded in 1968 by a diverse group of artists, community activists, and philanthropists, The Studio Museum in Harlem is internationally known for its catalytic role in promoting the work of artists of African descent. The Studio Museum is preparing to construct a new home, designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, at its longtime location on Manhattan’s West 125th Street. The building—the first created expressly for the institution’s program—will enable the Studio Museum to better serve a growing and diverse audience, provide additional educational opportunities for people of all ages, expand its program of world-renowned exhibitions, effectively display its singular collection, and strengthen its trailblazing Artist-in-Residence program.
While currently closed for construction, the Studio Museum is working to deepen its roots in its neighborhood through inHarlem, a dynamic set of collaborative initiatives. The Museum’s groundbreaking exhibitions, thought-provoking conversations, and engaging art-making workshops continue at a variety of partner and satellite locations in Harlem and beyond.
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