Fall/Winter 2022/23 Exhibitions and Projects
A SUITE OF CURATORIAL PROJECTS FROM THE STUDIO MUSEUM IS ACCOMPANIED BY TWO GROUNDBREAKING PUBLICATIONS THAT SHED LIGHT ON LEGACIES OF EXPERIMENTAL BLACK ART SPACES AND COLLECTIVES WORKING IN HARLEM AND NEW YORK CITY
NEW YORK, NY September 20, 2022 — The Studio Museum in Harlem today announced its fall/winter 2022/23 schedule of exhibitions and projects, ranging from gallery installations to major new publications, and the continued evolution of its signature education program for teens. While construction continues on the new home of the Studio Museum, designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson, which reached a milestone in August 2022 with the topping out of the steel structure, the Museum continues its work in Harlem and with partner institutions throughout New York City and beyond.
Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, said, “We’re thrilled that our fall/winter season will bring the public face-to-face with exciting work by generations of artists of African descent, from the distinguished and visionary Ming Smith to the outstanding participants in our 2021–22 Artist-in-Residence cohort to the talented teen photographers in the Expanding the Walls program. Combined with our scholarly publications, education initiatives, and robust programs of public outreach, the season represents everything that makes The Studio Museum in Harlem vital.”
EXHIBITIONS
It’s time for me to go: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2021–22
November 17, 2022–February 27, 2023
MoMA PS1
In the fourth iteration of a multiyear collaboration, The Studio Museum in Harlem will present its annual Artist-in-Residence exhibition at MoMA PS1. It’s time for me to go features new work by the 2021–22 cohort of the Studio Museum’s foundational Artist-in-Residence program, Cameron Granger (b. 1993, Cleveland, OH), Jacob Mason-Macklin (b. 1995, Columbus, OH), and Qualeasha Wood (b. 1996, Long Branch, NJ). With practices spanning new media, painting, and textiles, these artists explore the relationships and tensions among physical, digital, and psychic space. The title phrase, “It’s time for me to go,” proposes the gallery space as a site of both departure and arrival and the act of making as both a release and an embrace.
It’s time for me to go: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2021–22 is organized by Yelena Keller, Assistant Curator, at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Jody Graf, Assistant Curator at MoMA PS1. Exhibition research is provided by Simon Ghebreyesus, The Studio Museum in Harlem and MoMA Curatorial Fellow.
Projects: Ming Smith
February 4–May 29, 2023
The Museum of Modern Art
11 W. 53rd Street, New York, NY
This February, in a continuing collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum will present Projects: Ming Smith at MoMA as part of the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series. Smith, a photographer who has lived and worked in New York since the 1970s, has served as an inspiration for a generation of artists engaging the politics and poetics of the photographic image. Through a deep exploration of the artist’s archive, the exhibition will offer a critical reintroduction to Smith’s work through her distinctive approach to movement, light, rhythm, and shadow, highlighting how she transforms the image from a document of photographic capture into a space of emotive expression. The exhibition will be on view in MoMA’s street-level galleries, which are free and open to the public.
Projects: Ming Smith is organized by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, with the assistance of Kaitlin Booher, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Curatorial Fellow, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, and Habiba Hopson, Curatorial Assistant, Permanent Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Thomas J Price: Witness
CLOSING October 1, 2022
Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem
Thomas J Price: Witness, the first solo US museum presentation of the British artist’s work, closes October 1. The outdoor installation in Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park comprises The Distance Within (2021), Price’s nine-foot-tall bronze sculpture depicting a young Black man looking down at his cell phone. Thomas J Price: Witness is being shown as part of the Studio Museum’s ongoing series of inHarlem initiatives, which has included presentations by artists Derrick Adams, Firelei Báez, Chloë Bass, Kevin Beasley, Maren Hassinger, Simone Leigh, Kori Newkirk, Kambui Olujimi, Rudy Shepherd, and Andre D. Wagner.
Thomas J Price: Witness is organized by Legacy Russell, former Associate Curator, Exhibitions (now Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen) with Yelena Keller, Assistant Curator.
The culmination of Thomas J Price: Witness will be a program organized by the Studio Museum with the Whitney Museum of American Art on September 29, 2022, at 7:00 pm at the Whitney. Price will be in conversation with Public Art Fund curator Allison Glenn and artists Hugh Hayden and Kiyan Williams. The in-person program will be moderated by the exhibition’s curator, Legacy Russell, and will also be live-streamed to online audiences.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
New Publication: Smokehouse Associates
Available for preorder at Studio Store
From 1968 to 1970, the Smokehouse Associates transformed Harlem with vibrant, community-oriented, abstract murals and sculptures. Established by the artist William T. Williams and comprising artists Melvin Edwards, Guy Ciarcia, and Billy Rose, Smokehouse grew to encompass a range of creative practitioners united around the revolutionary potential of public art. Though relatively unknown today, Smokehouse was ambitious in its scale, community engagement, and interaction with the built environment. The publication Smokehouse Associates provides the first critical examination of the group’s work, expanding the narrative of public art and social practice in the United States to include the contributions of artists of African descent.
Published by the Studio Museum and distributed by Yale University Press, the publication includes essays by Eric Booker, Charles L. Davis II, and James Trainor; a roundtable discussion with Smokehouse artists Williams, Edwards, and Ciarcia, moderated by Ashley James; and a rich chronology featuring previously unpublished images and ephemera.
A robust series of public programs is taking shape around the launch of this groundbreaking study, featuring talks online and at partner institutions in Harlem and throughout New York City. The first program will take place on September 23 at 1:00 pm on Zoom with Smokehouse artists Williams, Edwards, and Ciarcia in conversation with the publication’s editor, Eric Booker, Assistant Curator & Exhibition Coordinator at the Studio Museum.
Visit studiomuseum.org for more information on upcoming programming
New Publication: Just Above Midtown: Changing Space
Available for preorder at Artbook DAP
Just Above Midtown—or JAM—was an art gallery and self-described laboratory led by Linda Goode Bryant that foregrounded Black artists and artists of color. Founded in 1974 by Goode Bryant upon her departure from her position as Director of Education at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and open until 1986, JAM was a place where art flourished and debate was cultivated. The gallery offered early opportunities for artists now recognized as pivotal figures in late twentieth-century art, including David Hammons, Butch Morris, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, and Howardena Pindell.
Copublished with MoMA in conjunction with the exhibition opening there on October 9, 2022, Just Above Midtown: Changing Space showcases rarely seen material from JAM’s history—artworks, ephemera, and photographs—that document the gallery’s communal and programmatic activities, and includes a conversation between Goode Bryant and Studio Museum Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden. The publication includes texts by Thomas J. Lax, Lilia Rocio Taboada, Eric Booker, Brandon Eng, Marielle Ingram, Kellie Jones, Yelena Keller, and Legacy Russell.
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
Expanding the Walls
Capturing the Echo: Expanding the Walls 2022
Through July 30, 2023
For more than two decades, the program Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community has encouraged its teenage participants to explore and define their artistic practices while building community through workshops, gallery visits, intensive darkroom training, and discussions led by contemporary artists. Over the course of eight months, participants engage with the photographs of Gordon Parks, Jamel Shabazz, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others. The program continues to be a source and site for critical skill-building through photography and the creative process. Expanding the Walls uses the work of renowned photographer James Van Der Zee and the Van Der Zee Archive—established at The Met in 2021 through a landmark collaboration between The Met, the Studio Museum, and Donna Van Der Zee—as a catalyst for discussion and art making.
Each year, the program culminates with an exhibition of the participants’ work. The photographs in this year’s exhibition, Capturing the Echo: Expanding the Walls 2022, bring nuance to the everyday in a state of transition. Striking a delicate balance between reflecting on the past and looking hopefully toward the future, the exhibition explores how the sixteen young artists use the camera to demand agency over their present realities, employing the lens as a witness to their trajectories. These thirty-two photographs show the present world as a reverberation of the past—bearing resemblances to it, but never quite the same as it once was.
Capturing the Echo: Expanding the Walls 2022 is organized by Starasea Camara, Curatorial Fellow, Permanent Collection; Zainab Floyd, Rauschenberg Curatorial Fellow; and Simon Ghebreyesus, Curatorial Fellow, Exhibitions; with Gi (Ginny) Huo, former Youth Programs Manager; and the 2022 Expanding the Walls participants.
Visit the online exhibition
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.
For more information, visit studiomuseum.org.
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The Studio Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and MoMA PS1 Partnership
The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Modern Art, and MoMA PS1 have joined in a multiyear partnership. Together, these museums have developed a series of programs and exhibitions building on existing affiliations and shared values. At the core of this partnership is a joint fellowship for rising professionals in the arts. Founded in 2015, this fellowship program for the development of museum staff is aimed at mentoring and diversifying the next generation of art professionals. The two-year fellowship provides participants with the opportunity to spend a year at each institution, gaining experience in the curatorial or public programming departments.
Support for The Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Artist-in-Residence program is supported by the Glenstone Foundation; The American Express Kenneth and Kathryn Chenault Sponsorship Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; Joy of Giving Something; Robert Lehman Foundation; 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. MoMA PS1 support for It's time for me to go is generously provided by the Tom Slaughter Exhibition Fund and the MoMA PS1 Annual Exhibition Fund.
Projects: Ming Smith, part of the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series, is made possible in part by the Elaine Dannheisser Foundation and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.
Thomas J Price: Witness is made possible thanks to the Open Society Foundations. The presentation is an inHarlem project presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem in partnership with Marcus Garvey Park Alliance and NYC Parks. Support for inHarlem provided by Citi; Stavros Niarchos Foundation; and Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Smokehouse Associates is made possible thanks to support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and Terra Foundation for American Art. The Studio Museum in Harlem’s digital programs are made possible thanks to support provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Digital Initiative.
Expanding the Walls and youth programs are made possible with support from The Keith Haring Foundation Education Fund; Joy of Giving Something; Conscious Kids; New York State Council on the Arts; Hearst Endowment Fund; and by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Trust. The Studio Museum’s education programs are supported by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund; Llewellyn Family Foundation; Van Cleef & Arpels; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; Con Edison; May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation; Sony Music Group; and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts. Support for digital programming has been provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Digital Initiative. The Studio Museum in Harlem is deeply grateful for Donna Van Der Zee’s continued support of Expanding the Walls.
Additional support has been provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor, the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Council.
Yume Murphy
The Studio Museum in Harlem
[email protected]
212.864.4500 x 213
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