WEBVTT

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The brilliant playwright, Adrienne Kennedy,

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wrote a volume called

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"People Who Led to My Plays."

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And if I were to write a volume,

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it would be called,

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"Artists Who Have Led My Exhibitions"

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because my work,

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in understanding art and in understanding culture,

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has come by following artists,

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by looking at what artists mean

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and what they do and who they are.

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J.J. from "Good Times,"

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(Applause)

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significant to many people of course

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because of "Dy-no-mite,"

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but perhaps more significant

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as the first, really, black artist

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on primetime TV.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat,

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important to me because [he was]

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the first black artist in real time

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that showed me the possibility of

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who and what I was about to enter into.

NOTE Paragraph

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My overall project is about art --

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specifically, about black artists --

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very generally

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about the way in which art

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can change the way we think

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about culture and ourselves.

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My interest is in artists

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who understand and rewrite history,

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who think about themselves

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within the narrative

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of the larger world of art,

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but who have created new places

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for us to see and understand.

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I'm showing two artists here, 
Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker,

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two of many who really form for me

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the essential questions that I wanted to bring

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as a curator to the world.

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I was interested in the idea

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of why and how

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I could create a new story,

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a new narrative in art history

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and a new narrative in the world.

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And to do this, I knew

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that I had to see the way in which artists work,

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understand the artist's studio

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as a laboratory,

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imagine, then,

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reinventing the museum as a think tank

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and looking at the exhibition

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as the ultimate white paper -- asking questions,

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providing the space

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to look and to think about answers.

NOTE Paragraph

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In 1994,

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when I was a curator at the Whitney Museum,

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I made an exhibition called Black Male.

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It looked at the intersection

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of race and gender

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in contemporary American art.

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It sought to express

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the ways in which art

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could provide a space for dialogue --

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complicated dialogue,

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dialogue with many, many points of entry --

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and how the museum could be the space

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for this contest of ideas.

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This exhibition included

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over 20 artists

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of various ages and races,

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but all looking at black masculinity

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from a very particular point of view.

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What was significant about this exhibition

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is the way in which

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it engaged me in my role

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as a curator, as a catalyst,

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for this dialogue.

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One of the things that happened

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very distinctly in the course of this exhibition

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is I was confronted with the idea

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of how powerful images can be

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in people's understanding 
of themselves and each other.

NOTE Paragraph

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I'm showing you two works, one on the right by Leon Golub,

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one on the left by Robert Colescott.

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And in the course of the exhibition --

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which was contentious, controversial

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and ultimately, for me,

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life-changing

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in my sense of what art could be --

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a woman came up to me on the gallery floor

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to express her concern about the nature

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of how powerful images could be

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and how we understood each other.

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And she pointed to the work on the left

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to tell me how problematic this image was,

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as it related, for her, to the idea of

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how black people had been represented.

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And she pointed to the image on the right

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as an example, to me, of the kind of dignity

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that needed to be portrayed

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to work against those images in the media.

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She then assigned these works racial identities,

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basically saying to me that the work on the right,

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clearly, was made by a black artist,

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the work on the left, clearly, by a white artist,

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when, in effect,

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that was the opposite case:

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Bob Colescott, African-American artist;

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Leon Golub, a white artist.

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The point of that for me was

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to say -- in that space, in that moment --

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that I really, more than anything,

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wanted to understand

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how images could work, how images did work,

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and how artists provided

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a space bigger than one

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that we could imagine in our day-to-day lives

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to work through these images.

NOTE Paragraph

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Fast-forward and I end up in Harlem;

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home for many of black America,

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very much the psychic heart

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of the black experience,

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really the place where the Harlem Renaissance existed.

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Harlem now, sort of explaining

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and thinking of itself in this part of the century,

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looking both backwards and forwards ...

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I always say Harlem is an interesting community

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because, unlike many other places,

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it thinks of itself in the past, present

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and the future simultaneously;

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no one speaks of it just in the now.

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It's always what it was and what it can be.

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And, in thinking about that,

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then my second project, the second question I ask is:

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Can a museum

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be a catalyst in a community?

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Can a museum house artists

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and allow them to be change agents

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as communities rethink themselves?

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This is Harlem, actually, on January 20th,

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thinking about itself in a very wonderful way.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I work now at The Studio Museum in Harlem,

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thinking about exhibitions there,

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thinking about what it means to

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discover art's possibility.

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Now, what does this mean to some of you?

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In some cases, I know that many of you

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are involved in cross-cultural dialogues,

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you're involved in ideas of creativity and innovation.

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Think about the place that artists can play in that --

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that is the kind of incubation and advocacy

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that I work towards, in working with young, black artists.

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Think about artists, not as content providers,

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though they can be brilliant at that,

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but, again, as real catalysts.

NOTE Paragraph

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The Studio Museum was founded in the late 60s.

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And I bring this up because it's important to locate

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this practice in history.

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To look at 1968,

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in the incredible historic moment that it is,

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and think of the arc that has happened since then,

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to think of the possibilities that we are all

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privileged to stand in today

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and imagine that this museum

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that came out of a moment of great protest

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and one that was so much about

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examining the history and the legacy

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of important African-American artists

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to the history of art in this country

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like Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis,

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Romare Bearden.

NOTE Paragraph

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And then, of course,

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to bring us to today.

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In 1975, Muhammad Ali

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gave a lecture at Harvard University.

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After his lecture, a student got up and said to him,

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"Give us a poem."

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And Mohammed Ali said, "Me, we."

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A profound statement about the individual and the community.

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The space in which now,

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in my project of discovery, of thinking about artists,

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of trying to define

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what might be

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black art cultural movement of the 21st century.

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What that might mean

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for cultural movements all over this moment,

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the "me, we" seems

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incredibly prescient

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totally important.

NOTE Paragraph

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To this end,

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the specific project that has made this possible for me

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is a series of exhibitions,

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all titled with an F --

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Freestyle, Frequency and Flow --

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which have set out to discover

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and define

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the young, black artists working in this moment

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who I feel strongly

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will continue to work over the next many years.

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This series of exhibitions

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was made specifically

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to try and question

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the idea of what it would mean

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now, at this point in history,

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to see art as a catalyst;

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what it means now, at this point in history,

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as we define and redefine culture,

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black culture specifically in my case,

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but culture generally.

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I named this group of artists

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around an idea, which I put out there

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called post-black,

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really meant to define them

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as artists who came and start their work now,

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looking back at history but start in this moment, historically.

NOTE Paragraph

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It is really in this sense of discovery

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that I have a new set of questions that I'm asking.

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This new set of questions is:

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What does it mean, right now,

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to be African-American in America?

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What can artwork say about this?

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Where can a museum exist

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as the place for us all

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to have this conversation?

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Really, most exciting about this

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is thinking about the energy and the excitement

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that young artists can bring.

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Their works for me are about,

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not always just simply

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about the aesthetic innovation

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that their minds imagine, that their visions create

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and put out there in the world,

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but more, perhaps, importantly,

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through the excitement of the community

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that they create as important voices

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that would allow us right now to understand our situation,

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as well as in the future.

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I am continually amazed

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by the way in which

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the subject of race

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can take itself in many places

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that we don't imagine it should be.

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I am always amazed

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by the way in which artists are willing

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to do that in their work.

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It is why I look to art.

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It's why I ask questions of art.

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It is why I make exhibitions.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, this exhibition, as I said,

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40 young artists done over the course of eight years,

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and for me it's about considering the implications.

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It's considering the implications of

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what this generation has to say to the rest of us.

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It's considering what it means for these artists

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to be both out in the world as their work travels,

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but in their communities

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as people who are seeing and thinking

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about the issues that face us.

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It's also about thinking about

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the creative spirit and nurturing it,

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and imagining, particularly in urban America,

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about the nurturing of the spirit.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, where, perhaps, does this end up right now?

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For me, it is about re-imagining

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this cultural discourse in an international context.

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So the last iteration of this project

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has been called Flow,

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with the idea now of creating

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a real network

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of artists around the world;

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really looking, not so much

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from Harlem and out, but looking across,

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and Flow looked at artists all born on the continent of Africa.

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And as many of us think about that continent

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and think about what if means

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to us all in the 21st century,

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I have begun that looking

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through artists, through artworks,

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and imagining what they can tell us about the future,

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what they tell us about our future,

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and what they create in their sense of

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offering us this great possibility of watching

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that continent emerge as part

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of our bigger dialogue.

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So, what do I discover

NOTE Paragraph

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when I look at artworks?

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What do I think about

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when I think about art?

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I feel like the privilege I've had as a curator

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is not just the discovery of new works,

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the discovery of exciting works.

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But, really, it has been

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what I've discovered about myself

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and what I can offer

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in the space of an exhibition,

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to talk about beauty, to talk about power,

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to talk about ourselves,

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and to talk and speak to each other.

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That's what makes me get up every day

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and want to think about

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this generation of black artists and artists around the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you. (Applause)