How art gives shape to cultural change Thelma Golden
the brilliant playwright Audrey and
Kennedy wrote a volume called people who
have led my plays and if I were to write
a volume it would be called artists who
have led my exhibitions because my work
in understanding art and an
understanding culture has come by
following artists by looking at what
artists mean and what they do and who
they are JJ from good times significant
to many people of course because of
dynomite but perhaps more significant as
the first really black artists on
primetime TV jean-michel Basquiat
important to me
because the first black artists in real
time that showed me the possibility of
who and what I was about to enter into
my overall project is about art
specifically about black artists very
generally about the way in which art can
change the way we think about culture
and ourselves my interest is an artists
who understand and rewrite history who
think about themselves within the
narrative of the larger world of art but
who have created new places for us to
see and understand I’m showing two
artists here Glenn Ligon and Carol
Walker two of many who really formed for
me the essential questions that I wanted
to bring as a curator to the world I was
interested in the idea of why and how I
could create a new story a new narrative
in art history and a new narrative in
the world and to do this I knew that I
had to see the way in which artists work
understand the artists studio as
laboratory imagine then reinventing the
museum as a think tank and looking at
the exhibition as the ultimate white
paper asking questions providing the
space to look and to think about answers
in 1994 when I was a curator at the
Whitney Museum
I made an exhibition called black male
it looked at the intersection of race
and gender in contemporary American art
it sought to express the ways in which
art could provide a space for a dialogue
complicated dialogue dialogue with many
many points of entry and how the museum
could be the space for this contest of
ideas this exhibition included over 20
artists of various ages and races but
all looking at black masculinity from a
very particular point of view what was
significant about this exhibition is the
way in which it engaged me in my role as
a curator as a catalyst for this
dialogue one of the things that happened
very distinctly in the course of this
exhibition is I was confronted with the
idea of how powerful images can be in
people’s understanding of themselves in
each other I’m showing you two works one
on the right by Leon Golub one on the
left by Robert Cole Scott and in the
course of the exhibition which was
contentious controversial and ultimately
for me life-changing in my sense of what
art could be a woman came up to me on
the gallery floor to express her concern
about the nature of how powerful images
could be and how we understood each
other and she pointed to the work on the
left - tell me how problematic this
image was as it related for her to the
idea of how black people had been
represented and she pointed to the image
on the right as an example to me of the
kind of dignity that needed to be
portrayed to work against those images
in the media
she then assigned these works racial
identities basically saying to me that
the work on the right
clearly was made by black artists the
work on the left clearly by a white
artist when in effect that was the
opposite case Bob Cole Scott
african-american artist Leon goal of a
white artist the point of that for me
was to say in that space in that moment
that I really more than anything wanted
to understand how images could work how
images did work and how artists provided
a space bigger than one that we could
imagine in our day-to-day lives to work
through these images fast-forward and I
end up in Harlem home for many of black
America very much the psychic heart of
the black experience really the place
where the Harlem Renaissance existed
Harlem now sort of explaining and
thinking of itself in this part of the
century looking both backwards and
forwards I always say Harlem is an
interesting community because unlike
many other places it thinks of itself in
the past present and the future
simultaneously no one speaks of it just
in the now it’s always what it was and
what it can be and in thinking about
that than my second project the second
question I asked is can a museum via
catalyst in a community can a museum
house artists and allow them to be
change agents as communities rethink
themselves
this is Harlem actually on January 20th
thinking about itself in a very
wonderful way so I work now at the
Studio Museum in Harlem thinking about
exhibitions they’re thinking about what
it means to discover arts possibility
now what does this mean to some of you
in some cases I know that many of you
are involved in cross-cultural dialogues
you’re involved in ideas of creativity
and innovation think about the place
that artists can play in that that is
the kind of incubation and advocacy that
I work towards in working with young
black artists think about artists not as
content providers though they can
brilliant at that
but again as real catalyst the studio
museum was founded in the late 60s and I
bring this up because it’s important to
locate
this practice in history to look at 1968
in the incredible historic moment that
is and think of the arc that has
happened since then to think of the
possibilities that we are all privileged
to stand in today and imagine that this
museum that came out of a moment of
great protest and one that was so much
about examining the history and the
legacy of important african-american
artists to the history of art in this
country like Jacob Florence Norman Lewis
Vermeer Bearden and then of course to
bring us to today in 1975 Muhammad Ali
gave a lecture at Harvard University
after his lecture the student got up and
said to him give us a poem and Muhammad
Ali said me we a profound statement
about the individual and the community
the space in which now in my project of
discovery of thinking about artists of
trying to define what might be black art
cultural movement of the 21st century
what that might mean for cultural
movements all over this moment the me we
seems incredibly prescient totally
important to this end the specific
project that has made this possible for
me is a series of exhibitions all titled
with an F freestyle frequency and flow
which have set out to discover and
define the young black artists working
in this moment who I feel strongly will
continue to work over the next many
years this series of exhibitions was
made specifically to try and question
the idea of what it would mean now at
this point in history to see art as a
catalyst what it means now at this point
in history as we define and redefine
culture black culture specifically in my
case but culture generally I name this
group of artists around an idea which I
put out there called post black really
meant to define them as artists who came
and start their work now looking back at
history but start in this moment
historically
it is really in this sense of discovery
that I have a new set of questions that
I’m asking this new set of questions is
what does it mean right now to be
african-american in America
what can artwork say about this where
can a museum exist as the place for us
all to have this conversation really
most exciting about this is thinking
about the energy and the excitement that
young artists can bring their works for
me are about not always just simply
about the aesthetic innovation that
their minds imagined that their visions
create and put out there in the world
but more perhaps importantly through the
excitement of the community that they
create as important voices that would
allow us right now to understand our
situation as well as in the future I am
continually amazed by the way in which
the subject of race can take itself in
many places that we don’t imagine it
should be I am always amazed by the way
in which artists are willing to do that
in their work it is why I look to art
it’s why I ask questions of art it is
why I make exhibitions now this
exhibition as I said 40 young artists
done over a course of eight years and
for me it’s about considering the
implications if considering the
implications of this generation has to
say to the rest of us it’s considering
what it means for these artists to be
both out in the world as their work
travels but in their communities as
people who are seeing and thinking about
the issues that face us it’s also about
thinking about the creative spirit and
nurturing it and imagining particularly
in urban America about the nurturing of
the spirit now where perhaps does this
end up right now for me it is about
reimagining this cultural discourse in
an international context so the last
iteration of this project has been
called flow with the idea now of
creating a
EAL network of artists around the world
really looking not so much from harlem
and out but looking across and flow
looked at artists all born on the
continent of africa and as many of us
think about that continent and think
about what it means to us all in 21st
century I have begun that looking
through artists through artworks and
imagining what they can tell us about
the future what they tell us about our
future and what they create in their
sense of offering us this great
possibility of watching that continent
emerge as part of our bigger dialogue so
what do I discover when I look at
artworks what do I think about when I
think about art I feel like the
privilege I’ve had as a curator is not
just the discovery of new works the
discovery of exciting works but really
it has been what I’ve discovered about
myself and what I can offer in the space
of an exhibition to talk about beauty to
talk about power to talk about ourselves
and to talk and speak to each other
that’s what makes me get up every day
and want to think about this generation
of black artists and artists around the
world thank you
you