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