A Constellation

A Constellation juxtaposes eight historical works from the Studio Museum’s permanent collection with recent works by eighteen contemporary artists, all of whom are exhibiting in this institution for the first time.

The works in the Museum’s collection serve as material and conceptual anchors exploring themes of the figure, formal abstraction, economy, African diasporic history and materiality. The newer works expand on these themes and prompt an intergenerational dialogue in visual space.

The artists in the exhibition embrace a broad range of conceptual approaches. Some employ making as a form of politics, others explore how race and cultural production affect aesthetics, while still others combine these methods or create their own. Together the works function as a “constellation,” both as a metaphor for stars that form a pattern, and as a representation of a gathering of dynamic, kindred artists. The connections drawn here present just one possible combination among an infinite variety of configurations.

A Constellation also poses questions about how race, class and the body

have been addressed by artists in the mid- to late-twentieth century, and how artists continue to consider these concerns in the twenty-first. We are in the midst of a particularly fraught moment in the national conversation on these subjects both in the media and in private space. Some may imagine that many complex, centuries-old questions have been resolved since the birth of black nationalism and the civil rights movement—even though, in fact, we have only begun to unpack our collective history.

This exhibition offers multivalent approaches to the profound complexity and nuance inherent in inquiries surrounding identity and existence.

For some artists, color, shape and form are primary to a composition.

Al Loving’s (1935–2005) Variations on a Six Sided Object (1967) can be understood as an example of this. His crisp compositions, formed by hard edges and sharp lines, also represent the work of a generation of artists who worked in their own visual languages despite public pressure to make “black art.” A similar focus on technique and abstraction of the figure is seen in contemporary works such as Torey Thornton’s (b. 1990) explorations of color and material, and Torkwase Dyson’s (b. 1978) site-specific wall drawing.

Issues involving motherhood and the female body, particularly the way in which it is evaluated and valued, are as relevant today as they were for Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), who depicted the experiences of AfricanAmerican women throughout the twentieth century, represented here by Mother and Child (1993). Malawian-born, South Africa–based artist Billie Zangewa further explores these experiences in a 2015 silk tapestry work of the same name. Zangewa’s Mother and Child also makes reference to religious iconography, and shares with Catlett’s work the expression of a particularly female condition. In addition, Zangewa’s material instincts recall the work of Harlem-born artist and activist Faith Ringgold (b. 1930) in the artists’ skilled use of textiles.

Other artists directly engage in the politics of identity, such as Adrian Piper (b. 1948), whose artistic practice often challenges audiences’ expectations about race and gender through the adoption of alter egos, as in Self-Portrait as a Nice White Lady (1995). For Double Quadruple Etcetera Etcetera I (2013), Sondra Perry (b. 1986) filmed a performer in the confines of a small white room, and then partially erased her body using postproduction technology. The performer’s violent convulsions, combined with the erasure, imply an attempt to shake off a gendered or racialized identity. A Constellation includes performances and discussions of race and the self in many iterations across a variety of media.

Finally, and vital to the Studio Museum’s mission and purpose, the exhibition celebrates works that address histories of people of African descent.

Melvin Edwards’s (b. 1937) reference to labor and the slave economy in America, as seen in Working Thought (1985) from the “Lynch Fragment” series, can be connected to photographer Nona Faustine’s (b. 1977) explicit critique, From Her Body Sprang Their Greatest Wealth (2015), a very personal recreation of the conditions, and literal positions, of the bodies upon which America was built. ruby onyinyechi amanze (b. 1982) and Talwst (b. 1979) also express transnational identity in their work. amanze’s that low hanging kind of sun . . . (2015) conflates her experiences in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States, while Talwst, a Canadian artist, uses his miniature Por qué? (2014) to process the violence of American Eric Garner’s death at the hands of the police.

A Constellation provides a space for multivalent conversations between artists and individual works of art. The exhibition affirms the belief that the work of both artists and curators is anchored by these conversations, influences and exchanges. Each of the works presented here, which employ a broad range of practices and media, possesses urgency and weight, while demonstrating artists’ united commitment to expanding upon a shared visual language. Through their individual work and their collective discourse around art and its ideas, these twenty-six artists prepare the ground for future generations of artists to speak with creative freedom and conceptual tenacity.

—Amanda Hunt, Assistant Curator

CONSTELLATION

Another such intergenerational connection can be made between Cameron Rowland (b. 1988) and David Hammons (b. 1943) in their pointed expressions of conditions of the disenfranchised and the bones of our capitalist economy. Rowland’s cool, minimal plexiglass sculpture PassThru (2014) replicates the window feature found in many bodegas, and shares a critique of the U.S. economic system and consumer appetites with Hammons’s Too Obvious (1996), a strategically cracked piggy bank spewing its cowrie-shell spoils.

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Name Index

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ruby onyinyechi amanze Elizabeth Catlett Torkwase Dyson Melvin Edwards Nona Faustine Aaron Fowler David Hammons Ayana V. Jackson Tony Lewis Al Loving Hugo McCloud Troy Michie Sondra Perry Julia Phillips Adrian Piper Faith Ringgold Andy Robert Andrew Ross Cameron Rowland Betye Saar Tschabalala Self Talwst Torey Thornton Jack Whitten Kandis Williams Billie Zangewa

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ruby onyinyechi amanze (b. 1982, Nigeria; lives and works in New York)

that low hanging kind of sun . . ., 2015 Photo: Courtesy the artist

ruby onyinyechi amanze

ruby onyinyechi amanze has created a large series of drawings that detail an ongoing, nonlinear narrative, which informs all of her meticulous, surreal scenes, including that low hanging kind of sun ‌ (2015). Space and time can be flipped in the fictional world amanze has created. The works reflect a hybridization of culture and the figure, observed in its recurring characters: a dapper, suited man with a lion’s head, Siamese twins conjoined by their dreaded hair, houseplants that reference domestic life. Many of the artist’s scenes touch on her own transnational experiences, and employ multiple geographies and identities. amanze draws from both the fantastical and literal; the recurrent motorcycle floating in pictorial space suggests transience and danger, and refers directly to a common mode of transportation in her native Nigeria. amanze received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2004 and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2006.

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Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett completed her undergraduate degree at Howard University in 1935 and was the first person to receive an MFA in sculpture from the University of Iowa, in 1940. While working on her thesis project, Catlett completed a small limestone statue of a seated mother and child, which garnered many accolades. In the ensuing decades, the artist often returned to the same subject, in other materials such as terracotta, marble and wood. Influenced by her time living in Mexico, beginning in 1962, Catlett intertwined different aesthetics, including African, pre-Columbian and modern, to fashion her unique style and practice. Mother and Child (1993) portrays an intimate moment in mahogany. The figures’ stylized features and spare attire focus attention on the emotion in the embrace.

Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012)

Mother and Child, 1993 Art Š Catlett Mora Family Trust / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

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Torkwase Dyson Torkwase Dyson creates works that deconstruct our natural and built environments in order to investigate how they influence our spatial conditions. Dyson’s investment in narrative and architecture informs her drawings and sculptures. The artist is always seeking to register the impact of space on the human consciousness and, in particular, black Americans.

Filtered through a language of minimalism and geometry, Dyson's sitespecific wall drawing created for this exhibition, Strange Fruit (Dignity in Hand) (2015), is a way of commemorating a fraction of the nearly 4,000 lynchings recorded in American history between 1877 and 1950 using the symbol of a tree. Much of her work methodically registers the anxiety and dread of these violent spaces and renders them either as rational geometric drawings and sculptures, or as blueprints. Dyson’s works mark both the trauma and resilience of black American history. Dyson received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1999 and her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2003.

Torkwase Dyson (b. 1973, Chicago; lives and works in Brooklyn)

Array (Strange Fruit), 2014 Acrylic on canvas, 100 × 107 in.

Courtesy the artist

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Melvin Edwards

Melvin Edwards’s Working Thought (1985), from the “Lynch Fragment” series, fuses metal remnants—chain links, a crowbar, industrial-size nails— into a confrontational composition that is never fully at rest. The small sculpture in this series, created between 1963 and the early 1990s, recalls lynching, one of the most painful legacies of African-American history, along with the relationships between black people, labor and industry.

These themes are well documented and commonly evidenced in the formal elements of Edwards’s sculptures. Each object fights for position: Some almost slide out of the composition, while others aggressively jut into the viewing space. The sculpture is in both stasis and flux. Edwards earned his BFA from the University of Southern California in 1965.

Melvin Edwards (b. 1937, Houston; lives and works in New York)

Working Thought from the “Lynch Fragment” series, 1985 © 2015 Melvin Edwards / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Nona Faustine Nona Faustine is a photographer whose work explores the history of the transatlantic slave trade in and around New York City. Her “White Shoes” series (2012–present), including From Her Body Sprang Their Greatest Wealth (2015), is inspired by a portrait of an enslaved woman named Delila, who was photographed partially clothed and wearing white shoes. In this work, Faustine stands, nude, on a crate in the middle of the intersection of Water and Wall Streets in lower Manhattan—once the site of a slave market. Her stance imitates a pose often employed by traders of enslaved men and women, and portrays the vulnerability produced by slavery.

Faustine’s photographs serve as reminders of the contributions of enslaved men and women to contemporary society and the forgotten histories of a prominent New York City intersection. Faustine received her MFA from the International Center for Photography–Bard College in 2013.

Nona Faustine (b. 1977, Brooklyn; lives and works in Brooklyn)

From Her Body Sprang Their Greatest Wealth from the "White Shoes" series, 2013

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Aaron Fowler Aaron Fowler creates wild, massive works by accumulating and physically flattening pieces of furniture and detritus sourced from his local surroundings in Harlem or his hometown of St. Louis. The works are incredibly complex, built surfaces incorporating three-dimensional objects, from cotton balls to blue jeans, and paint. Each work is a combination of a real or imagined narrative drawn from events that affected the artist directly, or impacted his family and friends who remain in St. Louis, a city to which he remains deeply connected. Fowler’s work is a means of processing these events and their weight. Some of the imagery alludes to religious iconography, and Fowler often depicts himself as a shepherd, or as the pirate, a renegade. In Family (2015), the artist is shown leading members of his family to the promised land on a path of rose petals. Fowler earned a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2014.

Aaron Fowler (b. 1988, St. Louis; lives and works in New York)

Family, 2015 Photo: Michael Shultis

David Hammons

David Hammons is a conceptual artist working in a variety of media, including installation, performance and sculpture. His practice is influenced by Dada, Arte Povera and Minimalism, as reflected in his use of everyday objects, which he transforms to reveal embedded prejudices and value systems. Hammons’s works often appear as visual puns and serve as criticisms of systems of class and race, and how objects are often politicized by history and cultural exchange. Too Obvious (1996) is a sculpture composed of a broken piggy bank overflowing with cowries. Used as traditional currency in western Africa, cowries symbolize wealth, exchange and economy, while the strategically shattered ceramic piggy bank suggests overabundance and desire, as well as corruption and violence. Duality is often at play in Hammons’s work to spotlight how various histories, particularly of the African diaspora, are connected with arbitrary declarations of value. Hammons attended California Institute of the Arts from 1966 to 1968 and the Otis Art Institute from 1968 to 1972.

David Hammons (b. 1943, Springfield, IL; lives and works in New York)

Too Obvious, 1996 Photo: Marc Bernier

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Ayana V. Jackson Ayana V. Jackson is interested in the telling and experiences of African diasporic histories. Working with portraiture and the historical archive, the artist recreates photographs, sourced from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using herself as subject. By restaging the images and manipulating posture and gaze, Jackson addresses the historical use of photography to reinforce colonialism and the legacies of violence from systemized racism within a collective history. In Wild as the Wind (2015), Jackson activates the body with powerful movements to avoid reproducing clichÊd and objectifying ideas of the black body. Jackson’s reappropriations of images challenge how black female bodies were framed, exoticized and manipulated to meet colonial tropes. Jackson aims to return agency to the subjects by demonstrating strength and resiliency in postcolonial identities. Jackson received a BA from Spelman College in 1999 and studied at Berlin University of the Arts in 2005.

Ayana V. Jackson (b. 1977, Livingston, NJ; lives and works in New York, Paris and Johannesburg)

Wild as the Wind, 2015 Photo: Courtesy the artist

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Tony Lewis Tony Lewis explores the possibilities of language and material in his works, with graphite dust as his primary medium. Lewis is interested in how language is used to represent race and convey subjectivity, and he often comingles imagery and text. Each work stems from specific textual sources. For example, Make His Mouth Bigger, Angrier (2015) is inspired by Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. The image is manipulated with graphite marks, smudges and erasure, which suggests that the legibility of text and its meaning is as important as form and composition. The presence of graphite becomes a condition of both the artist’s process and the work that results. Lewis works in a variety of scales; the sizes of his works affect how text is read and interpreted. Lewis breaks down language to the level of pure, formal mark-making, and confounds drawing and writing to extrapolate the rhythms and relationships that exist in the materials and techniques. Lewis received his BA from Washington & Jefferson College in 2008 and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012.

Tony Lewis (b. 1986, Los Angeles, lives and works in Chicago)

Make His Mouth Bigger, Angrier, 2015 Photo: Courtesy Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago and Massimo De Carlo, London and Milan

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Al Loving

Al Loving was a prominent abstract painter whose signature style explores the meanings and functions of color, shape and dimension. Loving began his career as a painter in Chicago and moved to New York in 1968, where he expanded his practice and commitment to Abstract Expressionist painting, during a time in which painting was declared dead by artists and critics in favor of new media works. Known for his illusionary, prism-like shapes with hard edges, Loving incorporated sculptural elements into his two-dimensional paintings and experimented with the borders and edges of the picture plane to change how viewers see color and the pictorial space in different, unexpected ways. As exemplified in Variations on a Six Sided Object (1967), Loving’s works are technically accomplished, with precise executions of black and white lines to divide space and provide depth and movement. Loving’s energetic works, though entirely two-dimensional, are tests of painting as both form and perception. Loving received his BFA from the University of Illinois in 1963 and his MFA from the University of Michigan in 1965.

Al Loving (1935–2005)

Variations on a Six Sided Object, 1967 Photo: Marc Bernier

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Hugo McCloud Hugo McCloud uses chemicals to transform industrial materials, such as tar paper, copper, metal sheeting and wood. Driven by an interest in uncovering beauty in overlooked or neglected items, McCloud explores the full potential of how materials can be manipulated and transformed. His process is very physical and demands malleability from both material and artist. McCloud often works on the studio floor—like Jackson Pollock and his infamous drip technique—but demonstrates control and understanding of material properties, chemistry and aesthetics. Combining chemical processes such as oxidation and decay with woodblock printing or gestural drawing, McCloud merges his background in design, construction and urban architecture to appropriate the formal tenets of modern art. By broadening the guidelines of color theory or the grid, McCloud questions systems of value, uncovering contradictions in the aesthetics of beauty and desire.

McCloud received a BA from Tuskegee University in 2002.

Hugo McCloud (b. 1980, Palo Alto, CA; lives and works in Brooklyn)

Untitled, safety series orange, 2014 © Hugo McCloud Photo: Sean Kelly, New York

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Troy Michie Troy Michie’s recent work cleverly explores the self-portrait as simultaneously an expression of the human form and a representation of borders.

These borders might reference the geography of his hometown on the United States–Mexico border, but also suggest the way in which the body can occupy in-between spaces of gender and race. STRAND, CABLE, TWINE (2015) is a fragmentation of the human form, a mobile of objects that forms an unusual self-portrait. By incorporating a broken pair of glasses, an ID tag and pieces of the artist’s own hair, Michie references the physical body and the history of African ritual sculpture. These sculptural works nod to the duality of mystery and reveal in portraiture. Michie received his BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2009 and his MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2011.

Troy Michie (b. 1985, El Paso, TX; lives and works in Brooklyn)

STRAND, CABLE, TWINE, 2015

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Sondra Perry Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist working in video, sound, performance and digital imagery. Perry’s multifaceted practice is influenced by the work of science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, which questions perceptions of truth and reality. Perry uses familiar technology, such as webpages and Photoshop, to create works that confound reality as a way to highlight intersectionality in identity. In two videos, Double Quadruple Etcetera Etcetera I and II, a female and male respectively dance and gesture maniacally in a claustrophobic white space. Perry then laboriously edited the dancers, frame by frame, using Photoshop, to erase their bodies, leaving only their hair intact as a signifier of race and gender. The ghostly traces of the dancers’ physical presences serve as a reminder of how the body and psyche are impacted when notions of race, gender and class are imposed. Perry received a BFA from Alfred University in 2012 and a MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in 2015.

Sondra Perry (b. 1986, Perth Amboy, NJ; lives and works in New York and Houston)

Double, Quadruple, Etcetera, Etcetera I (video still), 2013

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Julia Phillips Julia Phillips creates ceramic sculptures that mimic functional objects or imagined tools. Each of the artist’s “tools” are characters that refer to an invisible body, or suggest interactions between physical bodies, as seen in her videos and installations. Much of her work, created with clay and metal, is performative, either as allusion to a physical entity (some objects ooze glaze), or in the manner of their presence in an exhibition space.

Gender, sex, power and control are the works’ primary themes. Regulator (2014) stands as an awkward body, immobilized, without arms and with the ghostly impressions of its inverted feet registered with a slick black gloss.

It is representative of the artist’s interrogations of concepts of physical dominance, material and human determination. Phillips received a BFA from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg in 2012 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2015.

Julia Phillips (b. 1985, Hamburg, Germany; lives and works in New York)

Regulator, 2014

Adrian Piper

Philosopher and conceptual artist Adrian Piper addresses social and political issues in her performance art, photography and video works. Piper’s performance work includes the “Mythic Being” series (1972–75) in which she disguised herself as a racially ambiguous man, and then documented public reactions to her character in film and photographs, which she often altered with speech or thought balloons. In addition, Piper performs the role of an artist who is black but often mistaken for white to encourage audiences to become aware of their own prejudices. Her work Self-Portrait as Nice White Lady (1995), is an altered photograph of the artist with a text bubble that reads, “Whut Choo Lookin at, Mofo?” which directly addresses the issues around being a female artist who uses racism and gender as subject matter. In much of her work Piper engages this same topic, the dilemma of what the artist terms a “Colored Woman Artist,” that is, that the problem with making art about race and gender is that it is assumed to be autobiographical rather than general. Piper earned her AD from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 1969; BA from City College of New York in 1974; and MA and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977 and 1981, respectively.

Adrian Piper (b. 1948, New York; lives and works in Berlin)

Self-Portrait as Nice White Lady, 1995 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin Photo: Marc Bernier

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Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, sculptor and performance artist who was born and raised in Harlem. Her work is marked by a commitment to women’s rights and equality, and often employs media historically associated with women, such as textiles and quilts. Ringgold’s interest in quilts stems from their historic significance in African-American women’s artistic practice; enslaved women were often skilled quilt makers and used them as vehicles for storytelling. Ringgold created her first quilt, Echoes of Harlem (1980), in collaboration with her mother, Willi Posey, a fashion designer in Harlem. Drawing upon her painting practice from the 1960s and 1970s, Ringgold painted portraits of people from her childhood on fabric, which her mother then sewed into a quilt. Though Ringgold and Posey had collaborated on several works prior to 1980, Echoes of Harlem was the last piece they worked on together before Posey’s death in 1981. Ringgold earned a BA and MA from the City College of New York in 1955 and 1959, respectively.

Faith Ringgold (b. 1930, New York; lives and works in La Jolla, CA, and Englewood, NJ)

Echoes of Harlem, 1980 Photo: Marc Bernier

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Andy Robert Andy Robert’s practice exists at the intersection of performance, sculpture, collage, assemblage and installation. Robert manipulates and collages photographs sourced from social media outlets. After Mass (2015) is a result of the artist building layers of paint, and then using dry brushing and scraping techniques to add and remove successive layers. Robert paints intuitively, experimenting with color, texture and washes. His method of image-building is also meant to capture the ephemeral, fragmented nature of our existence and the way in which we communicate in the twenty-first century. Images are meant to be dismantled and then put back together, according to the artist. The work addresses myths and historic truths, and often incorporates political content with the personal. Robert received his BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008 and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2011.

Andy Robert (b. 1985, Les Cayes, Haiti; lives and works in Los Angeles)

After Mass, 2015 Photo: Courtesy the artist

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Andrew Ross Using props for the purpose of exploring various cause-and-effect scenarios in a series of digital photographs, Andrew Ross’s Runny Palette (2013) focuses on mismatching an object and reflection. The artist’s conceptual process reproduces “identical” squares of color that are, in fact, digitally repeated multiple times within the reflection. The resulting image of the palette is aesthetically pleasing, if not totally confusing. The photograph cleverly addresses the potential of digital editing and erasure; it makes reference to endlessly altered images of women in print media, and also acts as a subtle play on the false notion of fixed identity. In other aspects of Ross's practice, he uses clay, wood, paint and found materials to create abstracted representations of the body and to recreate by facsimile various objects, ads and images that occupy public spaces. Ross received his BFA from the Cooper Union in 2011.

Andrew Ross (b. 1989, Miami; lives and works in Brooklyn)

Runny Palette, 2013 Photo: Courtesy the artist

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Cameron Rowland (b. 1988, Philadelphia; lives and works in New York)

Pass-Thru, 2014 Photo: Courtesy the artist and ESSEX STREET, New York

Cameron Rowland

Cameron Rowland’s practice interrogates the material conditions implicit to the exclusionary function of property. Many of his sculptures address the relationship between the physical conditions and social relations of spaces.

In describing Pass-Thru (2014), Rowland states: “In some places, businesses use a pass-thru to pass cash or goods back and forth; this could be at a bank or a liquor store. The highest standard of pass-thru use bullet proof glass, although this material is far too expensive to be used as a protective measure by those business where it might be most effective. Therein plastic is used in place of bullet proof glass. They are either made by a manufacturer or by the shop owner. This Pass-Thru was made by Rowland.”

Rowland received his BA from Wesleyan University in 2011.

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Betye Saar

Betye Saar was initially drawn to ritual objects after a visit to the Field Museum in Chicago in 1970. The exhibitions on sub-Saharan, Oceanic and Egyptian art introduced her to the organic materials of shamans and an iconography of cosmology and mysteries. Her interest in ritual and spirituality led to experimentations with collage and assemblage, including visual musings on African, Caribbean and African-American mysticism. Saar terms these boxes, such as Window of Ancient Sirens (1979), “ancestral works” because they mimic African processes of accumulation and ritualization. Saar also seeks to capture emotional and spiritual power in her artistic process through symbolic steps she calls “rituals.” Through this predetermined process, Saar transforms objects by investing them with alternative narratives. The resulting work is a remnant of this ritual experience, an assemblage that puts these objects in the context of their meaning and spiritual significance. Saar received a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949 and studied at California State University, Long Beach, the University of Southern California and California State University, Northridge.

Betye Saar (b. 1926, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles)

Window of Ancient Sirens, 1979 Photo: Marc Bernier

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Tschabalala Self Painter and printmaker Tschabalala Self explores the iconography of the black female body in contemporary culture. In her collages and printed works, Self’s imaginary female subjects are made recognizable only through blocks of color, shapes and patterns. These patterns are sourced from the artist’s collection of fabric, a mix of mass-produced prints and unique, culturally specific motifs, which she sees as reflective of her characters' identities. In Bodega Run (2015), a young girl is depicted en route to a bodega or convenience store, a moment the artist connects with the black American experience. As with the figures in Self’s other portraits of women, the girl’s body is flattened to disrupt the voyeuristic and erotic gaze typically used to depict and describe black women’s bodies. Instead, Self directs the audience to the power of the young woman and asks the viewer to imagine the socioeconomic circumstances that led her to the bodega. Why is the bodega the only available source of food? What does this experience say about access to fundamental resources in low-income neighborhoods? Self earned a BA from Bard College in 2012 and MFA from Yale School of Art in 2015.

Tschabalala Self (b. 1990, New York; lives and works in New Haven, CT)

Bodega Run, 2015 Photo: Courtesy Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York

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Talwst The miniature jewelry boxes–turned–dioramas created by sculptor Talwst function as small windows meant to transport the viewer into an alternate time and place. In these worlds, created in found, ready-made boxes, Talwst combines references to popular culture, art history, current events and the artist’s lived experiences. Por qué? (2014) contains a scene from the infamous day in 2014 when Eric Garner, an unarmed man in Staten Island, New York, died after being placed in a chokehold by a police officer. The incident sparked protests and national conversations about police brutality.

In this work, Garner’s death plays out in miniature while his illuminated spirit floats above the scene. Talwst’s works often include the conventions of Romantic and Impressionist paintings in the adoption of specific scenes, tropes or color palettes from those periods. Por qué? shares its title with Francisco Goya’s (1746–1828) Por qué? (1810) etching from “The Disaster of War” series, the composition of which is eerily similar to the amateur video footage of Garner’s death. Talwst sees his work not as a monument, but as a reminder of the social impact of Garner’s death. Talwst attended Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2007.

Talwst (b. 1979, Edmonton, Canada; lives and works in Toronto)

Por qué?, 2014

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Torey Thornton Torey Thornton is a painter who employs the language of collage, combining bold swaths of color and various odd materials—glue, glitter, cardboard, construction paper, slatted wood panels—to create his often large compositions. Thornton makes active paintings in which the push and pull between flat and dimensional surfaces are evident. In A Lot Pissed But Singular. Look Out (2014), the panels the artist crafted are essential to the painting’s foundation, but also function as an element to react to or against in the space of the painting. Thornton has a distinctive style that references concrete forms, but in a manner barely discernable to the viewer. His shapes slip in and out of the recognizable: What might at first appear to be an amorphous blob will, at second glance, seamlessly morph into an orange with a pronounced navel. There is a specificity to his imagery that remains squarely and delightfully out of reach. Thornton received his BFA from the Cooper Union in 2012.

Torey Thornton (b. 1990, Macon, GA; lives and works in Brooklyn)

A Lot Pissed But Singular. Look Out, 2014 Photo: Courtesy Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles

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Jack Whitten

When he moved to New York in the 1960s, Jack Whitten adopted abstraction as the language for his painting practice. His career now spans more than fifty years and, though rooted in Abstract Expressionism, Whitten has experimented with medium and technique, and borrowed elements of photography and sculpture. The seemingly simple composition of Psychic Intersection (1979–80) is, in fact, a complex balance of techniques, tools and influences. The incised wavy lines were produced by dragging an afro comb across the canvas to add texture and reveal layers of color. The artist considers the technique of dragging paint with tools, such as combs, squeegees or rakes, not a gesture but a process that he refers to as “weaving light,” which allows light to illuminate the canvas in between the lines of raised paint. Although the works are nonrepresentational, they are embedded with various influences, from African-American authors such as Ralph Ellison to Zen Buddhist philosophies. Whitten’s reimaging of how materials and geometry are used complicates his relationship with abstract painting and cultural history. Whitten holds degrees from the Tuskegee Institute (1959), Southern University (1960) and the Cooper Union (1964).

Jack Whitten (b. 1938 Bessemer, AL; lives and works in New York)

Psychic Intersection, 1979–80 Photo: Marc Bernier

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Kandis Williams Kandis Williams explores pattern and repetition in much of her work, as well as themes such as racial identity, eroticism, magic and violence.

Her practice integrates these primary formal and thematic concerns with images photocopied from her personal collection to create multimedia combinations of painting, collage and image. Repetition of imagery and the occurrence of monochromatic gradients function as visual metaphors for chaos and difference. paralysis II (2014) is created by building repeated images on top of one another. Williams’s collages possess an unexpected humor despite their gritty blacks and whites, and often sober subject matter. There is always an element of laughter suggested in them—bright eyes searching from within a dark visual field. Williams received her BFA from the Cooper Union in 2007 and her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2009.

Kandis Williams (b. 1985, Baltimore, MD lives and works in Berlin)

paralysis II, 2014 Photo: Courtesy Night Gallery, Los Angeles

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Billie Zangewa Billie Zangewa’s silk tapestries are heavily influenced by printmaking, as well as her time working in the fashion and advertising industries. The artist combines fabrics from her personal collection of found textiles, using a variety of techniques including embroidery, collage and patchwork. Zangewa prefers silk, which has the ability to emulate the shifting shimmer of light, such as that created by the glass facades of city buildings. Her gestural stitch work recalls the detail and surface texture of paintings and photographs. Though Zangewa adopts many painterly tactics, her process parallels traditional sewing in that she begins by making patterns out of newsprint. Many of her works, including Mother and Child (2015), are partially autobiographical and feature the artist as the female protagonist. In this work, Zangewa highlights a common domestic scene of a mother feeding her small child, and gives the moment a sense of profound, extraordinary importance. Zangewa earned a BFA in 1995 from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.

Billie Zangewa (b. 1973, Blantyre, Malawi; lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa)

Mother and Child, 2015 Photo: Courtesy the artist

ruby onyinyechi amanze

Tony Lewis Elizabeth Catlett Mother and Child, 1993 Mahogany, 67 1/2 × 16 1/2 × 15 1/2 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum purchase

Make His Mouth Bigger, Angrier, 2015 Graphite powder and correction tape on paper, 2 3/4 × 2 3/8 in.

Courtesy the artist, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago and Massimo Di Carlo, London and Rome

Torkwase Dyson

Strange Fruit (Dignity in Hand), 2015 Acrylic on gallery wall, 96 × 84 in.

Courtesy the artist Melvin Edwards

Working Thought from the “Lynch Fragment” series, 1985 Welded steel, 8 1/2 × 6 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of the artist

Al Loving

Variations on a Six Sided Object, 1967 Acrylic on canvas, 70 × 59 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Ruth Weisberg and Kelyn Roberts Hugo McCloud

Untitled, safety series orange, 2014 Aluminum foil, aluminum coating and oil paint on tar paper, 84 × 79 in.

Collection of Wassim Rasamny, New York

Nona Faustine

From Her Body Spring Their Greatest Wealth from the “White Shoes” series, 2013 Archival pigment print, 30 × 40 in.

Courtesy the artist

Aaron Fowler Family, 2015 Frosted Flakes, cotton balls, salt, assorted wood, player piano, acrylic, oil, blue jeans, leather, bamboo earring, red rag, fan, CDs and Easter grass on doors, 152 × 133 1/2 × 16 in.

Courtesy the artist

Troy Michie PERIPHERY, 2015 Rope, hair and hinge, acrylic on wood, 25 × 24 × 1 in.

Courtesy the artist Troy Michie

STRAND, CABLE, TWINE, 2015 Rope, gloves, hair, tape, wood, wallet, collage on wood board, felt, eyeglasses and ID tag, dimensions variable Courtesy the artist Sondra Perry

David Hammons Too Obvious, 1996 Cowrie shells and porcelain ceramic, 7 × 12 × 14 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Edward Clark, New York Ayana V. Jackson Wild as the Wind, 2015 Archival pigment print on German etching, approximately 43 × 46 in.

Edition of six Courtesy the artist and Gallery Momo, Johannesburg, South Africa Tony Lewis Bad, bad, 2015 Graphite powder and correction tape on paper, 3 × 2 3/8 in.

Courtesy the artist, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago and Massimo Di Carlo, London and Rome

Double, Quadruple, Etcetera, Etcetera I and II, 2013 HD single-channel video loop, color, silent TRT 00:09:00 Courtesy the artist Julia Phillips Regulator, 2014 Partially glazed ceramics, metal stand and metal screws, approximately 25 1/2 × 44 × 20 in.

Courtesy the artist Adrian Piper

Self-Portrait as Nice White Lady, 1995

Black and white autophoto with oil-crayon drawing, 18 1/4 × 14 1/4 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition Committee

Name

Photo transfers, ink, collage, metallic pigment, graphite and colored pencils, 72 × 118 in.

Courtesy the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Tony Lewis Time, 2015 (right panel) Pencil, graphite powder, and tape on paper, 89 × 77 in.

Collection of Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi

31

that low hanging kind of sun …, 2015

Faith Ringgold

Name

32

Echoes of Harlem, 1980 Paint on cotton, 89 1/2 × 80 1/2 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Altria Group, Inc. Andy Robert After Mass, 2015 Oil on canvas, 48 × 60 in.

Private collection, Los Angeles; courtesy Papillion Gallery, Los Angeles

Talwst

Troubadour 2.0 from the “Sculpture-Infinity” series, 2014 Mixed media, 1 × 1 × 1 1/2 in.

Collection of Susan Cohen Talwst

Started from the bottom now we here pt. 1, 2014 Mixed media, 7 × 2 × 2 1/2 in.

Private collection, Belgium Torey Thornton

Andrew Ross Runny Palette, 2013 Archival inkjet print in artist frame, 20 × 30 in.

Private collection, New York

A Lot Pissed But Singular. Look Out, 2014 Acrylic, spray paint, oil pastel, glue, crayon, charcoal, graphite and collage on slatted panel, 82 3/4 × 96 1/4 in.

Collection of Stephanie LaCava and Bryan Weiss

Cameron Rowland

Pass-Thru, 2014

Acrylic, hardware and 24-hour rotator disc, 23 × 20 × 21 in.

Private collection, New York Betye Saar

Window of Ancient Sirens, 1979 Assemblage, 14 3/4 × 24 3/4 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Wynn and Sally Kramarsky, New York

Jack Whitten

Psychic Intersection, 1979-80 Acrylic on canvas, 42 × 42 × 1 1/2 in.

The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Ruth Bocour in memorium of Leonard Bocour

Kandis Williams paralysis II, 2014 Mixed media on canvas, 48 × 72 in.

Courtesy the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Tschabalala Self

Bodega Run, 2015

Oil, pigment and flasche on canvas, 44 × 30 in.

Private collection, New York

Billie Zangewa Mother and Child, 2015 Silk tapestry, 51 × 54 in.

Courtesy Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Talwst

Por qué?, 2014 Mixed media, 2 × 1 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.

Courtesy the artist

Billie Zangewa

Divine Intervention, 2015 Silk tapestry, 44 × 54 in.

Courtesy Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

ruby

onyinyechi

amanze

Elizabeth Catlett Torkwase Dyson Melvin Edwards Nona Faustine Aaron Fowler David Hammons Ayana V. Jackson Tony Lewis Al Loving

Hugo

Troy

Michie

Julia

Phillips

McCloud

Sondra

Faith Ringgold

Adrian Andy

Perry Piper Robert

Andrew Ross Cameron Rowland Betye Saar Talwst

Tschabalala Self Torey

Thornton

Jack Whitten Kandis Williams Billie

Zangewa