T E N S E S : A RT I S T S I N R E S I D E N C E 2 015 / 6 Amanda Hunt, Assistant Curator New York City is changing at an astounding pace. Issues surrounding gentrification and income inequality are at the forefront of local and national political discussions in this pivotal election year. Capitalism is a driving force in many facets of American society—it informs ideas around success, political influence and desirability—so it becomes especially poignant in a place with as much history and cultural value as Harlem. Harlem has been referred to as a “black mecca” since the 1920s, both by its occupants and in the popular imagination. Artists are great critics of their surroundings and of culture, and often they reflect back to us its various impacts. This year’s residency and its culminating effort, Tenses, is no exception. Tenses is meant to refer to temporality, as well as an expansiveness of language and creative expression: past, present, future. Each of this year’s artists in residence explores, in some way, the idea of impermanence or the movement of the body in space— in the studio or the city at large. Jibade-Khalil Huffman’s installation contains pictures within pictures; it is a composite made up of parts and layers of images that are themselves fractured and
complex. EJ Hill’s A Monumental Offering of Potential Energy (2016) is a demonstration of the strength and resilience of a highly visible, politicized, black, queer body, one that thrives against all odds. Jordan Casteel’s substantial paintings are both compassionate portraits and urgent documentation of the black vendors who occupy 125th Street on a daily basis. Many past artists in residence refer to the distinct energy of the studios that face 125th Street. This street has often informed the work produced in these spaces, or provided the subject. The facade of the Museum building is one large, porous membrane. On some days, from the studios, it is as if the windows and walls have melted away, and the spaces hang over the street as our David Hammons flag does every day. This promenade is one of the most humming, alive pedestrian spaces in all of America. You cannot quiet the noise. You cannot stop the life below. Drumbeats, drum lines, politicians, protesters, Prince mourners, vendors, kite fliers—this is the(ir) place. The Studio Museum in Harlem, like the city it occupies, is about to enter a new phase in its history as it approaches its fiftieth anniversary. I cannot help but carry this into my thinking around this exhibition, its related parts and the residents themselves. Harlem is evolving, as is the Museum, as are they.