How art gives shape to cultural change

Thelma Golden, curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, talks through three recent shows that explore how art examines and redefines culture. The "post-black" artists she works with are using their art to provoke a new dialogue about race and culture -- and about the meaning of art itself.

The brilliant playwright, Adrienne Kennedy,

wrote a volume called

"People Who Led to 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 in understanding culture,

has come by following artists,

by looking at what artists mean

and what they do and who they are.

J.J. from "Good Times,"

(Applause)

significant to many people of course

because of "Dy-no-mite,"

but perhaps more significant

as the first, really, black artist

on primetime TV.

Jean-Michel Basquiat,

important to me because [he was]

the first black artist 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 in 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 Kara Walker,

two of many who really form 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 artist's studio

as a 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 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 and each other.

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

one on the left by Robert Colescott.

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

to 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 a black artist,

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

when, in effect,

that was the opposite case:

Bob Colescott, African-American artist;

Leon Golub, 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,

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

Can a museum

be a 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 there,

thinking about what it means to

discover art's 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 be brilliant at that,

but, again, as real catalysts.

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 it 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 Lawrence, Norman Lewis,

Romare Bearden.

And then, of course,

to bring us to today.

In 1975, Muhammad Ali

gave a lecture at Harvard University.

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

"Give us a poem."

And Mohammed 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 named 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 imagine, 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 the course of eight years,

and for me it's about considering the implications.

It's considering the implications of

what 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 re-imagining

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 real 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 if means

to us all in the 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. (Applause)