$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$

(© 2018 Mickalene Thomas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Courtesy American Federation of Arts)Īnother personal discovery was Jennifer Packer’s work, represented in the show by a mauve-tinged portrait of a seated man. Even in the somewhat dim lighting of MoAD’s third floor, the painting acts like a giant hypnosis tool, threatening to pull viewers into an altered state. In Jack Whitten’s Khee I from 1978, a Moiré-esque pattern appears on a large-scale canvas covered with tight stripes of alternating black and white. It’s an exciting show for a number of reasons, not least of which is seeing incredible work by contemporary artists of African descent in a local institution devoted to, as a Studio Museum rep says, “proactive and radical cultural specificity.” There’s a who’s-who quality to the Studio Museum’s holdings among the artists included in the MoAD exhibition are Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Mark Bradford, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Chris Ofili, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems and Kehinde Wiley.īut some of the most exciting pieces in Black Refractions are by artists previously unknown to me. Its first stop is at MoAD, where the exhibition runs through April 14. The Studio Museum is currently constructing a new building for itself in Harlem, and has taken the opportunity to travel its impressive collection around the country in the form of Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem. Which brings us to the present day, and the second and third floors of San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora. (© The Artist Courtesy of the artist, Rena Bransten Gallery and American Federation of Arts) Today, five decades after its founding, the Studio Museum houses over 2,500 artworks by approximately 700 artists-a collection spanning over 200 years.

$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$

And by 1977, a collections committee began accessioning pieces in earnest.

$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$

Within its first two years of existence, enthusiastic young artists started gifting their own work.

$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$

While the Studio Museum succeeded in fulfilling half of that statement (doing something other museums don't), it utterly failed to remain a non-collecting institution. “We’re trying to do something other museums aren’t.” “When you have the vested interest of a collection you lose the desire to innovate,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, then-vice-president of the Studio Museum (and current congresswoman for the District of Columbia), told the New York Times. But in September 1968, representatives from the brand-new Studio Museum in Harlem, a space dedicated to supporting black artists and educating the surrounding community about contemporary art, did just that.

$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$

It's not every day a museum takes a proud and purposeful stance against collecting artwork.

$Black Refractions by Connie H. Choi$