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The Studio Museum in Harlem is a cultural hub dedicated to Black culture.
In the 1930s, Black Americans trying to get far away from the Jim Crow South made a home for themselves in Harlem, where their art and culture had the chance to flourish. Cut to thirty or so years later and they were still being excluded from mainstream museums. The Whitney Museum organized an exhibition called The 1930’s: Painting and Sculpture in America and failed to add a single Black artist, despite the obvious contributions to art made in that decade. So, in November of 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem created their own exhibition: Invisible Americans: Black Artists of the ‘30s.
The Studio Museum in Harlem had opened in September 1968 with a mission to not only showcase artwork by artists of African descent, but also support artists in other ways and provide arts education to a broader community. The "Studio" in its title refers to their long running artist-in-residence program, the alumni of which include some superstars of the art world: Mickalene Thomas, Kerry James Marshall, David Hammons, Wangechi Mutu, Julie Mehretu, and Kehinde Wiley, just to name a few.
They are at the forefront of change internally as well with attempts to diversify staff, in contrast to the majority white staff in almost all other museums. Many of the curators that passed through the Studio Museum in Harlem have been lauded in their field, and the Museum has been pushing the established boundaries ever since its opening. In 1987, after moving to an impressive new space, the Museum was accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), becoming the first Black or Latino institution to receive this accreditation.
Sources
Sources
- Conwill, Kinshasa Holman, “Prepared Statement of Kinshasa Holman Conwill, Acting Director, the Studio Museum in Harlem,” Reauthorization of Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1985. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986.
- Compagnon, Madeleine, “How Black Artists Fought Exclusion in Museums,” JStor Daily, July 6, 2020. Date accessed July 16, 2020. https://daily.jstor.org/how-black-artists-fought-exclusion-in-museums/
- Elder, Nika, “African American Art and the ‘White Cube,’” The Routledge Companion to African American Art History, edited by Eddie Chambers. Routledge, 2019.
- Francis, Mark, Golden, Thelma, Adjaye, Sir David, “The Studio Museum in Harlem,” Spring 2019. Date accessed July 20, 2020. https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2019/07/14/interview-thelma-golden-david…
- NYC The Official Guide, “The Studio Museum in Harlem.” Date accessed July 16, 2020. https://www.nycgo.com/museums-galleries/the-studio-museum-in-harlem/
- Robin Pogrebin, “The Studio Museum has a vision for its home. And a power player at the helm,” The New York Times, September 26, 2017. . Date accessed July 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/arts/design/studio-museum-thelma-gol…
- Rosen, Miss, “Artist Barkley L. Hendricks captured the height of American cool on canvas,” Dazed Digital, February 15, 2018. Date accessed July 17, 2020. https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39028/1/artist-bar…
- Schonfeld, Roger C., Sweeney, Liam, “An Engine for Diversity: Studio Museum in Harlem,” Ithaka SR, January 23, 2018. Date accessed July 16, 2020. https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/an-engine-for-diversity-studio-museu…
- Sheehan, Tanya, Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor. University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2018.
- Sotheby’s, “Creating space: artists for the Studio Museum in Harlem: an auction to benefit the Museum’s building,” Sothebys, date accessed July 20, 2020. https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/creating-space-artists-for-the-stu…
- Wallace, Caroline, “Three lessons from artists’ protests of the Whitney Museum in the 1960s-70s,” Hyperallergic, April 27, 2017. Date accessed July 20, 2020. https://hyperallergic.com/374428/three-lessons-from-artists-protests-of…
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem is an art museum that celebrates artists of African descent. The museum is located at 144 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African Americans, members of the African diaspora, and artists from the African continent. Its scope includes exhibitions, artists-in-residence programs, educational and public programming, and a permanent collection. The museum building was demolished and replaced in the 2020s; a new building on the site is to open in 2025.
Since opening in a rented loft at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street, the Studio Museum has earned recognition for its role in promoting the works of artists of African descent. The museum's Artist-in-Residence program has supported over one hundred graduates who have gone on to highly regarded careers. A wide variety of educational and public programs include lectures, dialogues, panel discussions and performances, as well as interpretive programs, both on- and off-site, for students and teachers. The exhibitions program has also expanded the scope of art historical literature through the production of scholarly catalogues, brochures, and pamphlets.
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