The Studio Museum in Harlem is coming back full force as the country’s leading institution devoted to artists of African descent. The museum opened in 1968 in a rented loft on 5th Avenue just north of 125th Street, when Jim Crow laws were still fresh wounds and Black culture was virtually unrepresented. “As our historic homecoming approaches,” says Thelma Golden, chief curator at the museum, “I am reflecting on the transformative vision of the artists, supporters, and community members who have helped us shape this pivotal moment in our legacy.”
After undergoing construction for seven years, the new 82,000-square-foot building, designed by Adjaye Associates, more than doubles the space for exhibitions and for the museum’s core artist-in-residence program, originally proposed by the artist William T. Williams, whose work also graces the reopening. That program lies at the heart of the Studio Museum’s mission to create an environment that supports working artists. Among the exhibitions that light up the new space is a grouping of works by artists who came through that residency program, including David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Kehinde Wiley, and Mickalene Thomas. One of the many iconic works in the museum’s permanent collection that will be reinstalled is Hammons’s powerful “Untitled” (2004), an American flag inspired by the pan-African red, black, and green standard designed by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s for the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.
The inaugural centerpiece is a career retrospective of Tom Lloyd (1929-1996), an artist and community activist who used technology to create electronically programmed works, utilizing light as a medium. Lloyd was the first artist shown when the original Studio Museum opened; that exhibit disturbed some viewers with its abstract aesthetic, a detour from the mostly figurative work associated with Black artists at the time. Lloyd was passionate about Black artists becoming involved with the politics of the day, participating in the 1968 roundtable “The Black Artist in America: A Symposium,” at the Metropolitan Museum, which was chaired by Romare Bearden, as well as editing and contributing to a collection of essays by African Americans, Black Art Notes, in which he encouraged a relationship between art and social justice.
The museum reopens to the public tomorrow with a free community celebration, as befits an institution that still encourages residents of every economic strata to experience art by keeping admission prices affordable (listed amounts are “suggested”). As described on the website, the Studio Museum’s new home “takes its inspiration from the brownstones, churches, and bustling sidewalks of Harlem.” Here’s a chance to soak in an inspiring but often brutal history through the art of the people who lived and are still living it. ❖
Studio Museum in Harlem
Reopening: Saturday, November 15
Free Community Day: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
144 West 125th Street