Thelma Golden: How art gives shape to cultural change

33,731 views ・ 2010-04-16

TED


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The brilliant playwright, Adrienne Kennedy,
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wrote a volume called
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"People Who Led to My Plays."
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And if I were to write a volume,
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it would be called,
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"Artists Who Have Led My Exhibitions"
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because my work,
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in understanding art and in understanding culture,
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has come by following artists,
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by looking at what artists mean
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and what they do and who they are.
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J.J. from "Good Times,"
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(Applause)
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significant to many people of course
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because of "Dy-no-mite,"
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but perhaps more significant
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as the first, really, black artist
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on primetime TV.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat,
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important to me because [he was]
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the first black artist in real time
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that showed me the possibility of
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who and what I was about to enter into.
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My overall project is about art --
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specifically, about black artists --
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very generally
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about the way in which art
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can change the way we think
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about culture and ourselves.
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My interest is in artists
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who understand and rewrite history,
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who think about themselves
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within the narrative
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of the larger world of art,
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but who have created new places
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for us to see and understand.
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I'm showing two artists here, Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker,
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two of many who really form for me
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the essential questions that I wanted to bring
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as a curator to the world.
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I was interested in the idea
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of why and how
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I could create a new story,
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a new narrative in art history
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and a new narrative in the world.
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And to do this, I knew
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that I had to see the way in which artists work,
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understand the artist's studio
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as a laboratory,
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imagine, then,
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reinventing the museum as a think tank
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and looking at the exhibition
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as the ultimate white paper -- asking questions,
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providing the space
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to look and to think about answers.
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In 1994,
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when I was a curator at the Whitney Museum,
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I made an exhibition called Black Male.
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It looked at the intersection
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of race and gender
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in contemporary American art.
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It sought to express
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the ways in which art
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could provide a space for dialogue --
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complicated dialogue,
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dialogue with many, many points of entry --
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and how the museum could be the space
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for this contest of ideas.
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This exhibition included
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over 20 artists
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of various ages and races,
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but all looking at black masculinity
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from a very particular point of view.
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What was significant about this exhibition
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is the way in which
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it engaged me in my role
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as a curator, as a catalyst,
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for this dialogue.
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One of the things that happened
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very distinctly in the course of this exhibition
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is I was confronted with the idea
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of how powerful images can be
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in people's understanding of themselves and each other.
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I'm showing you two works, one on the right by Leon Golub,
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one on the left by Robert Colescott.
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And in the course of the exhibition --
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which was contentious, controversial
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and ultimately, for me,
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life-changing
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in my sense of what art could be --
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a woman came up to me on the gallery floor
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to express her concern about the nature
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of how powerful images could be
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and how we understood each other.
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And she pointed to the work on the left
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to tell me how problematic this image was,
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as it related, for her, to the idea of
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how black people had been represented.
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And she pointed to the image on the right
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as an example, to me, of the kind of dignity
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that needed to be portrayed
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to work against those images in the media.
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She then assigned these works racial identities,
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basically saying to me that the work on the right,
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clearly, was made by a black artist,
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the work on the left, clearly, by a white artist,
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when, in effect,
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that was the opposite case:
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Bob Colescott, African-American artist;
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Leon Golub, a white artist.
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The point of that for me was
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to say -- in that space, in that moment --
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that I really, more than anything,
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wanted to understand
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how images could work, how images did work,
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and how artists provided
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a space bigger than one
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that we could imagine in our day-to-day lives
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to work through these images.
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Fast-forward and I end up in Harlem;
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home for many of black America,
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very much the psychic heart
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of the black experience,
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really the place where the Harlem Renaissance existed.
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Harlem now, sort of explaining
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and thinking of itself in this part of the century,
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looking both backwards and forwards ...
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I always say Harlem is an interesting community
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because, unlike many other places,
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it thinks of itself in the past, present
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and the future simultaneously;
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no one speaks of it just in the now.
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It's always what it was and what it can be.
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And, in thinking about that,
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then my second project, the second question I ask is:
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Can a museum
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be a catalyst in a community?
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Can a museum house artists
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and allow them to be change agents
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as communities rethink themselves?
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This is Harlem, actually, on January 20th,
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thinking about itself in a very wonderful way.
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So I work now at The Studio Museum in Harlem,
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thinking about exhibitions there,
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thinking about what it means to
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discover art's possibility.
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Now, what does this mean to some of you?
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In some cases, I know that many of you
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are involved in cross-cultural dialogues,
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you're involved in ideas of creativity and innovation.
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Think about the place that artists can play in that --
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that is the kind of incubation and advocacy
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that I work towards, in working with young, black artists.
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Think about artists, not as content providers,
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though they can be brilliant at that,
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but, again, as real catalysts.
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The Studio Museum was founded in the late 60s.
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And I bring this up because it's important to locate
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this practice in history.
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To look at 1968,
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in the incredible historic moment that it is,
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and think of the arc that has happened since then,
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to think of the possibilities that we are all
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privileged to stand in today
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and imagine that this museum
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that came out of a moment of great protest
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and one that was so much about
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examining the history and the legacy
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of important African-American artists
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to the history of art in this country
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like Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis,
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Romare Bearden.
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And then, of course,
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to bring us to today.
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In 1975, Muhammad Ali
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gave a lecture at Harvard University.
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After his lecture, a student got up and said to him,
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"Give us a poem."
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And Mohammed Ali said, "Me, we."
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A profound statement about the individual and the community.
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The space in which now,
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in my project of discovery, of thinking about artists,
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of trying to define
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what might be
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black art cultural movement of the 21st century.
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What that might mean
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for cultural movements all over this moment,
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the "me, we" seems
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incredibly prescient
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totally important.
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To this end,
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the specific project that has made this possible for me
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is a series of exhibitions,
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all titled with an F --
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Freestyle, Frequency and Flow --
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which have set out to discover
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and define
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the young, black artists working in this moment
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who I feel strongly
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will continue to work over the next many years.
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This series of exhibitions
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was made specifically
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to try and question
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the idea of what it would mean
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now, at this point in history,
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to see art as a catalyst;
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what it means now, at this point in history,
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as we define and redefine culture,
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black culture specifically in my case,
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but culture generally.
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I named this group of artists
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around an idea, which I put out there
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called post-black,
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really meant to define them
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as artists who came and start their work now,
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looking back at history but start in this moment, historically.
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It is really in this sense of discovery
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that I have a new set of questions that I'm asking.
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This new set of questions is:
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What does it mean, right now,
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to be African-American in America?
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What can artwork say about this?
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Where can a museum exist
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as the place for us all
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to have this conversation?
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Really, most exciting about this
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is thinking about the energy and the excitement
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that young artists can bring.
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Their works for me are about,
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not always just simply
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about the aesthetic innovation
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that their minds imagine, that their visions create
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and put out there in the world,
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but more, perhaps, importantly,
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through the excitement of the community
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that they create as important voices
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that would allow us right now to understand our situation,
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as well as in the future.
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I am continually amazed
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by the way in which
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the subject of race
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can take itself in many places
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that we don't imagine it should be.
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I am always amazed
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by the way in which artists are willing
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to do that in their work.
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It is why I look to art.
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It's why I ask questions of art.
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It is why I make exhibitions.
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Now, this exhibition, as I said,
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40 young artists done over the course of eight years,
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and for me it's about considering the implications.
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It's considering the implications of
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what this generation has to say to the rest of us.
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It's considering what it means for these artists
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to be both out in the world as their work travels,
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but in their communities
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as people who are seeing and thinking
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about the issues that face us.
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It's also about thinking about
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the creative spirit and nurturing it,
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and imagining, particularly in urban America,
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about the nurturing of the spirit.
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Now, where, perhaps, does this end up right now?
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For me, it is about re-imagining
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this cultural discourse in an international context.
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So the last iteration of this project
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has been called Flow,
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with the idea now of creating
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a real network
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of artists around the world;
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really looking, not so much
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from Harlem and out, but looking across,
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and Flow looked at artists all born on the continent of Africa.
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And as many of us think about that continent
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and think about what if means
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to us all in the 21st century,
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I have begun that looking
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through artists, through artworks,
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and imagining what they can tell us about the future,
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what they tell us about our future,
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and what they create in their sense of
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offering us this great possibility of watching
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that continent emerge as part
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of our bigger dialogue.
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So, what do I discover
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when I look at artworks?
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What do I think about
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when I think about art?
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I feel like the privilege I've had as a curator
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is not just the discovery of new works,
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the discovery of exciting works.
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But, really, it has been
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what I've discovered about myself
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and what I can offer
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in the space of an exhibition,
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to talk about beauty, to talk about power,
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to talk about ourselves,
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and to talk and speak to each other.
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That's what makes me get up every day
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and want to think about
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this generation of black artists and artists around the world.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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