LECTURE: Lyle Ashton Harris / Atlanta, GA / January 15, 2015

Lyle Ashton Harris. Image via high.org.

Join the 2014 David C. Driskell Prize winner as he discusses his work and career

Thursday, January 15, 2015, 7:00 -8:00PM

Program is free, but seating is limited.

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART ATLANTA

Hill Auditorium

1280 Peachtree Street NE

Atlanta, GA

From high.org:

Known for his self-portraits and use of pop culture icons (such as Billie Holiday, Michael Jackson, and Zinedine Zidane), Lyle Ashton Harris creates work in photographic media, collage, installation, and performance to explore intersections between the personal and the political and the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on the contemporary social, global, and cultural dynamic. He will talk about his recent work and how he challenges viewers' perceptions and expectations by adjusting the familiar with the extraordinary.

Tickets are also available through the Woodruff Arts Center box office at 404-733-5000.

Tickets are limited to two per person.

Event Link

EVENT: Conversations Among Friends / New York / April 4, 2014

Featuring Lyle Ashton Harris, Deana Lawson, and Salamishah Tillet

Moderated by Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA

Friday, April 4, 2014

7:00 pm program | 8:15 pm reception

Doors open at 6:45 pm

The Museum of modern art

The Celeste Bartos Theater (Theater 3)

The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building

4 West 54^th Street

New York, NY

General Admission tickets ($35), Member Tickets ($20) may be purchased at The Museum information and film desks, online at MoMA.org, or through the Friends of Education Office.

All tickets will be held at the door.

Presented by The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art as part of the series Conversations: Among Friends, this evening's program features a conversation between artists Deana Lawson and Lyle Ashton Harris, and scholar and author Salamishah Tillet, moderated by Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography, MoMA. Following the program, guests are invited to continue the conversation and meet the participants at an intimate reception catered by Fantasy Fare in The Cullman Mezzanine.

For more than two decades Lyle Ashton Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice including photographic media, collage, installation, and performance. His work explores intersections between the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on contemporary social and cultural dynamics. Known for his self-portraits and use of pop culture icons (such as Billie Holiday and Michael Jackson), Harris teases the viewers’ perceptions and expectations, signifying cultural cursors, and recalibrating the familiar with the extraordinary. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the 52nd Venice Biennale. His work has been acquired by major international museums, most recently by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. His commissioned work has been featured in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker. In 2014 Harris joined the board of trustees of the American Academy in Rome. Born in New York City, Harris spent his formative years in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He received his bachelor of arts with honors from Wesleyan University in 1988, and his masters in fine arts from the California Institute of the Arts in 1990. He currently lives and works in New York City and is an associate professor at New York University.

Deana Lawson is a photography-based artist born in Rochester, NY. She received her MFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 2004, and currently teaches photography at Princeton University. Her work examines the body’s ability to channel personal and social histories, addressing themes of familial legacy, community, romance, and religious/spiritual aesthetics. Her practice borrows from simultaneous visual traditions, including photographic and figurative portraiture, social documentary aesthetics, and vernacular family-album photographs. Lawson is visually inspired by the materiality of black culture and its expression as seen through the body and in domestic environments. Lace curtains, artificial nails, blemished skin, colored weave, and plastic couch covers are examples of visual material that Lawson identifies and heightens in her pictures. Careful attention is given to lighting and pose, both formal constructs used to transform, inform, and intensify representations of power and liberation through personal and intimate space. Lawson meets her subjects in everyday walks of life: grocery stores; subway trains; busy avenues in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn; road trips taken to the deep south; and travel abroad to the West Indies and beyond. Exhibitions include Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; MoMA, New York; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York; Helene Bailly Gallery, Paris; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Kunst im Tunnel in Düsseldorf, Germany; Light Work, Syracuse, New York; Cohan & Leslie, New York; Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York; Artists Space, New York; The Print Center, Philadelphia; and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta. Lawson is the recipient of the Art Matters Grant, John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant, Aaron Siskind Fellowship Grant, and a NYFA Grant. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, The Collector's Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 2, Time Out New York, Contact Sheet #154, and PQ Journal for Contemporary Photography Volume 24. Lawson has participated in residencies including Workspace Residency at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York; Light Work in Syracuse, New York; and Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY

As a rape survivor, scholar, and writer, Dr. Salamishah Tillet has spent her career championing the rights and voices of our most vulnerable citizens. Nominated by Glamour magazine as a “Women of the Year,” named as one of the “Top 50 Global Leaders Ending Violence Against Children” by the Together for Girls’ Safe magazine, and America’s “Top Leaders Under 30” by Ebony, she has appeared on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR, written for The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and The Root, and guest blogs for The Nation. Currently, she is an associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and has faculty appointments in the departments of Africana studies, and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. In 2003, Tillet and her sister, Scheherazade Tillet, co-founded A Long Walk Home, Inc., a non-profit that uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to end violence against all girls and women. Tillet was also an associate producer of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s groundbreaking NO! The Rape Documentary, and was featured in the award-winning Rape Is... by Cambridge Documentary Films. She is the author of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke University Press, 2012). In 2011, she wrote the liner notes for the three-time Grammy-award winning album Wake Up! by John Legend and The Roots. In 2013, she published Gloria Steinem: The Kindle Singles Interview with Amazon, and she is currently working on a book on the Civil Rights icon, Nina Simone. She earned her PhD in the history of American civilization and AM in English and American literature from Harvard University, and her MA in teaching from Brown University. She also holds a BA in English and African American studies from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, she was awarded the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010–11, she was the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow for Career Enhancement and served as a visiting fellow at the Center of African American Studies at Princeton University. In 2013–14, she was invited to be an inaugural member of the Project of the Advancement of Our Common Humanity, a think tank at New York University. She is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  

Lucy Gallun is assistant curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, where her upcoming projects include an exhibition of photographs from the Shunk-Kender Photography Collection, as well as the next iteration of MoMA’s New Photography exhibition series (both 2015). At MoMA, Gallun has worked on numerous exhibitions including Staging Action: Performance in Photography since 1960 (2011); Boris Mikhailov: Case History (2011); Cindy Sherman (2012); The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook (2012–13); A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio (2014); and Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness (upcoming 2014). Prior to coming to MoMA, she was the Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, where she curated the exhibitions Everyday Imaginary (2010) and Erin Shirreff: Still, Flat, and Far (2010); and she was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (ISP), where she co-curated the exhibition Time Out of Joint: Recall and Evocation in Recent Art, at The Kitchen, New York (2009). Gallun has also served as associate publisher at Gregory R. Miller & Co. She holds a BA in art history and urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.Phil in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

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MEDIA NEWS: High Museum of Art Names Lyle Ashton Harris 2014 Recipient of David C. Driskell Prize

Chuck Close, Lyle, 2006, Jacquard Tapestry, 103 x 79 in. (261.6 x 200.7 cm). Image via barbaradavisgallery.com.

Artist to be honored at the 10th anniversary Driskell Prize Dinner in Atlanta on May 2

From High Museum of Art press release:

The High Museum of Art has named artist Lyle Ashton Harris the 2014 recipient of the  David C. Driskell Prize. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the prize, which the High established in 2005 as the first national award to honor and celebrate contributions to the field of African American art and art history.

For more than two decades, Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photographic media and collage to installation and performance. His work explores intersections between the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic.

Known for his self-portraits and use of pop culture icons (such as Billie Holiday and Michael Jackson), Harris teases the viewers’ perceptions and expectations, recalibrating the familiar with the extraordinary. Harris’ works were previously on view in the Atlanta metro area in his spring 2013 exhibition “Accra My Love” at Kennesaw State University’s Zuckerman Museum of Art.

As the 10th Driskell Prize recipient, Harris will be honored at the Driskell Prize Dinner in Atlanta on May 2, 2014 at 6:30 p.m.

“Lyle Ashton Harris’ award-winning artwork has been widely celebrated with exhibitions, commissions and acquisitions,” said Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. director of the High. “His work tackles issues of global and personal relevance, and it is only fitting that we recognize his artistic excellence on the 10th anniversary of the David C. Driskell Prize.”

The Driskell Prize, named for the renowned African-American artist and art scholar, recognizes an early or mid-career scholar or artist whose work makes an original and important contribution to the field of African-American art or art history. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the award, the High is currently presenting the exhibition “A Decade of David C. Driskell,” which showcases works by Driskell as well as works by Driskell Prize honorees and others acquired by the Museum with the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisitions Fund and the David C. Driskell African American Art Endowment.

The selection process for the 2014 recipient of the Driskell Prize began with a call for nominations from a national pool of artists, curators, teachers, collectors and art historians. Harris was chosen from these nominations by review committee members assembled by the High Museum of Art, which this year included Michael Rooks, the High’s Wieland Family curator of modern and contemporary art; Naomi Beckwith, Marilyn and Larry Fields curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and  Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, 2013 Driskell Prize recipient and director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art.

The 2014 Driskell Prize Dinner is co-chaired by Lovette Russell and Jack Sawyer with Honorary Chair F. Terry Stent. Tickets for the black-tie event can be purchased by contacting Rhonda Matheison at rhonda.matheison@woodruffcenter.org or 404-733-4403.

About Lyle Ashton Harris

Based in New York City, Harris is an associate professor at New York University and has exhibited his work internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Harris’ work has been acquired by major international museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among many others. His commissioned work has been featured in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker.

Born in New York City, Harris spent his formative years in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He received his bachelor of arts with honors from Wesleyan University in 1988 and a masters in fine arts from the California Institute of the Arts in 1990. He recently joined the board of trustees of the American Academy in Rome.

Harris is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the 2009 Goddard Award, the 2009 American Photography Award, the 2001 Rome Prize Fellowship, and the 1991 National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship for the Visual Arts, among others.

About the David C. Driskell Prize

Established by the High in 2005, the David C. Driskell Prize is the first national award to honor and celebrate contributions to the field of African American art and art history. Past recipients include Andrea Barwell Brownlee (2013), Rashid Johnson (2012), Valerie Cassel Oliver (2011), Renee Stout (2010), Krista A. Thompson (2009),  Xaviera Simmons (2008), Franklin Sirmans (2007), Willie Cole (2006) and Dr. Kellie Jones (2005). A cash award of $25,000 accompanies the prize. Proceeds from the High’s annual Driskell Prize Dinner go toward both the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisitions Fund and the David C. Driskell African American Art Endowment. Through the David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisitions Fund, the High acquired works by artists including Rashid Johnson, Radcliffe Bailey, Nick Cave, Willie Cole, John T. Scott and Renee Stout.

About David C. Driskell

David Driskell is a practicing artist and scholar whose work on the African Diaspora spans more than four decades. The High’s relationship with Driskell began in 2000, when the Museum presented the concurrent exhibitions “To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities” and “Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection,” which examined African American art in the broad historical context of modern and contemporary art. Born in 1931 in Eatonton, Ga., Driskell is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Howard University in 1955 and his master of fine arts degree from Catholic University in 1962. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 1953 and studied art history in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 1964. More information about Driskell is available at www.driskellcenter.umd.edu.

About the High Museum of Art

Founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, the High Museum of Art is the leading art museum in the Southeastern U.S. With more than 14,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography, folk art and African art. For more information visit www.High.org.

About The Woodruff Arts Center

The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not- for-profit organization. Opened in 1968, the Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Young Audiences. To learn more visit www.WoodruffCenter.org.

NEW YORK: Bigger Than Shadows

Rico Gatson, Untitled (Nat Turner), 2011. Image via Dodge-Gallery.com.

Curated by Rich Blint and Ian Cofre

November 10 - December 22, 2012

Opening Reception: November 10, 2012, 6-8pm

DODGEgallery

15 Rivington Street

New York,  NY

Bigger Than Shadows is a group exhibition that explores recent work on the black male body that refashions, riffs on, or re-inflects dominant constructions about the figure known as the black male. Black maleness conjures a host of contradictory associations in the American imagination—from questions about historical morality, creative virtuosity, inherent pathology, to notions of outsized masculinity and, paradoxically, the very absence of masculine authority. Bigger Than Shadows aims to clear space for a timely exchange among emerging and established artists about contemporary and future-oriented visual re-presentations of racialized corporeality—of the black male body in the flesh. Participating artists include Derrick Adams, Noah Davis, Rico Gatson, Adler Guerrier, Lyle Ashton Harris, Duron Jackson, Jayson Keeling, Yashua Klos, Deana Lawson, Kambui Olujimi, Ebony G. Patterson, Robert Pruitt, Jacolby Satterwhite and Zachary Fabri.

Duron Jackson will present a new sculpture titled Bones Crusade, 2012, which expands on his previous work on incarceration, surveillance, and the influence and distortionary effects of these systems. Other sculptural works by Rico Gatson and Adler Guerrier draw from multiple references, engaging the urban landscape and its impression on the body through abstractions of language and perception.

The revelatory photographic contributions from Lyle Ashton Harris, Jayson Keeling, and Deana Lawson are documents of subjects that defy immediate categorization. Harris's and Lawson's examinations of Southern subcultures join Keeling, who is working with a bust of his own face cast by John Ahearn, rephotographing the sculpture to draw attention to subtleties of form through distance.

Yashua Klos's constructions are both fragile and monumental, negotiating aspects of identity through fragmentation, collage, and camouflage. Similarly reconstructed, an array of visual styles will be on display including a contribution from The Human Structure Series (2011) by Derrick Adams, an example of Ebony Patterson's Species Series (2011), a new, large-scale drawing by Houston-based artist Robert Pruitt, a quiet and ambiguous figurative painting by Los Angeles-based Noah Davis, new work by Kambui Olujimi, and a virtual, Hieronymus Bosch-esque video tableau titled Country Ball, 1989-2012, by Jacolby Satterwhite that is built from memory rather than morality.

Rich Blint earned his Ph.D. in the Program in American Studies at New York University. His areas of specialty include African-American literature and culture; the literature of the Anglophone Caribbean; as well as racial visuality, media studies, and U.S. popular culture. He is co-editor of a special issue of African American Review on James Baldwin (forthcoming Winter 2013); guest editor of the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of Black Renaissance Noir, a journal of pan-African culture and politics; and has written critically about the work of Wangechi Mutu and Deana Lawson. The recipient of fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the C.L.R. James Institute, Rich has taught courses and guest lectured at New York University, Columbia University School of Law, Vassar College, and the Brecht Forum. He serves on the Executive Board of Vanderbilt University’s Issues in Critical Investigation: The African Diaspora and is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies at Hunter College, The City University of New York.

Ian Cofre, a graduate of Columbia University, is an independent curator working primarily with emerging artists. Frequently collaborating with Omar Lopez-Chahoud, recent projects include co-writing "The Art Fair Effect," an essay for the Bronx Museum's Taking AIM!The Business of Being an Artist Today (2011) and co-curating the exhibitions Tracing the Unseen Border (2011) at La MaMa La Galleria and Southern Exposure (2009) at Dumbo Arts Center. Other shows include Behind Closed Doors (2011), a curated solo project by Manuela Viera-Gallo at Y Gallery and The Doubtful Guest (2010) at Kill Devil Hill in Greenpoint, NY. He most recently served as Director of the now-closed Sue Scott Gallery and Studio Manager for Mickalene Thomas before that.

Exhibit Link

COVER: DJ Spooky / Artvoices / October - November 2012

DJ Spooky: All of the Above

Text by Shane McAdams

Photograph by Lyle Ashton Harris

Excerpt:

Spooky is the rare artist that toggles between nerdy, technical indulgence, and sentient inventorying of the human condition. I’ve heard Spooky comment on several occasions, in regard to this eclecticism and reach, that it’s “all just one big record.” Which is funny, because it’s an omnivorous approach to art-making that sends me back to the Renaissance and Leonard’s flying machines, as much as it anticipates the next century, where the digital technology Spooky embraces will reign. So, one wonders: is Spooky a throwback, a contemporary, or an oracle?

Read the complete story and view more photos here

DJ Spooky online