Description
Since 1968, The Studio Museum in Harlem (TSMH) has acted as a vital center for black art, artists, and scholarship, shaping and challenging the American cultural landscape. In 2023, TSMH will reopen in the 80,000 square-foot building now under construction in Harlem as its first expressly-built home. TMSH is planning an inaugural program that will communicate its historical narrative, fortify its role as an authority on black art and artists, and spark cultural discourse. TSMH seeks Luce Foundation funding for the first phase of preparatory work toward its two inaugural exhibitions and three publications. The first exhibition will be the most expansive to-date of works from TSMH’s permanent collection, to be presented in the new second and fourth-floor galleries. A second exhibition will honor the life and works of Tom Lloyd, the first artist to have had a solo exhibition at the museum.
The inaugural collection exhibition will include more than 200 works representing two centuries of black artistic production from the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. It will showcase the collection’s acknowledged masterpieces, such as Barkley Hendricks’s “Lawdy Mama,” as well as works that have rarely been seen. It will additionally feature a significant selection from the over 400 works recently acquired through a landmark bequest from the estate of Peggy Cooper Cafritz. TSMH is anticipating high interest in the exhibition, based on the enthusiastic reception being given to “Black Refractions,” the major collection-based exhibition now on a six-venue national tour.
The accompanying Tom Lloyd installation will feature the artist’s signature electronically-programmed light works, inspired by city lights and fabricated with materials including holiday bulbs and plastic headlight covers. The exhibition will explore the radicalism of the 1969 installation of Lloyd’s work, which provoked objections from many who believed that African-American artists should engage exclusively in socially relevant art. It will pay tribute to Lloyd’s role as a founding member of the Art Workers’ Coalition, formed in 1969 to champion rights for creatives and challenge the museum industry’s discriminatory practices.
TSMH plans three publications for the reopening program. An ambitious 300-page book will draw deeply from the newly accessible museum archive to narrate the museum’s powerful institutional history and legacy, and will additionally feature highlights of the permanent collection. The second publication will be a highly affordable collection handbook, and the third will be a free guide to the Tom Lloyd exhibition.
In this critical period leading up to the opening, TSMH will prepare for the inaugural exhibitions and publications by undertaking the following project work: a full collection survey, and research and documentation of its more than 2500 works; major conservation treatments of 25 to 50 works; additional rehousing or reframing; checklist planning; and publication research. The new TSMH archive, made accessible through a 2017 Luce
Foundation grant, will be an indispensable resource. Connie Choi, Associate Curator of the Permanent Collection, will lead the Inaugural Exhibitions Project, overseeing and coordinating staff assigned to the collection survey and research, conservation efforts, and preparation of exhibitions and publications. Grant funds would support permanent and contract project staff, and expenses associated with conservation, research, photography, and digitization.
The American Art Program is eager to provide lead support to TSMH as it prepares to reopen with ambitious collection-based programming in its new home. When originally conceived, this grant was to be proposed as a four-year grant of $1 million, to carry all of the exhibition and publication work through to completion. As the American Art Program began to strategize its response to the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the museum sector, we sought to capture funds for emergency grant-making by reconsidering some of the planned June grants. This led to the decision to approach support for TSMH in two phases, with the first phase proposed here. The AAP plans to bring a second grant, for $500,000, before the board in 2021, in order to offer the Foundation’s fullest-possible assistance to TSMH at this momentous turning point in its history.
