ART/GralInt-TED Talks-Thelma Golden: How art gives shape to cultural change

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Transcript:

The brilliant playwright, Adrienne Kennedy,wrote a volume called"People Who Led to My Plays."And if I were to write a volume,it would be called,"Artists Who Have Led My Exhibitions"because my work,in understanding art and in understanding culture,has come by following artists,by looking at what artists meanand what they do and who they are.J.J. from "Good Times,"(Applause)significant to many people of coursebecause of "Dy-no-mite,"but perhaps more significantas the first, really, black artiston primetime TV.Jean-Michel Basquiat,important to me because [he was]the first black artist in real timethat showed me the possibility ofwho and what I was about to enter into.

My overall project is about art --specifically, about black artists --very generallyabout the way in which artcan change the way we thinkabout culture and ourselves.My interest is in artistswho understand and rewrite history,who think about themselveswithin the narrativeof the larger world of art,but who have created new placesfor us to see and understand.I'm showing two artists here, Glenn Ligon and Carol Walker,two of many who really form for methe essential questions that I wanted to bringas a curator to the world.I was interested in the ideaof why and howI could create a new story,a new narrative in art historyand a new narrative in the world.And to do this, I knewthat I had to see the way in which artists work,understand the artist's studioas a laboratory,imagine, then,reinventing the museum as a think tankand looking at the exhibitionas the ultimate white paper -- asking questions,providing the spaceto look and to think about answers.

In 1994,when I was a curator at the Whitney Museum,I made an exhibition called Black Male.It looked at the intersectionof race and genderin contemporary American art.It sought to expressthe ways in which artcould provide a space for dialogue --complicated dialogue,dialogue with many, many points of entry --and how the museum could be the spacefor this contest of ideas.This exhibition includedover 20 artistsof various ages and races,but all looking at black masculinityfrom a very particular point of view.What was significant about this exhibitionis the way in whichit engaged me in my roleas a curator, as a catalyst,for this dialogue.One of the things that happenedvery distinctly in the course of this exhibitionis I was confronted with ideaof how powerful images can beand people's understanding of themselves and each other.

I'm showing you two works, one on the right by Leon Golub,one on the left by Robert Colescott.And in the course of the exhibition --which was contentious, controversialand ultimately, for me,life-changingin my sense of what art could be --a woman came up to me on the gallery floorto express her concern about the natureof how powerful images could beand how we understood each other.And she pointed to the work on the leftto tell me how problematic this image was,as it related, for her, to the idea ofhow black people had been represented.And she pointed to the image on the rightas an example, to me, of the kind of dignitythat needed to be portrayedto work against those images in the media.She then assigned these works racial identities,basically saying to me that the work on the right,clearly, was made by a black artist,the work on the left, clearly, by a white artist,when, in effect,that was the opposite case:Bob Colescott, African-American artist;Leon Golub, a white artist.The point of that for me wasto say -- in that space, in that moment --that I really, more than anything,wanted to understandhow images could work, how images did work,and how artists provideda space bigger than onethat we could imagine in our day-to-day livesto work through these images.

Fast-forward and I end up in Harlem;home for many of black America,very much the psychic heartof the black experience,really the place where the Harlem Renaissance existed.Harlem now, sort of explainingand thinking of itself in this part of the century,looking both backwards and forwards ...I always say Harlem is an interesting communitybecause, unlike many other places,it thinks of itself in the past, presentand the future simultaneously;no one speaks of it just in the now.It's always what it was and what it can be.And, in thinking about that,then my second project, the second question I ask is:Can a museumbe a catalyst in a community?Can a museum house artistsand allow them to be change agentsas communities rethink themselves?This is Harlem, actually, on January 20th,thinking about itself in a very wonderful way.

So I work now at The Studio Museum in Harlem,thinking about exhibitions there,thinking about what it means todiscover art's possibility.Now, what does this mean to some of you?In some cases, I know that many of youare involved in cross-cultural dialogues,you're involved in ideas of creativity and innovation.Think about the place that artists can play in that --that is the kind of incubation and advocacythat I work towards, in working with young, black artists.Think about artists, not as content providers,though they can be brilliant at that,but, again, as real catalysts.

The Studio Museum was founded in the late 60s.And I bring this up because it's important to locatethis practice in history.To look at 1968,in the incredible historic moment that it is,and think of the arc that has happened since then,to think of the possibilities that we are allprivileged to stand in todayand imagine that this museumthat came out of a moment of great protestand one that was so much aboutexamining the history and the legacyof important African-American artiststo the history of art in this countrylike Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis,Romare Bearden.

And then, of course,to bring us to today.In 1975, Muhammad Aligave a lecture at Harvard University.After his lecture, a student got up and said to him,"Give us a poem."And Mohammed Ali said, "Me, we."A profound statement about the individual and the community.The space in which now,in my project of discovery, of thinking about artists,of trying to definewhat might beblack art cultural movement of the 21st century.What that might meanfor cultural movements all over this moment,the "me, we" seemsincredibly prescienttotally important.

To this end,the specific project that has made this possible for meis a series of exhibitions,all titled with an F --Freestyle, Frequency and Flow --which have set out to discoverand definethe young, black artists working in this momentwho I feel stronglywill continue to work over the next many years.This series of exhibitionswas made specificallyto try and questionthe idea of what it would meannow, at this point in history,to see art as a catalyst;what it means now, at this point in history,as we define and redefine culture,black culture specifically in my case,but culture generally.I named this group of artistsaround an idea, which I put out therecalled post-black,really meant to define themas artists who came and start their work now,looking back at history but start in this moment, historically.

It is really in this sense of discoverythat I have a new set of questions that I'm asking.This new set of questions is:What does it mean, right now,to be African-American in America?What can artwork say about this?Where can a museum existas the place for us allto have this conversation?Really, most exciting about thisis thinking about the energy and the excitementthat young artists can bring.Their works for me are about,not always just simplyabout the aesthetic innovationthat their minds imagine, that their visions createand put out there in the world,but more, perhaps, importantly,through the excitement of the communitythat they create as important voicesthat would allow us right now to understand our situation,as well as in the future.I am continually amazedby the way in whichthe subject of racecan take itself in many placesthat we don't imagine it should be.I am always amazedby the way in which artists are willingto do that in their work.It is why I look to art.It's why I ask questions of art.It is why I make exhibitions.

Now, this exhibition, as I said,40 young artists done over the course of eight years,and for me it's about considering the implications.It's considering the implications ofwhat this generation has to say to the rest of us.It's considering what it means for these artiststo be both out in the world as their work travels,but in their communitiesas people who are seeing and thinkingabout the issues that face us.It's also about thinking aboutthe creative spirit and nurturing it,and imagining, particularly in urban America,about the nurturing of the spirit.

Now, where, perhaps, does this end up right now?For me, it is about re-imaginingthis cultural discourse in an international context.So the last iteration of this projecthas been called Flow,with the idea now of creatinga real networkof artists around the world;really looking, not so muchfrom Harlem and out, but looking across,and Flow looked at artists all born on the continent of Africa.And as many of us think about that continentand think about what if meansto us all in the 21st century,I have begun that lookingthrough artists, through artworks,and imagining what they can tell us about the future,what they tell us about our future,and what they create in their sense ofoffering us this great possibility of watchingthat continent emerge as partof our bigger dialogue.So, what do I discover

when I look at artworks?What do I think aboutwhen I think about art?I feel like the privilege I've had as a curatoris not just the discovery of new works,the discovery of exciting works.But, really, it has beenwhat I've discovered about myselfand what I can offerin the space of an exhibition,to talk about beauty, to talk about power,to talk about ourselves,and to talk and speak to each other.That's what makes me get up every dayand want to think aboutthis generation of black artists and artists around the world.

Thank you. (Applause)