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23/1/2003

Challenge of the Modern

The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

African American Artists 1925-1945

The Studio Museum in Harlem proudly presents Challenge of the Modern: African-American Artists 1925-1945, an examination of the modernist concepts engaged by black artists in the United States and the Caribbean. Drawing on cultural references germane to their experiences as individuals of African decent, these artists confronted vantage tendencies in the larger art world and created a 'modernism' that is, in the words of art historian Helen Shannon, "not always congruent with canonical histories of European and American modernism." More than 100 works, including paintings, sculptures and photographs, will fill the museum's galleries.

According to Lowery Stokes Sims, SMH Executive Director and Challenge of the Modern curator:

"This exhibition will demonstrate how artists captured the changes that occurred as populations of African Americans moved from rural to urban areas in the United States and the Caribbean in the 1920s, 30s and 40s and embraced modern life. Focusing specifically on more vanguard tendencies during a period that has been well-trodden by exhibitions on the Harlem Renaissance, Challenge of the Modern will demonstrate how modernism in the visual arts allowed African Americans to embrace their ancestral cultures and transform how they positioned themselves in the American mainstream and on the world stage. It is no coincidence, therefore, that as black culture was lionized outside its original communities, the 'New Negro' identity emerged and was manifested in Pan-African alliances that sowed the seeds of independence movements in Africa, the Caribbean, and the civil rights movements in the United States in the 1950s and 60s."

In the context of more recent revisionist views of modernism, Challenge of the Modern will contribute to the presentation of modernism as a multifaceted process rather than as a singular stylistic phenomenon, revealing the diversity of aesthetic options available to all artists in the first half of the twentieth century. It also will distinguish conventional views of this period in African-American art history from those framed around the concept of the Harlem Renaissance.

Challenge of the Modern will focus on elements of modernity that produce more vanguard stylistic and conceptual themes: the engagement of African art, the production of the image of the "New Negro," performance, sexuality and the black body, migration/immigration and the urban experience, elements of design and decoration, as well as spirituality.

Modernism will be examined through the work of artists such as Aaron Douglas, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis and Bruce Nugent working in the United States; Teodoro Ramos Blanco and Wifredo Lam working in Cuba and Edna Manley in Jamaica. The exhibition will include photographic work from Robert McNeil, Morgan and Marvin Smith, and James VanDerZee. Also included will be works by Euro-Americans, such as Stuart Davis and Winold Weiss, to provide a contextual counterpoint to the elements addressed by the exhibition.

This project is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Major support is provided by Moody's Corporation.
Veni Vidi Video

Veni Vidi Video is the first in a series of contemporary exhibitions specific to video art. Installed on three separate monitors in the lobby and atrium galleries, the videos will run on a loop and will be visible in the interior and from the front of the museum 24-hours a day. As the title suggests, these videos are short, accessible works. Organized by Christine Y. Kim, this exhibition features several emerging African-American artists such as Derrick Adams, Iona Brown, Kevin Everson and Rodney McMillan. The videos address topics such as American cartoons, pop music and urban migration. Additionally, several artists incorporate digital effects and use editing software to elaborate on more traditional concerns in art, such as abstraction of the figure, movements in space, and landscape painting.
Harlem Postcards II
Work by Nikki S. Lee

Throughout the twentieth century, Harlem has been regarded as a beacon of African-American culture. Sites such as the Apollo Theater, the Abyssinian Baptist Church and Malcolm X Corner at 125th Street serve as popular postcard images that identify historic moments and places. Today, Harlem continues to expand as a center of cultural and historic activity, and in the fall of 2002 The Studio Museum in Harlem launched an ongoing series to invite contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds to reflect on Harlem as a site for artistic contemplation and production. Installed in the lobby and available in the bookstore, these postcards will represent intimate views and perspectives on Harlem. Artists in this series include Christian Marclay and Eduardo Sarabia.

Image: WILLIAM ARTIS, Head of a Negro Boy, 1939 Terracotta, 9 x 6 x 7 inches Collection of John Axelrod

This project is supported by Art for Art's Sake.


The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
New York, New York 10027
tel: 212.864.4500
fax: 212.864.4800

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