Latest News in Black Art: Gaëlle Choisne Won Top Art Prize in France, Deborah Willis is Board Chair at Andy Warhol Foundation, Investing in Young Memphis Artists & More

Latest News in Black Art features updates and developments in the world of art and related culture

Gaëlle Choisne. | Photo by Hugues Lawson-Body

AWARDS & HONORS

Gaëlle Choisne Won France’s Top Art Prize
The Prix Marcel Duchamp 2024 went to French Haitian artist Gaëlle Choisne (b. 1985). A Paris-based sculptor and video artist, her work “tackles the contemporary issues of catastrophe, exploitation of resources and the vestiges of colonialism in opulent installations that combine esoteric Creole traditions with myths and popular culture.” Musée National d’Art Moderne Director Xavier Rey, one of nine jury members, said in a statement: “Gaëlle Choisne embraces the fragility and experimental nature of her work, blending gravity and lightness through a host of multidisciplinary experiments that invite the viewer to engage with her installation. Both erudite and vernacular, her work resonates with the tension it creates between the everyday and the extraordinary, between awareness of history and projection into the future.” The prize includes €35,000 (about $38,100) and other benefits. An exhibition featuring works by Choisne and the other four finalists—Abdelkader Benchamma; Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain; and Noémie Goudal—is on view at the Centre Pompidou through Jan. 6, 2025. (10/15) | More

Jane’a Johnson. | Photo by Mandy Draper and Lindsay Calmettes

APPOINTMENTS

Jane’a Johnson Appointed Editor at Aperture
Curator, writer, and lecturer Jane’a Johnson (above) is joining Aperture in the role of editor, effective Nov. 14. Based in New York, Aperture is a nonprofit publisher focused on photography worldwide.
Johnson will be an editor in Aperture’s book publishing program and contribute to the quarterly magazine, and website, as well as education offerings and public programming. Previously, Johnson served as artistic director of Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam (the photography museum in Amsterdam). In a prior role, she was an assistant professor of Theory of Art and Design and History, Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design. Johnson holds a Ph.D., in modern culture and media from Brown University. In the announcement, Aperture Editor in Chief Michael Famighetti said: “Jane’a Johnson is a rigorous thinker on photography and image culture. We are excited for all that she will contribute to our program and its continued impact on the field.” (10/31) | More

Deborah Willis is Board Chair of Andy Warhol Foundation
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts appointed Deborah Willis (left) as board chair. Willis is an artist, curator, historian, author, and University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. The Andy Warhol Foundation is a major supporter of artists and arts organizations, providing funding and training. Its programs also include grants for arts writers. Willis joined the board in 2018. As chair, she succeeds Paul C. Ha, director at MIT List Visual Arts Center. The foundation also elected three new board members—Johanna Burton, Paul Chan, and Kemi Ilesanmi. The founding executive director of The Laundromat Project (2012-22), Ilesanmi is currently founder and principal of KGI Projects. (10/31) | More

IMAGE: Above left, Deborah Willis. | Courtesy Andy Warhol Foundation

CHEMU NG’OK, “Vortex,” 2024 (acrylic and oil on canvas, diptych, each: 180 x 160 cm / 70 7/8 x 63 inches). | © Chemu Ng’ok

REPRESENTATION

Chemu Ng’ok Joined Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Galerie Eva Presenhuber now represents Chemu Ng’ok (b. 1989). The gallery has locations in Zurich, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria. Ng’ok makes “spontaneous ink drawings and abstract figurative paintings imbued with psychological and emotional depth.” Her inaugural solo exhibition with Galerie Eva Presenhuber (“Chemu Ng’ok: Echoes”) opens at Waldmannstrasse, Zurich on Nov. 15. The new representation is in collaboration with Central Fine Art in Miami, Fla., and Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ng’ok was born in Nairobi, Kenya, where she lives and works. (10/4) | More

BOOKS

AIGA: Best Book and Cover Designs
AIGA, the professional association for design announced the winners of its annual 50 Books | 50 Covers design competition. The books were published in 2023 and the judging was based on submitted entries. Several of the books recognized were by or about Black artists or explored Black themes. In the category for book design, the winning selections included “A Long Arc: Photography and the American South”; “Betye Saar: Heart of a Wanderer”; “Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility”; “Past Is Present: Black Artists Respond to the Complicated Histories of Slavery”; and “Torkwase Dyson: A Liquid Belonging.” The best cover designs included “KAOS Theory: The Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell” (which documents an exhibition currently on view at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, through March 8, 2025); “Citing Black Geographies”; “Mickalene Thomas / Portrait of an Unlikely Space”; “Ernest Cole: The True America”; “Singing America: A Celebration of Black Literature,” which was published on the occasion of the 40th Annual Key West Literary Seminar; “Sue Williamson and Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember”; and “Redaction,” the exhibition catalog authored by Reginald Dwayne Betts and Titus Kaphar. (10/2) | More

ARCHIVES

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Archives Now Digitized
For the first time, the records of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund are available online at the Library of Congress. The collection sheds light on the organization’s transformational work, which brought about seminal legal wins during the Civil Rights Movement. Approximately 80 percent of the archive of 80,000 items has been digitized. Dating from 1915 to 1968, with a concentration on the years between 1940 and 1960, the records reflect “the organization’s work as it combated racial discrimination in the nation’s courts, establishing in the process a public interest legal practice that was unprecedented in American jurisprudence.” Subjects covered by the collection include voting rights; segregation in schools, buses, and other public facilities; housing discrimination; racial violence and police brutality. The digitization was made possible by the Ford Foundation. (9/25) | More

MAGAZINES

Nick Cave Graces Cover of American Craft
Chicago artist Nick Cave (left) graces the cover of the fall issue of American Craft, the magazine of the American Craft Council (ACC). Cave’s dynamic, meticulously crafted and densely layered works explore a variety of societal issues from race and gender expectations to global warming. Known for his Sound Suits, Cave works across sculpture, performance, and installations, engaging with a variety of materials and found objects. He is among the winners of the 2024 American Craft Council Awards, receiving the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship. Several other artists were also recognized and named ACC Fellows, including Syd Carpenter, Michael A. Cummings, Michael Puryear, and Diana Baird N’Diaye, | American Craft

Connecticut Cover Star: Larry Ossei-Mensah
Curator Larry Ossei-Mensah is featured on the covers of two Connecticut lifestyle magazines: Greenwhich and Upper Westchester. The appearances coincide with an exhibition Ossei-Mensah organized at Heather Gaudio Fine Art in Greenwich. “The Space We Exist In” opens Nov. 16. Ossei-Mensah is the first guest curator to present an exhibition at the gallery. The group show features works by artists Patrick Alston, Kim Dacres, Deborah Dancy, Clara Nartey Shinique Smith, Patrick Quarm, and Austin Uzor. (10/27) | Greenwich and Upper Westchester

IMAGE: Above left, Nick Cave. | American Craft Magazine, Fall 2024

High school students from Memphis, share their eye-opening experiences participating in the 2023 CAM Fellows program, where they make art, find encouragement, and create community. Fellows learn printmaking, working with clay, live model sketching, and more. They also visit galleries and museums and meet with artists, and art world professionals in Memphis and New York City. One fellow said: I didn’t know that there was that much art here in Memphis and that there were artists in Memphis, either, and that really inspired me.” | Video by Contemporary Arts Memphis

OPPORTUNITIES

Derek Fordjour Investing in Young Memphis Artists
New York artist Derek Fordjour is investing in his hometown. After launching Contemporary Arts Memphis (CAM) in 2021, Fordjour has inaugurated a new home for the nonprofit whose mission is to nurture and help educate the next generation of visual artists. The headquarters includes art studios, exhibition space, a computer lab and more, across nearly 4,500-square feet. CAM began with a four-week summer fellowship in 2022, a no-cost opportunity for rising high school juniors and seniors. Memphis-area students receive college credit for the program at the University of Memphis Department of Art and Design, a CAM partner. Fellows visit local museums and galleries, and receive college-level art instruction. In the video above, one fellow said: “I definitely improved in technical skill, which I am happy about. I thought there was one set, fixed idea about what art should be and how an artist should be. But with CAM, my mindset changed completely about what art is. It doesn’t matter about your technical skills or how good you are… the idea behind art is what matters most and how it inspires people and how it creates conversation and how you can express your ideas the best.” The program concludes with a week in New York City, where fellows visit top art schools, major museums, prominent galleries, and leading artists. The new building provides a base for expanding the scope of CAM’s programming. “Because of the rising costs of education, the barriers of entry to study art are becoming more prohibitive. CAM seeks to level the uneven field of access to quality art education. Our new space radically expands our capacity to achieve that goal,” Fordjour said in a statement. (10/30) Applications for the 2025 Summer Fellowship close on Jan. 31, 2025 | Learn More
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