In the words of the Los Angeles Times, the artist Mickalene Thomas “is to contemporary painting what Daft Punk is to music: acclaimed as one of the more original remix artists working today.” Her genre-busting work takes many forms, and grapples with bodies and their desires, with power, equity and identity. In today’s episode, she talks about community and collaboration—both essential to her practice—in a conversation with her partner and muse, the art consultant Racquel Chevremont, the cultural critic Antwaun Sargent and Charlotte Burns, the host of In Other Words.
Thomas and Chevremont recently launched “Deux Femme Noires”, an organization focused on mentoring emerging artists of color. “The more of us that come up, the better," Chevremont says "We want the room to be filled with us.”
Thomas was studying to be a lawyer when a chance encounter with the photographs of Carrie Mae Weems inspired her to change direction and become an artist herself. “Whatever that power is, or mystery one may feel when they’re excited by or inspired by particular art—I knew that’s what I wanted to do with images," Thomas says. "And I knew I wanted to create that space for others.”
Tune in for more from the artist, the muse and the writer in today's episode.
“In Other Words” is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby’s, produced by Audiation.fm.
Produced in partnership with Frieze Los Angeles, this live recording is a conversation with major Californian institutional leaders Naima J. Keith (Deputy Director, California African American Museum), Michael Govan (CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Andrew Perchuk, (Deputy Director, Getty Research Institute), Megan Steinman (Director, The Underground Museum), moderated by our host Charlotte Burns.
Taking as a starting point the research published by In Other Words and artnet News, which examined the representation of African American artists in US museums and the international market, our panelists talk about the ways in which they are working to broaden the canon, and think specifically about local communities.
Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-frieze-la/
“In Other Words” is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby’s, produced by Audiation.fm.
The man credited with reinventing the museum and changing British culture, Sir Nicholas Serota joins us for a special extended episode of In Other Words.
Now Chair of Arts Council England, Serota was the director of Tate for 28 years. More than anybody else, he helped shift attitudes in Britain, making the country more comfortable with contemporary art while he oversaw the growth of Tate both physically and in terms of reputation and ambition. Once a small institution, Tate became a phenomenon and the best attended museum of Modern art in the world.
Serota began his career in the 1980s during a period in which the country’s politics were isolationist and there was a “certain paranoia about continental Europe and artists from Europe”. By the early 2000s, the country had become more international and open, and the arts were flourishing as London established itself as a creative and economic hub.
Recorded on the day of a historic defeat in the government’s “meaningful vote” on Brexit, Serota discusses the current climate with our host Charlotte Burns: “Some things don’t change. And human nature is one of those. People feel challenged by difference.”
While he himself is “always regarded as being right in the center of the establishment… I still have a sense of what it means to be an outsider,” Serota says. “I will continue to believe that international exchange of all kinds is valuable.”
He discusses running one of the world’s largest museums—including why he never left for an American museum—and talks about the challenges facing institutional leaders today: “Whatever the difficulties were in the late ‘80s, it’s become even more difficult to run these big institutions now than it was then.”
For this, and much more, tune in now.
Transcript: http://www.artagencypartners.com/transcript-nicholas-serota/
“In Other Words” is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby’s, produced by Audiation.fm.