According to scientific investigation, all genetic ancestry of people living outside Africa can be traced almost completely to a single exodus of humans from that continent long ago. It’s so deep that the overwhelming and overall evidence shows that the vast majority of modern human ancestry outside of Africa comes from a single exit from Africa, said David Reich of Harvard Medical School, an author of the 142-population paper.
So it’s no surprise that some of the best artists—in the world—come from Africa and their descendants. It’s also no surprise that in this racist world—our art is not given the same attention as white artists. That’s why The Studio Museum in Harlem is so important and providing a space for artists to grow, even more essential.
Cameron Granger, Jacob Mason-Macklin, and Qualeasha Wood have been included in the renowned multigenerational artist-in-residence community.
They will receive institutional and material support from the Studio Museum from October 2021 through September 2022.
Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum, says, “We’re excited to welcome Cameron Granger, Jacob Mason-Macklin, and Qualeasha Wood to the distinguished roster of the Studio Museum’s artists in residence. The Artist-in-Residence program is foundational to the institution and has a deep impact on the careers of emerging artists. After five decades of providing institutional support for working artists, developing leading scholarship around their practices, and presenting their work to new audiences, we are able to reflect on and take great pride in how the program has consistently upheld the careers of so many artists of African descent.”
“(Never) As I Was: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2020–21” at MoMA PS1 features new work by the Museum’s 2020–21 cohort of artists, Widline Cadet, Texas Isaiah, Genesis Jerez, and Jacolby Satterwhite.
With practices spanning new media, painting, sculpture, and photography, Cadet, Texas Isaiah, Jerez, and Satterwhite propose dynamic ways of experiencing time, space, and locality set into this current moment of complex transformation. Each artist took on the challenge of thinking critically about the tensions, possibilities, and opportunities between private vs. public and interior vs. exterior, questioning how these binaries might be expanded, reimagined, and renegotiated through and beyond their work.
“(Never) As I Was” is a tender and lyrical exploration of family histories, memoir, and diasporic approaches to both time and space. In reflecting on their private pasts, these artists have subsequently created works that look to a world that is at once achingly the same and never as it was.
To learn more, visit www.studiomuseum.org/calendar