Fireside Chat, Conference Presentation
Thelma Golden on Preserving Black Culture and the New Era of the Studio Museum in Harlem
- The Studio Museum aims to transform the contemporary art world through a new, purpose-built facility replacing the old building, a project enabled by the Urban Investment Group at Goldman Sachs and intended to serve Harlem, New York City, artists, and the broader community.
- The project fulfills an audacious vision established in 1968, with the original intent of creating a much larger facility that resources did not permit at the time, resulting in a current building where original ideals remain manifest.
- New works created in the present are expected to serve as a historical record for future reckoning regarding the current era, allowing the arts to process reality, voice concerns, and envision a new future beyond the present moment of uncertainty.
- Artists are currently engaging in deep reflection on living in the world, though their output may not be instant or reactive and often requires time to reconcile current realities, which some find crippling to their ability to make work.
- African-American art is identified as following a trend of reconciling realities, a process deemed necessary to imagine futures and possibilities when the current reality offers no hope.