Pindell's Legacy: Curators/Critics

How to Watch

This free online conversation took place on February 4, 2021, via Zoom. Watch a recording of the event below.

Download an audio transcript (PDF, opens in new window)

About this conversation

In addition to her remarkable achievements as an artist, Howardena Pindell has also enjoyed a trailblazing curatorial career as one of the first Black curators of the Museum of Modern Art and a founding member of the feminist gallery A.I.R. In this conversation, Pindell will join curators and critics from around the country, including Naima J. Keith, Courtney J. Martin, and Legacy Russell, to discuss their practices and the ever-changing, ever-adaptive process of art-making and curating.

As a groundbreaking artist, curator, critic, educator, and activist, Howardena Pindell has influenced generations of people working in those fields. In conjunction with the exhibition Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water, the Pindell’s Legacy series of online conversations celebrates the ways colleagues from different fields have felt the artist’s impact both personally and professionally.

The Shed has invited a broad roster of artists, thinkers, activists, and representatives of other cultural organizations to celebrate the artist’s pioneering, multifaceted work via public programs that accompany the exhibition. Together, these participants will contextualize Pindell’s work in this critical moment in US history, reflecting on the past and thinking critically about the present, with the goal of reimagining and building new, collective paths to a radically equitable future.

Accessibility

This event will include CART services and ASL interpretation.

Participants

Howardena Pindell

Naima J. Keith

Courtney J. Martin

Legacy Russell

Adeze Wilford

Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Howardena Pindell studied painting at Boston University and Yale University. She then worked for 12 years at the Museum of Modern Art (1967 – 79) as an exhibition assistant, an assistant curator in the Department of National and International Traveling Exhibitions, and finally as an associate curator and acting director in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books. In 1979, she began teaching at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where she is now a distinguished professor. In her work, Pindell often employs lengthy, metaphorical processes of destruction / reconstruction, addressing social issues of homelessness, AIDS, war, genocide, sexism, xenophobia, and apartheid. Pindell’s work has been featured in many landmark museum exhibitions and is in the permanent collections of major international museums. Most recently, Pindell’s work was the subject of the retrospective Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen (2018, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago).

Naima J. Keith is the vice president of education and public programs at LACMA. Within her role, she oversees all aspects of and sets the vision for LACMA’s innovative and exhibition-driven educational programming that serves more than 650,000 community members annually. Under her purview, LACMA has constructed strategic goals and launched initiatives to successfully pivot to virtual programming throughout the 2020 pandemic. Keith leads 20 staff members, 60 freelance educators and interns, and 200 volunteer docents. Prior to her position at LACMA, Keith was the deputy director and chief curator at the California African American Museum where she guided the curatorial and education departments as well as marketing and communications. Previously, she was an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2011 – 16) and held a curatorial position at the Hammer Museum. Keith holds degrees from Spelman College and UCLA and is a proud native of Los Angeles.

Courtney J. Martin became director of the Yale Center for British Art in 2019, a decade after earning a PhD in art history from Yale University. A curator, art historian, and professor, Martin began working with the New York-based Dia Art Foundation in 2015 and was appointed deputy director and chief curator in 2017. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Brown University and Vanderbilt University; a chancellor’s postdoctoral fellow in the history of art at the University of California, Berkeley; a fellow at the Getty Research Institute; and a Henry Moore Institute research fellow. She also worked in the media, arts, and culture unit of the Ford Foundation in New York. In 2015, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell holds an MRes with distinction in art history from Goldsmiths, University of London with a focus in Visual Culture. Her academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Russell’s written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a 2021 Creative Capital Award grantee. Her first book Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020) is published by Verso Books.

Adeze Wilford is an assistant curator at The Shed. She was an inaugural joint curatorial fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She organized Vernacular Interior at Hales Gallery in 2019 and Excerpt (2017) at the Studio Museum, along with the film series “Black Intimacy” (2017) at MoMA. Other curatorial projects include Harlem Postcards (2016/2017) and Color in Shadow, the 2016 “Expanding the Walls” exhibition at the Studio Museum. She has contributed research and essays to catalogues and magazines, including Black Refractions, Fictions, and Young, Gifted and Black. Prior to this, Wilford was the public programs and community engagement assistant at the Studio Museum. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in art history and African American studies.

Thank you to our partners

Major Support for The Shed’s Public Programs and Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water is provided by

Additional support is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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