In a conversation with Brandon Yu, I discuss the current pre-election political climate. Thank you Brandon and KQED.
2020 San Francisco Artadia Award →
I am thrilled to announce that I am a 2020 San Francisco Artadia Awardee along with Marcela Pardo Ariza! Thank you, jurors, Allison Glenn, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Crystal Bridges; Anthony Huberman, Director & Chief Curator, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art; Lucy Mensah, Clinical Visiting Assistant Professor, MUSE Program, School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Xiaoyu Weng, Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Associate Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Thank you to Artadia, the Artadia Staff and everyone who made this happen.
The New York Times: San Francisco Apologizes to Artist Over maya Angelou Monument
This apology has been a long time coming, and it is a first step toward redress. It took a village to make this happen and I have so many people to thank; too numerous to list here. The SFAC staff, mentors and colleagues, folks who attended and spoke out during the 10/16/19, 7/15/20 and 8/3/20 meetings, folks who wrote letters, folks who advocated on my behalf, folks on various platforms who invited me to speak, folks who boycotted the 2020RFQ, journalists who kept the story alive, and my sisters at See Black Women who tirelessly organized and mobilized so that Black women can be heard and our labor respected and valued. Thank you Zachary Small and The New York Times for covering this story.
Read the Article Here.
7/9-7/21: Headlands Center for the Arts 2020 Benefit Auction
My new piece, Study for Pandemic Portrait (Mask, Negative Space), will be included in the Headlands Center for the Arts 2020 Benefit Auction. See details about the work below. The auction will be live from July 9 to July 21.
Learn more about the auction here.
Study for Pandemic Portrait (Mask, Negative Space), 2020.
Graphite, conté pencil, and watercolor on paper.
9 x 11 3/4 in.
Wednesday 7/8: "Creative Conversations: Personal to Political" - Virtual Conversation hosted by MMFA
Creative Conversations: Personal to Political, Part II
Wednesday, July 8 | 3:30 PT
Facebook Live via MMFA | Tune in Here
This Wednesday, join Radcliffe Bailey and yours truly on Facebook Live for a virtual conversation hosted by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art. The conversation is presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibition, "Personal to Political: Celebrating the African American Artists of Paulson Fontaine Press,” and will be moderated by Cassandra Cavness, Development Assistant at MMFA. Learn more about the event here.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Toppling of SF statues springs from city’s long history of inaction: ‘It fell on deaf ears'
“Toppling of SF statues springs from city’s long history of inaction: ‘It fell on deaf ears’” by Heather Knight
Read the Article Here
Great write up by Heather Knight of the San Francisco Chronicle on the city's contentious history with monuments and public art following the removal of the Christopher Columbus Statue at Coit Tower, the toppling of monuments at Golden Gate Park, and the selection and subsequent rejection of my monument to honor Dr. Maya Angelou. Read more about the Maya Angelou sculpture in the articles linked below.
Read More About SF’s Mishandling of the Maya Angelou Sculpture Commission:
• San Francisco Chronicle - “Maya Angelou wouldn’t approve of this statue fiasco,” By Caille Millner, January 10, 2020.
• Hyperallergic - “In San Francisco, a Design for Maya Angelou Monument Is Approved, Then Suddenly Scraped,” By Emily Wilson, October 23, 2019.
• San Francisco Chronicle - “Artist’s vision for Maya Angelou statue crushed by City Hall’s dysfunction,” by Heather Knight, October 19, 2019.
• KQED - “Plans for Maya Angelou Monument in San Francisco Face Long Delay,” by Chloe Veltman, October 17, 2019.
• The Art Newspaper - “San Francisco Selected an artist to create a monument to Maya Angelou—then rejected her,” by Zachary Small, October 17, 2019.
• San Francisco Examiner - “Proposals for sculpture to honor Maya Angelou meet with rejection,” by Joshua Sabatini, October 16, 2019.
• Hyperallergic - “San Francisco Will Raise Maya Angelou Sculpture,” by Zachary Small, August 5, 2019
• San Francisco Chronicle - “Statue of Maya Angelou comes into sharp relief as SF diversifies public art,” by Heather Knight, July 21, 2019
Tomorrow with MoAD: In the Artist's Studio | Lava Thomas
Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the Charleston 9 Massacre at Emanuel AME Church in SC. In honor of those who were murdered in a heinous act of racial terror on June 17, 2015, I’ll be discussing “Requiem for Charleston” and reflecting on how the piece relates to current uprisings demanding an end to lethal anti-black racism and justice for black lives. “Requiem for Charleston” is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection and will be on view in SAAM’s Lincoln Gallery upon reopening. Tomorrow’s virtual studio visit is hosted by the Museum of African Diaspora. Click the image above to register and learn more.
Ashara Ekundayo In Conversation With Lava Thomas: A 3-Part Interview Series
“Ashara Ekundayo In Conversation With Lava Thomas” is a 3-part interview series organized by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) and Art+Action for the project, 2020 Census: Who Counts in America? Read the full interview in the links provided below:
Pt. 1: Practice, Labor, and Leadership - “Ashara Ekundayo in Conversation with Lava Thomas, Pt. 1: Practice, Labor, and Leadership,”
Pt. 2: Family, Artifacts, and the Census - “Ashara Ekundayo in Conversation with Lava Thomas, Pt. 2: Family, Artifacts, and the Census”
Pt. 3: Spirituality and the ‘Artist as First Responder’ - “Ashara Ekundayo in Conversation with Lava Thomas, Pt. 3: Spirituality and the ‘Artist as First Responder’,
Excerpt from Pt. 1, “Practice, Labor, and Leadership”
Excerpt from Pt. 1, “Practice, Labor, and Leadership”
Next Thursday (5/21): “The Holding Patterns Waiting Room and The Art of Equal Pay” with Michele Pred, Lava Thomas, and Lexa Walsh
Next Thursday (5/21) at 1pm, tune into a Zoom panel featuring Michele Pred, Lexa Walsh, and yours truly. We will be discussing our respective practices and current projects. The panel is co-hosted by the California College of the Arts (CCA), The Holding Patterns Waiting Room, and The Art of Equal Pay. Register in the link below.
COME TO YOUR CENSUS: SEE BLACK WOMEN Online Forum Next Tuesday (5/19)
Join me on Facebook Live next Tuesday (5/19), 4pm PT, for COME TO YOUR CENSUS: SEE BLACK WOMEN, a two-part live forum featuring nine Bay Area Black womxn artists and curators. Read more about the event below.
As part of the Art+Action Coalition’s Come To Your Census movement, which aims to inspire and galvanize Census participation by all communities—particularly those who have historically been marginalized—Art+Action, lead partner Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), and coalition partner Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), in collaboration with independent curator and arts organizer Ashara Ekundayo present See Black Women: a two-part livestream conversation featuring nine powerful Bay Area Black Womxn Artists and Curators to discuss visibility, grief, and the present paradigm shift in culture and practice. Presented under the Artist As First Responder project created by Ekundayo, the forum will include the voices of Sydney Cain, Erica Deeman, Angela Hennessy, Lava Thomas, Sam Vernon, Tahirah Rasheed, Asya Abdrahman, and Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo. The two-part conversation will take place LIVE on Tuesday, May 19 and Tuesday, May 26 from 4-5:15pm PST on YBCA and MoAD’s Facebook pages via Streamyard.
Black communities have been undercounted in the decennial Census for decades, disconnecting them from past generations, and disadvantaging their families, communities, and neighborhoods by depriving them of political representation and funding—for healthcare, food assistance, public transportation, child care and senior centers, schools, housing, and more. Art+Action commissioned the See Black Women Collective to contribute artwork that specifically invites the reader to “see and recognize” Black women’s lives and labor, for their outdoor public media Census campaign. As one pillar of Art+Action’s larger initiative of artist commissions, public programming, community events, exhibitions, and performances, a billboard by the See Black Women Collective—co-founded by Ashara Ekundayo, Angela Hennessy, Leigh Raiford, PhD, Tahirah Rasheed, and Lava Thomas—will be on view in San Francisco at 3rd and Thorton streets from mid-May through June. See Black Women artists Lava Thomas and Angela Hennessy also have artwork featured in Art+Action’s city-wide outdoor campaign, as well as in the coalition’s free open-sourced digital toolkit, which provides communities with creative resources to galvanize their communities to participate in the Census—now live and online through October 31—to claim their fair share of resources and political representation for the next decade.
To insist upon being seen and heard is an act of resistance. Telling one's story, recording a community’s legacy, and creating visual representations of one’s ancestry are methods of resisting erasure. During these two conversations, the participants seek to answer questions including: How do we cite and honor our existence? How do we ensure our labor is acknowledged and our stories are heard for us to receive our fair share—both in civic and artistic arenas?
"Practice, Labor, and Leadership: Ashara Ekundayo in Conversation with Lava Thomas"(Pt. 1/3)
"Practice, Labor, and Leadership: Ashara Ekundayo in Conversation with Lava Thomas"(Pt. 1/3)
Click on the link above to read part 1 of a 3 part conversation series between Independent Curator Ashara Ekundayo and I, where we discuss the visibility BIPOC labor in both historic and contemporary contexts | This series is part of YBCA’s “Come To Your Census: Who Counts in America?” art and civic experience, presented under the umbrella of Art+Action’s COME TO YOUR CENSUS campaign.
YCBA 100 Honoree
I am thrilled to be acknowledged by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as a YCBA 100 Honoree for 2020! I join a list of powerful change makers in the Bay Area and around the country who work tirelessly to make the world more equitable, compassionate and just. Thank you YBCA to everyone who made this happen!
"Jimmie L. Lowe" (2018) Acquired by BAMPFA
Thrilled to announce that “Jimmie L. Lowe” (2018) has been acquired by the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. Huge thanks to BAMPFA’s Senior Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator, Apsara DiQuinzio, BAMPFA Collections Committee & Board of Trustees, and Rena Bransten Gallery.
Thursday 2/6 - In Conversation with Mildred Howard @ BAMPFA
Hope to see you this Thursday, 2/6, for a conversation with Mildred Howard as part of the lecture series, Arts + Design Thursdays @ BAMPFA: Public Art and Belonging. Excited to participate in this series with an amazing line up of speakers throughout the spring, including SFMOMA Curator, Eungie Joo, PhD, Harvard Associate Professor, Sarah Lewis, PhD, and Artist Sadie Barnette, among many more incredible artists and thinkers. Curated by UCB Associate Professor of African American Studies, Leigh Raiford, PhD, and UCB Associate Professor of Art History, Lauren Kroiz, PhD. More information here.
New Work @ UNTITLED ART, SF | Booth B13
Please join me at UNTITLED Art with Rena Bransten Gallery, Booth B13. I’ll be showing new work alongside stellar artists. Hope to see you there.
In Conversation @ Ashara Ekundayo Gallery (Oakland, CA)
Please join me, Angela Hennessy, Dana King, and special guests for a conversation moderated by Leigh Raiford, PhD, on contemporary narratives of Blackness, public art and commissions, and notions on survival. I’ll be discussing the recent turn of events in regards to the sculpture commission honoring Dr. Maya Angelou at the San Francisco Public Library. This will be an insightful talk in tandem with the exhibition, “Adjust Yo’ Eyes For This Darkness,” bringing together perspectives from Bay Area-based scholars, curators, and artists. I hope to see you there.
Montalvo Announces New Lucas Artists Fellows in Visual Arts for 2019-2022
I’m excited to announce that I’m a recipient of Montalvo Arts Center’s triennial Sally and Don Lucas Artists Fellowship Award. Every three years, by discipline, the Lucas Artists Program (LAP) invites a distinguished panel of international nominators to identify up to three emerging, mid-career, or established artist who have the potential to become significant voices of their generation. Please join me in congratulating the other exceptional artists selected for the LAP Award.
Finalist for Dr. Maya Angelou Sculpture at the San Francisco Public Library
I’m excited to announce that I’m a finalist for the Dr. Maya Angelou sculpture at the San Francisco Public Library. Congratulations to Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle and Jules Arthur, who are also finalists for the project. The sculpture launches San Francisco’s new initiative to include more historic women in public spaces, as specified by an ordinance calling for 30 percent of nonfiction figures depicted in works of art to represent women on city-owned property.
The proposals will be on view at the San Francisco Public Library from July 17-31 and are open to public comments. View the proposals online here.
The project was featured in The San Francisco Chronicle in “Statue of Maya Angelou comes into sharp relief as SF diversifies public art” by Heather Knight. Read the article here.
Left to right: Jules Arthur (finalist), Maya Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (finalist), and yours truly.
"Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today" - National Portrait Gallery Finalist
I’m super excited to announce that my work will be included in “The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today” as a finalist of the National Portrait Gallery’s 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Opens Oct. 26. Stay tuned!
Announcing SFMOMA's Acquisition of "Cora McHaney"
Cora McHaney, 2018. Conté pencil and graphite on paper. From the series, Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
I’m thrilled to announce that Cora McHaney (2018) from the series, Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott , has been acquired by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of their permanent collection.