Please join us for the second installment of the Mandy & Cliff Einstein Visiting Artist Series featuring a public lecture by world-renowned curator Zoe Whitley in conversation with Naima J. Keith, newly appointed Vice President of Education and Public Programs at LACMA.
Dr. Zoe Whitley is Curator, International Art at Tate Modern in London, as well as curator attached to the British Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale.
She earned her PhD supervised by artist Professor Lubaina Himid. Zoe recently curated ARTIST ROOMS: Jenny Holzer at Tate Modern and co-curated the acclaimed Tate exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, on view at the Broad Los Angeles from March 23rd 2019. Prior to joining Tate, where she was also previously Curator, Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain, Zoe was a curator at the V&A (2003-2013). Exhibitions to her credit also include curating the 10th anniversary special projects at the Johannesburg Art Fair (2017).
Whitley has authored The Graphic World of Paul Peter Piech (Four Corners Books) and co-authored museum catalogues including In Black and White: Prints from Africa and the Diaspora (V&A, with Gill Saunders); The Shadows Took Shape (Studio Museum in Harlem, with Naima J. Keith); and Soul of a Nation (Tate, with Mark Godfrey). Other recent publications include her texts on John Akomfrah and Black Audio Film Collective (New Museum), Frank Bowling (Haus der Kunst), Alexander McQueen (V&A), with forthcoming work on the art of Cathy Wilkes.
Naima J. Keith is the newly appointed Vice President of Education and Public Programs at LACMA. From 2016 - 2019, Keith was the Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the California African American Museum (CAAM) where she was tasked with guiding the curatorial and education departments as well as marketing and communications. During her tenure at CAAM, Keith also curated several exhibitions, including Hank Willis Thomas: Black Righteous Space (2016), Genevieve Grignard: Smell the Roses (2016) Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle: The Evanesced (2017) and Gary Simmons: Fade to Black (2017–8). She was the 2017 recipient of the David C. Driesell Prize in recognition of her contributions to the field of African American art history and is co-artistic director of Prospect.5 in New Orleans in 2020.
Previously an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2011–16), her notable exhibitions include: Rodney McMillian: Views of Main Street (2016), Artists in Residence 2014–2015 (2015), Samuel Levi Jones: Unbound (2015), Titus Kampar (2014), Glenn Kino (2014), and Robert Pruitt (2013), The Shadows Took Shape (co-curated with Zoe Whitley, 2013), Fore (co-curated with Lauren Haynes and Thomas J. Lax, 2012). Her historical survey, Charles Gaines: Grid work 1974–1989 (2014), traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CA spring 2015 and was nominated in 2014 for a "Best Monographic Museum Show in New York" award by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA). Between 2008–11, Keith worked in the curatorial department at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, serving as the primary contact for the groundbreaking exhibition Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, organized by guest curator Kellie Jones. She has lectured at the Soma Contemporary Art Center, Columbia University, The Museum of Modern Art, LACMA, USC, MCA Denver, and Brooklyn Museum. Her essays have been featured in publications for The Studio Museum in Harlem, Hammer Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, LAXART, MoMA PS1, and NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art. Keith holds degrees from Spelman College and UCLA and is a proud native of Los Angeles.
Doors open at 6:00 pm, refreshments will be served. RSVP here.
Photo credit: (c) Tate Photography, Andrew Dunkley
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March 26, 2019
