Lea K. Green Artist Talk | Rujeko Hockley & Hank Willis Thomas

Dec 17, 2020
6:00pm
—7:00pm

Zoom

Lea K. Green Artist Talk, Conversations & Screenings, Watch & Listen 2020, Program Resources

For the fifth annual Lea K. Green Artist Talk, The Studio Museum in Harlem is thrilled to feature curator Rujeko Hockley and conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas in conversation.

Creative collaborators and spouses, the duo will offer reflections of the momentous and tumultuous year, 2020. They will discuss the ways art, artists, institutions, and collective movements engaged, instigated, and enacted social, political, and civic change while also forecasting how to move forward into the unknown year, 2021, while retaining a sense of joy, hope, and possibility. This program will be streamed on Zoom and will feature live CART captioning.

The event registration is now closed as we have reached capacity. Please revisit this page after the event to watch the program. 

The Lea K. Green Artist Talk brings together exceptional artists and cultural luminaries annually for critical dialogues on art and society. Previous honorees for the Lea K. Green Artist Talk include Carrie Mae Weems (2016), Jordan Casteel (2017), Amy Sherald (2018), and Dawoud Bey (2019).

Rujeko Hockley is an assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the curator of the upcoming retrospective Julie Mehretu, opening in March 2021, and co-curated the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Additional projects at the Whitney include Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Determined (2017) and An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940–2017 (2017). Previously, she was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she co-curated Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014) and was involved in exhibitions highlighting the permanent collection as well as artists LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Kehinde Wiley, Tom Sachs, and others. She is the co-curator of We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 (2017), which originated at the Brooklyn Museum and traveled to three U.S. venues in 2017–18. She serves on the Board of Art Matters, as well as the Advisory Board of Recess. 

Recommended Reading List
Octavia Butler’s Patternmaster (aka Patternist) series
Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood (aka Xenogenesis trilogy) series 
Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other 
 

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. His collaborative projects include QuestionBridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), and For Freedoms, an artist-run initiative for art and civic engagement. In 2017, For Freedoms was awarded the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform. Thomas is also a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), the Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), and is a former member of the New York City Public Design Commission.
  

From Our Collection


 

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976)

Black Righteous Space, 2012

Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976)

Who Can Say No to a Gorgeous Brunette?, 1970/2007

Lesson Plan

Explore concepts of race in consumer culture, notions of representation versus individual identity, and engage in an activity to reflect deeper on the work of Hank Willis Thomas.

Additional Resources


 

History Is Waiting to Be Told

Hank Willis Thomas on How Artists Can Reshape the Narrative of the United States in Real Time.

Joy As Resistance

Artist collective the Wide Awakes takes NYC this weekend. Why we’re marching. By Rujeko Hockley.

Vision & Justice || Radcliffe Institute

In this segment from “Vision & Justice” on Friday, April 26, Cheryl Finley interviews Hank Willis Thomas.

The annual Lea K. Green Artist Talk is made possible by the Lea K. Green Memorial Fund, established by Lea’s family and friends.

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Sanford Biggers
December 05 2022

Lea K. Green Artist Talk


vanessa german
December 16 2021

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Rujeko Hockley & Hank Willis Thomas
December 17 2020

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Dawoud Bey & Thelma Golden
December 12 2019

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Amy Sherald
June 14 2018

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Jordan Casteel
June 14 2017

Inaugural Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Carrie Mae Weems
June 16 2016

1 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Sanford Biggers

December 05 2022

2 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk


vanessa german

December 16 2021

3 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Rujeko Hockley & Hank Willis Thomas

December 17 2020

4 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Dawoud Bey & Thelma Golden

December 12 2019

5 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Amy Sherald

June 14 2018

6 / 7

Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Jordan Casteel

June 14 2017

7 / 7

Inaugural Lea K. Green Artist Talk

Carrie Mae Weems

June 16 2016

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