Thomas J Price in Conversation
09.29.2022
Susan and John Hess Family Theater and Gallery, The Whitney Museum of American Art
The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Whitney Museum of American Art are thrilled to co-present Thomas J Price in Conversation. Price will be in dialogue with curators and artists Allison Glenn, Kiyan Williams, and Hugh Hayden, with Legacy Russell moderating. This conversation is the final program in the Studio Salon series: Conversations in the Commons in support of the UK-based artist’s current exhibition, Thomas J Price: Witness, organized by Russell with Yelena Keller on view through October 1, 2022, in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park.
Through the presentation of the nine-foot bronze figure The Distance Within (2021), Price asks us to consider what is projected onto Black bodies as they move in the world and how they are made monolithic via broader archetypes and stereotypes. The program will highlight how Thomas J Price: Witness is situated within larger conversations around monuments, iconography, and visual politics.
TJP Conversation Playlist
TJP Conversation Bios
Thomas J Price
Thomas J Price’s multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived attitudes toward representation, perception, and identity. Price’s large-scale sculptures depict imagined subjects whose features are an amalgamation of sources. Individuals from Price's lived experience as well as stereotypes represented in the media are mixed with references to ancient, classical, and neoclassical sculptures. Price refers to his fictional subjects as psychological portraits of the viewer but at the center are expressions of humanity. Using methods of presentation, material, scale, and detail, Price aims to challenge viewers’ expectations and assumptions. Born in London in 1981, Price studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Price was the recipient of the Arts Council England Helen Chadwick Fellowship in 2009, and was commissioned to create a public artwork in Hackney in 2022, titled Warm Shores, commemorating the Windrush Generation. To learn more, visit thomasjprice.com/.
Legacy Russell
Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen. Formerly, she was 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, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso, 2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming from Verso. To learn more, visit legacyrussell.com/.
Allison Glenn
Allison Glenn is a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists.
She is Senior Curator at New York’s Public Art Fund. Recently, she received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, and centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. The New York Times selected the exhibition as one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021. To learn more, visit allisonglenn.com/.
Kiyan Williams
Kiyan Williams is a visual artist based in New York City. Working fluidly across sculpture, video, performance, and installations, they create artworks that redefine fixed notions of the body, identity, and American history. They are attracted to quotidian, unconventional materials and methods that evoke the historical, political, and ecological forces that shape individual and collective bodies. Williams earned a BA with honors from Stanford University and an MFA in visual art from Columbia University. Williams’s work is in private and public collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum and the Hammer Museum. Their work is on view in Black Atlantic, Public Art Fund, New York (2022).
Hugh Hayden
Hugh Hayden’s practice considers the anthropomorphization of the natural world as a visceral lens for exploring the human condition. Hayden transforms familiar objects through a process of selection, carving, and juxtaposition to challenge our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the environment. Raised in Texas and trained as an architect, his work arises from a deep connection to nature and its organic materials.
Hayden was born in Dallas, Texas in 1983, and lives and works in New York City. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. He has had solo exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey and White Columns, New York. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including SculptureCenter, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; The Shed, New York; Pilot Projects, Philadelphia; Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah; MoMA PS1, New York. To learn more, visit hughhayden.com/.
TJP Conversation Resources
Expand The Conversation
Explore the collection of resources below for more insight about the role and future of monuments.
Studio Salon |Conversations in the Commons | Monuments and Public Space
Lesson Plan | Monumental Embodiments
Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast on view through March 5, 2023
Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters
TAKING CARE: Huey Copeland and Allison Glenn on “Promise, Witness, Remembrance”
Forms That Don’t Yet Exist: Kiyan Williams Interviewed by Louis Bury
TJP Conversation Funders credits & Logos
Thomas J Price: Witness has been made possible thanks to the Open Society Foundations. Funding for inHarlem provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional funding has been generously provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Council.
Thomas J Price in Conversation
09.29.2022
Susan and John Hess Family Theater and Gallery, The Whitney Museum of American Art
The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Whitney Museum of American Art are thrilled to co-present Thomas J Price in Conversation. Price will be in dialogue with curators and artists Allison Glenn, Kiyan Williams, and Hugh Hayden, with Legacy Russell moderating. This conversation is the final program in the Studio Salon series: Conversations in the Commons in support of the UK-based artist’s current exhibition, Thomas J Price: Witness, organized by Russell with Yelena Keller on view through October 1, 2022, in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park.
Through the presentation of the nine-foot bronze figure The Distance Within (2021), Price asks us to consider what is projected onto Black bodies as they move in the world and how they are made monolithic via broader archetypes and stereotypes. The program will highlight how Thomas J Price: Witness is situated within larger conversations around monuments, iconography, and visual politics.
TJP Conversation Playlist
TJP Conversation Bios
Thomas J Price
Thomas J Price’s multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived attitudes toward representation, perception, and identity. Price’s large-scale sculptures depict imagined subjects whose features are an amalgamation of sources. Individuals from Price's lived experience as well as stereotypes represented in the media are mixed with references to ancient, classical, and neoclassical sculptures. Price refers to his fictional subjects as psychological portraits of the viewer but at the center are expressions of humanity. Using methods of presentation, material, scale, and detail, Price aims to challenge viewers’ expectations and assumptions. Born in London in 1981, Price studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Price was the recipient of the Arts Council England Helen Chadwick Fellowship in 2009, and was commissioned to create a public artwork in Hackney in 2022, titled Warm Shores, commemorating the Windrush Generation. To learn more, visit thomasjprice.com/.
Legacy Russell
Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen. Formerly, she was 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, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (Verso, 2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming from Verso. To learn more, visit legacyrussell.com/.
Allison Glenn
Allison Glenn is a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists.
She is Senior Curator at New York’s Public Art Fund. Recently, she received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, and centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. The New York Times selected the exhibition as one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021. To learn more, visit allisonglenn.com/.
Kiyan Williams
Kiyan Williams is a visual artist based in New York City. Working fluidly across sculpture, video, performance, and installations, they create artworks that redefine fixed notions of the body, identity, and American history. They are attracted to quotidian, unconventional materials and methods that evoke the historical, political, and ecological forces that shape individual and collective bodies. Williams earned a BA with honors from Stanford University and an MFA in visual art from Columbia University. Williams’s work is in private and public collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum and the Hammer Museum. Their work is on view in Black Atlantic, Public Art Fund, New York (2022).
Hugh Hayden
Hugh Hayden’s practice considers the anthropomorphization of the natural world as a visceral lens for exploring the human condition. Hayden transforms familiar objects through a process of selection, carving, and juxtaposition to challenge our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the environment. Raised in Texas and trained as an architect, his work arises from a deep connection to nature and its organic materials.
Hayden was born in Dallas, Texas in 1983, and lives and works in New York City. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University. He has had solo exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey and White Columns, New York. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including SculptureCenter, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; The Shed, New York; Pilot Projects, Philadelphia; Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah; MoMA PS1, New York. To learn more, visit hughhayden.com/.
TJP Conversation Resources
Expand The Conversation
Explore the collection of resources below for more insight about the role and future of monuments.
Studio Salon |Conversations in the Commons | Monuments and Public Space
Lesson Plan | Monumental Embodiments
Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast on view through March 5, 2023
Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters
TAKING CARE: Huey Copeland and Allison Glenn on “Promise, Witness, Remembrance”
Forms That Don’t Yet Exist: Kiyan Williams Interviewed by Louis Bury
TJP Conversation Funders credits & Logos
Thomas J Price: Witness has been made possible thanks to the Open Society Foundations. Funding for inHarlem provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional funding has been generously provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Council.
Susan and John Hess Family Theater and Gallery, The Whitney Museum of American Art