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.
Kala Master Artist Award - 2019 Recipients
Humbled to receive the Master Artist Award along with this year’s other Award recipient, Masako Miki, at Kala Art Institute. Congratulations, Masako!
Thank you Archana Horsting and the rest of the KALA staff for this award. And thanks to everyone who came out to KALA’s 2019 Spring Auction to support this incredible Bay Area Institution.
Available Online: Authority and Agency in the Art World Podcast
Dorothy Davila, S. Sayre Batton, Lava Thomas, Apsara DiQuinzio, and Patricia Maloney.
This January, I participated in the panel discussion, “Authority and Agency in the Art World,” moderated by Patricia Maloney, Critic and Curator, and hosted by Untitled Art Fair and ArtTable. Other panelists includeded S. Sayre Batton, Oshman Executive Director at the San Jose Museum of Art, Apsara DiQuinzio, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at BAMPFA. The panel investigated different forms of authority and agency in the art world. It can be streamed online through soundcloud here.
Lecture at Texas Christian University
Lecture: Visiting Artist Series
Texas Christian University School of Art
Room 132, Moudy North | 2800 S. University Drive | Fort Worth, TX
January 28, 2019 | 2pm
I’ll be giving a lecture about my practice at Texas Christian University on Monday, January 28th, as part of TCU’s Visiting Artist Series. Hope to see you there.
Untitled Panel: Authority and Agency in the Art World
Authority & Agency in the Art World
Panel Discussion & Podcast
Untitled Art Fair
Pier 35
1454 The Embarcadero | San Francisco, CA
January 18, 2019 | 6pm
I'll be participating in a panel discussion investigating different forms of authority and agency in the art world. From the institution to the collective, the catalogue to your Twitter feed, how do women exercise power and visibility in their field? Other panelists are S. Sayre Batton, Oshman Executive Director, San Jose Museum of Art, and Apsara DiQuinzio, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, BAMPFA. The panel will be moderated by Patricia Maloney, Critic and Curator.
For more information, click here.
Lecture + Black Renaissance Noire Launch
Lecture + Black Renaissance Noire Book Launch
New York University | Silver Center, Jurow Lecture Hall
100 Washington Square East, Room 101A | New York, NY
November 9 | 7:00-9:00pm
East Coast friends, please join me for a discussion of Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Boycott at NYU's Institute of African American Affairs in conjunction with the launch of Black Renaissance Noire, Volume 18 Issue 3. Readings and reception with: Roger Aplon, Bob Holman, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Sharon Olds, and Ronald Ollie.
Learn more | Limited seating, please RSVP: nyuiaaa-cbvc-events@nyu.edu
RENA BRANSTEN GALLERY AT EXPO Chicago 2018 | BOOTH 319
Mrs. A. W. West, Senior, graphite and conté pencil on paper, 2018. Image credit: Phillip Maisel
EXPO Chicago 2018
Rena Bransten Gallery | MAIN Booth 319
Navy Pier, Chicago
September 27th-30th
Mrs. A.W. West, Senior from Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, will be at EXPO Chicago with Rena Bransten Gallery alongside works by Dawoud Bey, Jonathan Calm, Oliver Jackson, and Vik Muniz.
Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle
Thank you Charles Desmarais for mentioning my work in the SF Chronicle.
“I had the opportunity last year to see, in process, some of the drawings to be included in this exhibition. During an open house at the Headlands Center for the Arts, where Thomas was an artist in residence last year, visitors crowded her studio. Their intent was to glimpse, unfinished, what promised to be powerful documents of a historic moment of effective resistance. This will be our first chance to see the artist’s completed tribute to the unsung church ladies, homemakers and local pillars of the community who became heroes on national scale.” —Charles Desmarais, The San Francisco Chronicle
Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is opening at Rena Bransten Gallery this Saturday, September 8th, from 5-7pm. The exhibition will be on view through October 27th.
Work in progress image of "Mugshot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott" from my Fall 2017 Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Image credit: John Janca
Resistance Reverb: Movements 1 & 2 in the SAN Francsico Chronicle
Image credit: Colson Griffith Photography
Thank you, Charles Desmarais, for featuring Resistance Reverb: Movements 1 & 2, in your review of Be Not Still, Part 2, at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art.
“Lava Thomas chose as her theme the idea of solidarity, producing a soundless tribute to music — a shower of red tambourines suspended from the ceiling — as a metaphor for community. The tambourine, a wall text points out, is an easily learned instrument that plays a part in the traditional music of numerous cultures around the world. Thomas lightly imposes a reference to her own African American heritage here and there, but keeps the whole an open-ended invitation to unity, as a wall of mirrored instruments incorporates the viewer, the room and, by extension, the world.” —Charles Desmarais, The San Francisco Chronicle
The exhibition will be on view through December 30.