Looking ahead: Works on paper by Georgia O’Keeffe at MoMA

Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time, the first exhibition to investigate the artist’s works on paper made in series, using charcoal, watercolor, pastel, and graphite, presents more than 120 pieces created over more than four decades.  The artist explored forms and phenomena—from abstract rhythms to nature’s cycles—working in series that sometimes gave rise to related paintings, which will be installed alongside these works on paper. Seen together, these works demonstrate how drawing sequentially allowed O’Keeffe to revisit and develop subjects throughout her career, repeating, and changing motifs that blur the boundary between observation and abstraction.

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53^rd Street, New York, NY Info

Required Reading: What it was like when Peter Hujar tooki your photograph

Linda Rosenkrantz: Only recently it occurred to me that, in the five decades of our friendship, Peter Hujar (1934–87) recorded all the major events and people of my life. He photographed me in his various studios and in our individual apartments on New York’s Upper West Side, as well as in Central Park, Times Square, Oakleyville on Fire Island, Woodstock and Italy – Florence, Rome, Taormina. He shot the author photo for my first book, Talk (1968), my art-world tribe, my ‘engagement’, my wedding, my mother and me, my young sister and me, my daughter at the age of six. He photographed my legs for a shoe advertisement and even hypnotized me back to adolescence for the cover of a sociology book on teens he was hired to shoot. Above: Joseph Raffael, Linda Rosenkrantz & Peter W. Hujar in front of the church of Santa Maria Novella in the beautiful city of Florence, 1958 (detail)

I met Peter in 1956, soon after he had moved in with one of my closest confidantes, the painter Joseph Raffael – then known as Joe Raffaele. We almost immediately became something of a threesome. I would come to their plant-filled apartment in the West 90s, straight from my job at an auction house (or a therapy session), where they would cook pork-chop dinners and we would gossip to the music of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1689) or Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 (1947), dissecting my volatile love life and mocking my eccentric co-workers, laughing a lot – all under the grave gaze of their big grey cat, Alice B. Toklas. This soon became my refuge, the place where I found my authentic identity. Read the entire feature in Frieze

Wednesday, March 14, 7 pm: Decoding Gender Bias at FIAF

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Dr. Violetta Zujovic of the Paris Brain Institute and Alyse Nelson, President of Vital Voices Global Partnership, come to FIAF for a conversation about the science of gender bias and how we can break the cycle of these unconscious prejudices to build a more inclusive and creative society. Moderated by journalist Contessa Brewer. The live talk (also live streamed) will be followed by a Q & A

As one of the founding members of the Paris Brain Institute Gender Equity Committee, Dr. Zujovic has become a leading figure of raising awareness on gender biases in science. Nelson is the author of the best-selling book Vital Voices: The Power of Women Leading Change Around the World (Assouline) and is a notable speaker on leadership and global women’s issues.

Presented in partnership with the Paris Brain Institute at French Institute/Alliance Francaise.
22 East 60^th Street, New York, NY Info

 Thursday, March 15, 6 pm (EDT) online: Kelli Morgan on Colonialism,

What different forms of knowledge are produced when Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx histories are prioritized in a visual presentation of American portraiture? Dr. Kelli Morgan says, "I frequently say that I entered the art museum, and the curatorial profession in general, through the back door when no one was looking. It was like I came through the service entrance and got intimately acquainted with the field’s colonial foundations and mechanisms well before I knew what the galleries looked like. Thus, I do my best to employ curatorial approaches that will force institutions to develop new infrastructures. This grew from my upbringing in Black feminist and Black working-class ways of knowing that taught me how to employ my being as a disruption and how to utilize my personal and cultural biographies as a form of knowledge. Above: Isadora Noe Freeman and Mary Christiana Freeman (c. 1859), courtesy of the Library of Congress)

"Over time, I learned that traditional art museums were never going to substantially support this type of work. However, I knew BIPOC curators, scholars, activists, and artists who were carrying it out; I knew that so many more before us had developed detailed instructions, and I knew that the vast majority of museum professionals wanted to learn. So, last year I developed a graduate curriculum that teaches museum professionals how to apply anti-racist frameworks to their basic job functions. I call it the blast work and I’m frequently analyzing museums across the United States for projects that can blow holes in traditional museum practices and typical approaches to permanent collections."

Dr. Morgan will further expand on this exhibition and her curatorial process in a virtual conversation with Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian. Register

Continuing through April 2: States of Becoming at the Africa Center

States of Becoming examines the dynamic forces of relocation, resettlement, and assimilation that shape the artistic practices of a group of 17 contemporary African artists who have lived and worked in the United States. The concept for the exhibition evolved out of curator Fitsum Shebeshe’s lived experience following his 2016 move from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Baltimore, and his subsequent knowledge of the weight of cultural assimilation. “States of Becoming was born out of my own process of relocating to the United States in 2016,” Shebeshe said. “This exhibition allows for further understanding of not only my own experiences, but also those of the artists. By analyzing both the unique aspects and commonalities together with The Africa Center’s global and local communities, we can reimagine together how we think about how identity is continually shaped and reshaped.”

Artists: Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Kibrom Araya, Nadia Ayari, Vamba Bility, Elshafei Dafalla, Masimba Hwati, Chido Johnson, Miatta Kawinzi, Dora King, Helina Metaferia, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Yvonne Osei, Kern Samuel, Amare Selfu, Tariku Shiferaw, and Yacine Tilala Fall. The exhibition is organized by ICI and will be seen in Des Moines and Boston next year. Info

The Africa Center, 1280 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Info