Images left to right: courtesy of Shinique Smith, photo by Camille Lenain, courtesy of Sonya Clark.
Lucia Olubunmi R. Momoh, co-curator of the current exhibition Scrawlspace, will host a
conversation with artists Sonya Clark and Shinique Smith revolving around how both artists’ practices reference and embody alternative forms of writing and decolonizing scripts.
All events are free and open to the public, with RSVPs requested. Doors will open at 6pm, with select works in Scrawlspace obstructed from view due to the event setup. The discussion will begin by 6:30pm. Info on accessing our space can be found here. Email us with any questions.
Sonya Clark is an artist and the Winifred L. Arms Professor of Art and Humanities at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Previously, she held a University Professorship in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University where she served as chair for the Craft/Material Studies Department for over a decade. She earned an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and was honored with their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received an honorary doctorate in 2023. Her first college degree is from Amherst College where, in 2015, she also received an honorary doctorate. In 2021, she was awarded additional honorary doctorates from Franklin and Marshall College and Maine College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in over 500 museums and galleries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and Australia. Clark is the recipient of many awards including a United States Artist Fellowship, Anonymous Was a Woman Award, Rappaport Prize, Art Prize, Pollock Krasner Award, and an Art Matters Grant. She been an artist at the Red Gate Residency in China, the BAU Camargo Residency in France, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency in Italy, the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in DC, the Civitella Ranieri Residency in Italy, Yaddo Residency in NY, Affiliate Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Indigo Arts Alliance in Maine, Bogliasco Residency, and Black Rock Senegal Residency. Her work has been favorably reviewed in the New York Times, Le Monde, Sculpture, Art in America, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, ArtForum, PBS, NPR, BBC and many others.
Shinique Smith attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, obtaining a BFA in 1992 and MFA in 2003. Notable solo exhibitions include the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS (2022); USB Art Collection, NY (2019); Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art, Harlem, NY (2017); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (2015); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2013); SCAD Museum, Atlanta, GA (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Fl (2010); and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY (2009). Her work has gained attention through her participation in celebrated biennials and group exhibitions including the 13th Biennial de Cuenca and 8th Busan Biennale; Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 30 Americans organized by the Rubell Family Collection, Unmonumental at the New Museum and Hauser + Wirth LA’s Revolution in the Making. Notable group shows include the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; Smart Museum of Art, IL; Museum of the African Diaspora, CA; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C; and the Newark Museum, NJ. She has also created several landmark public works for NY Metro Arts, Chicago Transit Authority, Wabash Arts Corridor and USCF Medical Center among others, and has recently launched her monumental new mosaic mural to the public at MLK Jr Crenshaw station as part of the Los Angeles Metro’s New K Line. Smith’s work has also been exhibited and collected by other prestigious institutions such as the Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; California African American Museum, Denver Art Museum, Guggenheim Museum; Frist Art Museum; Minneapolis Art Institute; MOMA PS1; Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal; National Portrait Gallery, DC; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; the Newark Museum; and the Whitney Museum. She is the recipient of several awards and prizes including the American Academy of Arts & Letters Purchase Prize, (2022); Anonymous Was a Woman Artist Award (2016); Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2013); MICA Alumni Medal of Honor (2012); Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship (2008); and the Aljira Center for Contemporary Arts Fellowship (2005). Smith currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Lucia Olubunmi R. Momoh (she/they) is a curator, writer, and researcher currently working on a combined PhD in African American Studies and the History of Art at Yale University. Momoh’s research investigates the intersections of art, power, and identity. Centering African diasporic and Indigenous perspectives in Western art history, she investigates the relationship between constructs of race and the formation of national identities in the Americas during the nineteenth century, how institutions have perpetuated these volatile structures of oppression, and how art embodies the potential to dismantle them. Her independent curatorial practice supports and engages with artists who similarly seek to confront and visualize these complex structures. Before coming to Yale, Momoh held curatorial positions with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Prospect.5 Yesterday we said tomorrow, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. She has written for exhibition catalogs and publications such as ArtNews, Hyperallergic, burnaway, and Made in L.A.: Acts of Living.