GREATEST: ART OF CURATION

Essence Harden, Visual Arts Curator at California African American Museum (CAAM)

Antoine J. Girard: People often ask me, “What is a curator?” What does curation mean for you and what has this role been like? And how do you find your joy and passion in this field?

Essence Harden: I think I got into curation because it’s an avenue to connect with artists and help them form their ideas. To essentially be like, “You have an idea and I feel really invested in you as a person, in your practice overall, but also you as a human being.” I feel like a yenta in lots of ways. I feel like a matchmaker. It starts with, “Okay, I see the rhythm and the idea of where you're at.” Then it’s building long-term, trusting relationships with people and working out whatever the idea might be. So much of curating is my relationship with people and finding ways to manifest an idea and a dream.

My job is also about creating a future direction for someone’s career, for example, when I curated Justin LeRoy’s solo show [“Lay Me Down in Praise” at Art + Practice in Leimert Park]. Justin’s not only a friend, but someone who I’m constantly in conversation with. When he approached me about this idea, which was not fully fleshed out but he had been ruminating on it for over a year, I was like, “Okay, this feels like a really bold opportunity.” Which is what curators do: push someone’s career along. I have a lot of faith and trust in people who I work with.

You’ve said so much that keeps me excited about this field. The voices that you’ve pushed forward in Black art have often not focused entirely on figurative work. There are two examples of shows, “Blues/s” and “black is a color,” where you specifically highlighted artists of color working in abstraction. Can you talk a little about this?

Ultimately, my goals or the things that I’m interested in are less representational in terms of the figure, [or the way] that we have come to understand Black portraiture. It’s not to say that I don’t [like artists] who make figurative work or who have an investment in portraiture, but abstraction allows for my mind to wander. I like not knowing. I like feeling immersed and lost in something and then relating that to sensation, my own sensation with my body. I’m like, “Oh, could this be an exhibition where people walk into a space and have to give in and allow themselves to be taken over by a series of sensations?” Abstraction allows for that. 

There’s always going to be room for people who make portraiture. [As a curator] you have these opportunities to not only invest in artists’ careers but their lives, because it’s expensive as fuck living in all these cities. Unless you are independently wealthy or married to someone who’s wealthy, [it’s hard]. There’s always going to be room for someone who’s taking a photo of a Black person, someone who’s [painting] a Black person’s face in a way that we understand is a reality or a realism. But I think abstraction always needs, at least from my end, more effort and energy put towards it because Black people who make art are often not allowed to exist in that plane. I still have to push for it to be [paid attention to], like, “Yo, this person’s work is profound and incredible. It should be showcased.” Even if there’s no Black body that appears in a way that’s [obvious]. 

How do you go about creating your shows? Are they led by artists first or are they led by thoughts first?

For me, it’s very much a conversation between theorizing, reading, writing and studio visits. Often if I’m reading a book of essays, let’s say Toni Morrison, I’m like, “Okay, I really like this line. I really appreciate this thought. Could this be an exhibition? Can I build something out of this moment that Morrison has given me or that Fred Moten has given me?” So that’s one way that [I approach it]. 

The other side is I’m always doing studio visits. With UTA Artist Space [in Beverly Hills], I was visiting with Pamela Council, who I love and whose work I have appreciated for a very long time. She makes fountains and abstract work. I had an idea that I felt was rooted within Pamela’s work and with which I could build something with more artists. And so I did. That’s kind of how I operate. When it comes to galleries, I am not an art dealer. I’m not a broker. I come from art. Not as an art historian, but as a Black studies person. I’m very invested in people’s practices. 

You create spaces where I feel, like many other people, very grounded and seen without ever having to really encounter a figure.

I think it’s in part because I went to community college. I went to UC Berkeley for graduate school and for undergrad, but I went to community college for five years in New York after high school. This was a long time ago, I’m now 38. My rent was $400 in Brooklyn when [I arrived] in 2002. I didn’t have a very straightforward path. I’m self-taught in lots of ways, even getting to Black studies was me living in New York, going to Strand Book Store, going to the library. I’m from Oakland, my family’s also from the Bay. We have our own kind of Black history there. A lot of my family didn’t go to college; I’m the first person. It’s all of this that makes it possible to do what I do. There wasn’t anyone showing me a way forward, but there also wasn’t anyone holding me back. I’m very used to existing outside a structure.

I really appreciate you retracing your steps for me. It’s important for emerging voices out there to recognize that those places of community—colleges, bookstores—are also great starts. You don’t have to come from decades of wealth to survive in this industry. 

I will say it was fucking hard, though. Most people that do these jobs are underpaid. The way these institutions have been structured are for elite white people, white women, non-Black people overall—even if they have Black people who operate within [their institutions].

As a curator currently working at an institution, can you talk more about your experience in these roles? 

I’m a [person] with my own ideas, with my own relationships. Institutions run off of other people’s relationships, so recognizing that and holding firm to that truth [is important]. You don’t have art in a contemporary museum by living artists without the relationships that curators are building with them.

I try to be [aware of] how I am still a human being outside of that space. I remind myself, “I do studio visits and I work at CAAM and that’s my job title, but I’m a curator. I’m a writer no matter where I’m working.” You know what I mean? I do studio visits with people who aren’t Black. CAAM only shows Black people. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t talk to artists who aren’t Black. I try to be very aware of my own individuality as a person and of the ways that I am an employee of a museum. I am not the boss of the place. 

To leave it on an optimistic note, what inspires you? 

I’m always inspired by people who continue to make work. It’s fucking hard out here but I love artists. I really [admire] people who are vulnerable and share their work.

Kathy Huang, Managing Director at Jeffrey Deitch

Antoine J. Girard: Kathy, congrats on the two successful showings of “Wonder Women” at Jeffrey Deitch. I thought it was an amazingly timed group show. Could you tell us about some of the ideas surrounding the exhibition, and why you felt it was important to organize?

Kathy Huang: I started thinking about the show in 2020. Of course, at that time, we were all quarantining. I had always felt a little bit frustrated by the lack of Asian-American representation in the art world, and so I was thinking about a way where I could present a show that highlights the work of Asian-American artists. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what the theme would be, but I spent a lot of time reading and I stumbled upon Genny Lim’s poem “Wonder Woman” in an anthology. What I really liked about the poem was that it centered Asian women. In it, the narrator is walking along a river and observing the different lives of Asian women of all different ages, backgrounds and sexualities. I felt that same kind of wonder and curiosity about other Asian women’s experiences. Particularly in the West, in America, and in the diaspora.

That poem was really a starting-off point for the themes of the show, which are really about wonder and curiosity. There’s also a dual meaning to the title “Wonder Women”—it’s not just in reference to the poem, but also because when you think of Wonder Woman, you think of the superhero. I like the idea that we could be seen as heroes. Not just heroes, but as protagonists in a story in general. Because in pop culture, in visual culture, even in literature, in the U.S. anyway, we really don’t get center stage. Not in a way that’s complex or nuanced. Those are really the main ideas of the show: Wonder, curiosity and centering Asian women in the diaspora. 

What really excited me about the show was the widespread ideas around representation. There are self-portraits by artists like Sasha Gordon alongside more abstract depictions. Were you surprised at the various ways these artists approached that subject?

I was actually astonished by the direction a lot of the artists decided to go in. Some of them went into pathology, which I thought was amazing; I learned so much about South Asian mythologies through Sahana Ramakrishnan and about Sri Lankan folklore through Shyama Golden. There were a lot of new discoveries through putting together this artist list. 

Did you see a lot of commonalities in the themes that linked these artists’ practices when their work all appeared in the same room?

I think that a lot of artists actually tackled histories that were embedded into not just their cultural histories, but their own personal histories as well. Somebody that comes to mind is Jeanne Jalandoni; a lot of her work is her personifying Filipino-American culture. All of her work is embedded not only in the history of cheap Filipino labor, but in her own [experiences]. At the time that I approached her, she had never been to the Philippines before, and so a lot of what she knew about Filipino culture was really passed down through her family. 

You work professionally as a managing director and art advisor in special projects. As a working arts professional, was this show personally freeing for you?

Definitely. It was the most rewarding experience. Above all, I really treasure all the relationships I have with the artists. That’s something that, and I’m sure you have the same experiences, you’ll have with you forever. For a lot of them, it was their first exhibition. It really felt special. 

Where do you see the art world headed? And how do you see Asian-American women fitting into this dreamed-up future?

It’s a loaded question, because I feel like people are heading into abstraction. I don’t know if you feel that way? I think there’s always going to be an appetite for the kind of work [in the exhibition] for people who resonate with it. Hopefully, from this, and from so many other projects in the space, there are more Asian-American collectors and diaspora collectors collecting Asian-American artists. We need artists to have patrons to support them and give them long careers. In terms of the trends in the art world, it’s always cyclical. Right now we’re heading into abstraction. I’m sure we’ll come back to figuration. I think that there’s also, right now, an interest in textile work.

Every few years, there’s going to be something. I would hope that Asian-American women fit seamlessly into this transition, if this transition happens. Sometimes, with their work, they don’t want to lead with their gender or their race, and I would hope that they can explore and experiment with their work without having to feel like they need to lead with those things to be successful.

A thought came up when you were talking […] At one point, figurative art was the political choice for people of color, so it’s so funny that now people want to use abstraction. One last point I want to touch on is the differences between LA and New York. What was your experience of putting on the two shows?

This show was originally only going to be in New York. When I put together the artist list, I had to be very selective because we are limited with space, even though the space is pretty big. So when Jeffrey said, “Let’s bring the show to LA,” I was happy about that because there are so many vibrant Asian-American communities in LA. It was just so nice to see the community during the opening. I felt the same way even with the New York show and when I did a show with Dominique Fung last year. I have never seen that many Asian people come to an opening before, and I think that a lot of them had maybe never been to an art exhibition before. I saw an Asian woman who worked at USPS stop by. I have no idea if she’s ever been to these galleries, because galleries can be really intimidating. 

That’s really part of the goal: it’s also for the public. It’s not just for the artists, but it’s for people who have never been to a gallery, have never felt like they resonate with work that they see. I was so happy to be able to bring the art to a new audience.

Ebony L. Haynes, Senior Director, 52 Walker / David Zwirner

​​Antoine J. Girard: I think there are a lot of people who want to be more immersed in fine art spaces and you created 52 Walker gallery as a response to that, a safe space for thinking about the work. Can we talk a little bit about what that has been like for you?

Ebony L. Haynes: 52 Walker represents a proposal to show that other models could exist—could co-exist. We can still have an active commercial gallery that does a show every four to six weeks and regular art fairs almost once a month. 52 Walker shows that we can also have a commercial gallery that doesn’t do that. As a curator, this space speaks to my preferred practice. I’ve worked in the traditional model for 10 years and I really respect it, and I’m all for representation of artists, but personally, I was interested in what could happen for me as a curator and for the artists I work with if we shifted the framework.

I appreciate your intentions in building that space. When I came into your space to view “MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY” by Tiona Nekkia McClodden, I felt very free in a different way. I would love to get to know you better. I know you’re from Canada; can you speak more to the differences between their art scene and ours here in the U.S.?

I was not super ingrained in the Canadian art scene, to be totally honest. I was really interested in working in music for many years before I even went to grad school. I studied anthropology, African studies and music as an undergraduate, and I took some art classes. My art career really started in New York, where I did my first gallery internship. A clear and noticeable difference, having lived and studied art in Canada and worked in America in the art field—and it’s a big difference—is that the financial support and institutional support for the arts in Canada is outrageously generous and amazing. 

The Canada Council for the Arts is just incredible, and there are grant programs here, but what really differs, in my opinion, is that artists can survive in Canada without having a gallery show that sells. There’s a system in place where you can have a studio and be a full-time artist. You don’t need to know where health insurance comes from, it’s free; you can apply for a studio and get one; there are hundreds of millions of dollars given to all of the arts across Canada. It’s amazing. I feel the stakes are different in that art scene. It’s really about the art that the artist wants to make and talk about, and perhaps a bit less about the market, or rather the market is secondary, which changes the way some might experience the art.

It seems those experiences have shaped you. Would you say those things are shaping what 52 Walker represents as well?

In a way, 52 Walker is a culmination of my experiences. I didn’t want to have such little time to program the gallery spaces. I wanted to have fewer shows that are up longer. I wanted every exhibition to have a book because the archive is so important to me.

With 52 Walker, I’m interested in exploring and saying that multiple [gallery] models should exist. Also this is not rigid, it could change. It’s about conversations. The vibe around me is informing what I’m interested in at the moment. It just happens to be that my vibe is less figurative and more conceptual abstraction. I’m not necessarily trying to make a huge statement, but what you’re really asking about, and continue to allude to in our conversation, is my “Black experiences” or my “experiences being Black.” And to that I ask, "What does it mean to be a Black curator?" 

It’s a good question because it’s put on us. A long time ago when I was writing quite a bit more, I was asked to write about a particular Black artist who, as a person, I’m friendly with and love, but I’m not really drawn to their artwork, nor do I feel compelled to dive into the ideas behind it. I know this happens often, where the reason I was approached is because I’m a Black woman and so affirmations and accolades are assumed. We are, with Blackness in general—not just in the arts—in partnership with one another. But for true partnership, you need dissonance. You need to have that dissonance that really pushes, makes us all know and realize what our stake is, and we need to allow for there to be those multiple [perspectives].

How have you been able to support artists who you love in your community? I try to support friends that I’ve grown up with, and we sit around and ask each other questions and we try to figure things out. How, as a curator, do you organize your shows? By the artist’s work or by your ideas of them as a person?

Oh, that’s a hard question. It’s a good question. I think sometimes it’s both. It happens at different times. Supporting my community of artists, as for all curators, happens because when you see artwork and meet artists who you’re really, really intrigued by, they stick with you. Even if you’re not personally friends, you follow their work; you see an evolution of their practice over time. When you’re really excited about an artist’s practice, it’s very rare for a curator to forget them. That’s how the community grows for me.

Right now, I’m excited about Gordon Matta-Clark and Pope.L, two of my all-time favorite artists. Both artists’ practices dive into “problematics”: problems with architecture, scale and value. For me, when organizing shows, it’s really about, “What vibe does the program create?”

Can you remember the first time you were truly blown away by an exhibition?

The first time I remember being truly blown away was when I was in grad school and encountered Shirin Neshat’s two-channel video installation Turbulent (1998). I think it was 2011, in Toronto. It has such an intense and memorable sound and while standing between the two floor-to-ceiling projections, I felt enveloped. So beautiful and powerful.

Who is an artist you have loved watching grow since you started curating?

All of them! How could I want to work with an artist and then not want to watch them evolve?

I’m really grateful to be able to do this interview today and to experience the space in person. Your staff is also amazing. 

Creating my own team was probably the biggest game-changer for me here, so that’s nice to hear. The vibe here is really welcoming and that’s on purpose. I hope it will continue to grow. I’m the boss, but I want to feel like we’re all a crew and we can grow our gang.

What are your hopes for the future of the industry and the next generation of curators entering the field?

I hope they feel encouraged, supported, heard and more importantly, I hope they are excited about their ideas and love what they do.

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