“Lead Me Gently Home” (2019) by Naudline Pierre
THE STUDIO MUSEUM in Harlem is welcoming three new artists in residence this fall. The program’s 2019-2020 participants are E. Jane, Naudline Pierre, and Elliot Reed. The museum announced the new group today.
Thelma Golden, director and chief Curator of the Studio Museum, said she was “thrilled” to welcome the artists, adding that they are taking “their place in the lineage of Artist-in-Residence program alumni, who now comprise a group of more than 100 of the most amazing and innovative artists working today.”
For five decades, the program has provided a platform for emerging artists of African and Afro-Latinx descent to advance their practices. Well-known alumni include Jordan Casteel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, David Hammons, Titus Kaphar, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, Adam Pendleton, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley.
The residency features institutional and material support from the museum, including studio space at its temporary programming location on West 127th Street and a group exhibition. The new artists will be in residence from October 2019 through September 2020.
About The Artists:
E. Jane (b. 1990 in Bethesda, Md.) is a conceptual artist and musician. Inspired by black liberation and womanism, their work incorporates text, video, performance, sound, sculpture, and installation. Their performance persona, MHYSA, an underground pop star for the cyber resistance, has appeared in E. Jane’s Lavendra/Recovery (2015–), an iterative multimedia installation, and out in the world. MHYSA’s Hivemind EP was released on NON and listed in Artforum’s “Best of 2016: Music.” MHYSA’s debut album fantasii was released on Halcyon Veil in 2017. In 2018, a live audio-visual MHYSA experience toured Europe and North America. The artist received an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and a BA in Art History with minors in English and Philosophy from Marymount Manhattan College in 2012. E. Jane lives and works in Philadelphia.
“I am not grappling with notions of identity and representation in my art. I’m grappling with safety and futurity. …The Black diva is an archetypal figure Black women dream through; she is a source of light, beauty, and healing through song.” — E. Jane
Naudline Pierre (b. 1989 in Leominster, Mass.) creates a mysterious alternate world in her paintings and drawings, in which recurring characters from a personal mythology touch, hold, caress, carry, watch, or hover over a protagonist who is the artist’s shadowy alter ego. Influenced by an upbringing that the artist describes as “puritanical Protestant,” her work is preoccupied with “apocalyptic messages, messages of sin and damnation, of purity and goodness, of blessings and humility, of shame and of guilt, interwoven with my own experiences.” Pierre holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and a BFA from Andrews University. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
Elliot Reed (b. 1992 in Milwaukee, Wisc.) is a performance artist who has committed himself to working with his own name, without make-up or costume, in an anti-theatrical practice in which “time is my material, and my embodied self is the medium.” Coming from what he describes as “a family of mathematicians,” he plans his performances by devising games and challenges for himself, then devises improvisatory methods to work through the “beats” for the duration of the work. Recent methods have included teaching gesture and vocal commands to audience members, hiring co-performers from Craigslist, hiding props, and borrowing the voices of others to read pre-written texts. Reed lives and works in Los Angeles.
THE NEW ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE beat great odds. According to the museum, more than 300 artists applied for the three positions—a selection rate of less than one percent. The Studio Museum has previously consulted with outside professionals who partner with museum staff to help to choose the artists. For the first time, the museum publicized this fact and announced the members of this year’s panel—Lumi Tan, curator at The Kitchen; Jasmine Wahi, founder and co-director at Project For Empty Space; and 2018–19 artist in residence Sable Elyse Smith.
“MOOD,” the three-artist show featuring Smith, Allison Janae Hamilton, and Tschabalala Self, the museum’s current artists in residence, is on view at MoMA PS1 through Sept. 8. For the first time in the history of the residency program, the show is being presented beyond the Studio Museum while its new building is constructed on its existing 125th Street site. The arrangement is part of a wider partnership between the Studio Museum and the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1. The 2019-2020 artists will also show their work at MoMA PS1 next summer.
“Part of the magic of the Artist-in-Residence program is the way it changes with the times and keeps the Studio Museum as a key innovator across creative practice,” said Legacy Russell, associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum.
“In form, subject matter, and concept, the diverse practices of our three artists in residence for 2019–20 are all on the cutting edge, expanding the canon and showing us what’s possible in art today and even giving us a glimpse of what art might be tomorrow.” CT
IMAGES: Top of page, NAUDLINE PIERRE, “Lead Me Gently Home,” 2019 (oil on canvas, 96 × 120 inches). | Courtesy the artist; Headshots: E. Jane. | Courtesy the artist; Naudline Pierre. Photo by Nathan Bajar; Elliot Reed. | Photo by Provvidenza Catalano
FIND MORE about E. Jane, Naudline Pierre, and Elliot Reed on their websites
BOOKSHELF
Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection are currently touring six museums around the county. “Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem,” a fully illustrated catalog was produced to accompany the show.
E. Jane
E. JANE, Installation view of “A Woman who loves other women,” 2016-2018 (digital print on satin, Swarovski crystal nail art rhinestones, fabric, gel medium, and love, 40 × 60 inches). | Courtesy the artist. Photo: Alan Dimmick Photography
E. JANE, “Sandra Bland is Not Alive and Someone is Responsible,” 2016 (Instagram post, Dimensions variable). | Courtesy the artist
E. JANE, Installation view of “Lavendra/Recovery Iteration No. 4,” 2018 (four-channel video installation, sound, light, and digital print on satin, Swarovski crystal nail art rhinestones, fabric, gel medium, milk crates, bubble wrap, and love). | Commissioned by Glasgow International. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Alan Dimmick Photography
Naudline Pierre
NAUDLINE PIERRE, “An Eternal Restlessness,” 2018 (oil on canvas, 28 × 26 inches). | Courtesy the artist
NAUDLINE PIERRE, “Hold Me This Way,” 2017 (oil and enamel on canvas, 54 × 53 inches). | Courtesy the artist
NAUDLINE PIERRE, “The Thrill of Affection,” 2018 (oil on canvas, 30 × 24 inches). | Courtesy the artist
Elliot Reed
ELLIOT REED, “I’ll Be here Unless I Don’t Need to Be (Until Then…),” 2018 (three hour performance). | Photo courtesy the artist
ELLIOT REED, “America’s Practice,” 2018 (one hour performance). | Photo courtesy the artist
ELLIOT REED, “America’s Practice (3),” 2018 (ne hour performance). | Photo courtesy the artist
