Nandi Guillaume, Opening of Black Artists in the New York Scene. The Daily World, September 10, 1974. Image courtesy of Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives. © The Daily World.
Public Opening Reception: November 7, 6—8pm
Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery
Hunter West Building
132 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065
Please join us for a reception on Thursday, November 7 from 6-8pm RSVP HERE.
All HCAG programs are free and open to public. Please let us know if you have accessibility concerns or questions and we will be happy to help. Email: hcag@hunter.cuny.edu.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Founded by artists Nigel Jackson and Patricia Grey in 1969, Acts of Art was first located at 31 Bedford Street and later moved to 15 Charles Street in the West Village. In 1971, the gallery mounted Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition’s strategic response to the Whitney’s concurrent Contemporary Black Artists in America. That same year, the gallery hosted the inaugural exhibition of the Black women artists collective Where We At. Before Acts of Art closed in 1975, it presented one- and two-person exhibitions by twenty-six different artists, and numerous group exhibitions. Acts of Art in Greenwich Village centers Acts of Art and its director’s curatorial vision, tracing the gallery’s exhibition history as it intersects with other histories of Black art and artists in New York—and with formations like the BECC, Where We At, and the Weusi Artists. Installed in Hunter College’s Leubsdorf Gallery, the exhibition features artworks from the late 1960s and 1970s by fourteen artists with close ties to the gallery, a number of which were first shown at Acts of Art.
Curated by Howard Singerman, Phyllis and Joseph Caroff Professor of Art History, with Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, and with MA and MFA students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate Seminar.
Curatorial fellows: Eve Arballo, Kelis George, and Nicolas Poblete. MA and MFA Students: Ansley Browning, Karewith Casas, Erin Chase, Brianna Golub, Yayun Deng, June Kitahara, Laura Luo, Sondra McGill, Chloe Ming, Mary Lisette Morris, Grace Sanabria.
This exhibition is made possible by the Leonard A. Lauder Exhibition Fund Endowment. The exhibition's catalog has been supported by a grant from the Wolf Kahn Foundation and the Emily Mason and Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation on behalf of artists Emily Mason and Wolf Kahn.
