TNM Studios Feb 2023 Newsletter

So, what we are NOT going to do this year is remain silent...

a quick break from resetting the studio. it’s much cleaner + organized now fyi.

I’m back at it in the studio to tackle this year’s work. It feels good to be back on time. Last year had a catch-up feeling and this year is about bringing forth all that is new and not postponed. I'm fully back on a proper schedule, working towards the direction of the work that I have coming up for this year, some for next + a lot of research.

OUTTA THERE….

My artwork sitting in the largest crate ever, that magically appeared in my studio without my former gallery’s knowledge somehow - The Lover off the road (After Barbara), 1972-2021, featured in my exhibition in honor of Barbara Hammer Tell me there is a lesbian forever…

I recently announced that I left my gallery, and the responses were a bit hyped because I actually announced this earlier this year, on my IG stories to much quiet. Some people saw it, some people didn't. The announcement, again, was to provide even further clarity because I have a TON of work in motion and I had recently found out that this gallery had put my name back up on the website after last December when I requested that my name be removed from the list of represented artists. When I requested this last year, my name was removed in 24hrs which is why I moved on quietly. Fast forward to a week ago when I had a very random run-in with a fellow artist who mentioned that this gallery was trying to court them and that my name was back up on the website. I found this to be a weirdo move. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like when folks play with my name in any form.

Going public about this, to me, is not a big deal. To others, it may be an oddity because there is this bizarre culture of enduring wrong/suffering while remaining silent about poor treatment by these folks in this industry. I’m not with any of that, especially when it comes to my actual work/business at my age. I have serious things to do and I’ve been managing a LOT behind the scenes with many folks not knowing where to inquire about my works for everything from acquisitions, exhibits, and collecting for months now. I need any inquiries to come to me because I'm the only one that's handling them.

To be very clear, one last time, and because the art world can have the ahistorical memory of a goldfish at times, this was not a gallery that assisted in my career goals and successes in the past year. I was there for one year. This was not a gallery that created any opportunities of substantial value in relation to me and my work otherwise I would give credit where credit is due. When I came into the gallery at the end of 2021, I had seven (7) exhibits alongside acquisitions lined up for 2022. I wrote about this process extensively in the August 2022 Newsletter, so I will not rewrite that in full here. What I will share, however, is that when I came into the fold of the gallery and I shared with them that the work that I had on deck would continue to be managed through my studio, this left the gallery with a basic and extremely low impact opportunity to simply observe me and what I do, to see how my installations are installed, to witness how my work is handled and to ultimately discuss ambitions around future works that I have planned.

The kicker here is…aside from one really dedicated person at the gallery that showed up for me and my work every single time that I had something in play last year, no one else from that gallery came and saw those installations being installed. No one else came to try and understand what the makings of the work were in any real way or for a walkthrough with any of the shows to get a better understanding of how they function in any real way. A few things are of note here; when you join a gallery, you should join for the support of the team, not one person, and the gallery should work as a team with you. The head of that gallery should know what is going on in their gallery - PERIOD. Lastly, a gallery should know exactly where your inventory is and should be able to make you aware of where your inventory is at all times. PERIOD.

All things considered, I simply could not continue to have my name sitting up on their roster as the only Black woman artist. Allowing them to signal as if they were making shit happen; I’d had enough.

So now, all my remaining inventory is safe and sound with me at my studio as the consignment was closed out last Fall. The remaining inventory that I have is at 52 Walker as a result of my solo show MASK/CONCEAL/CARRY. Overall, I came in with what I had and left with that also, and a bit more. Onwards and upwards.

On the other side of the foolishness, I'm taking my time. I’m in no rush to jump into another gallery-based relationship unless is all the way RIGHT. I’m focusing on the work first and allowing myself to remain open to a situation where a team/gallery understands where I have worked myself up to and what it means to maintain the ambition/passion to push higher for some of the projects that I have that would benefit from that kind of support. Last year, I created a giant range of possibilities that I am eager to manifest moving forward. I'm not looking for a gallery/team to do much for me that I can't do for myself. I am only interested in a gallery/team that can exhibit real care and meet me with a certain amount of ability and willingness to crack new grounds with my practice, where my work can be shown, and some non-traditional things that I feel I would like to explore. In the meantime, I’m booked till 2025 and pushing the work and having some fun with things until that time comes.

Now for the studio…

Soul Bender, 2019

So what’s up for me this year? I have a solo exhibition + performance in Basel, Switzerland with a phenomenal curator in May, and group exhibitions that are institutional and gallery based throughout the year, and some acquisitions I will announce soon. I've thankfully created some much-needed space and time from saying a lot of no’s last year. I will participate in my first residency in many years, which will allow me real-time to fully recover from last year, research, and move on to some writing and slow work that I want to do. I'm still pushing and trying to shape some of the text that I'm doing with the Belkis Ayon piece, which is what I'm hoping that this time allows now that travel is much better in the countries I must travel to, to wrap things up.

I’m doing a great deal of leather-based work this year which excites me. Leather paintings, sculpture, and all else. I have an opportunity to maximize and explore some new techniques that I've developed with leather. It's a moment for me to reassess what I've done and how I can do things a little differently and dig deeper with this particular material, which I feel will be a consistent motif in my larger body of work. Leather provides the grounds to allow me to work through a lot of things related to my research and my life. I consider myself a leather woman in real life and the material holds a lot of potential for what it can hold historically, aesthetically and what it can push up against/what it can represent and ultimately challenge.

Teaching…

Black In Leather: Volume 1, No. 1. Winter 1994.

I am teaching my final class Black + Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture as a Princeton Arts Fellow at Princeton University. This course has me in the conservative media at the moment and I’ve been harassed online since last year when the exhibition was announced. The harassment has been light, but important to acknowledge it even if it is not anything worth entertaining. I’ve mostly ignored things and kept quiet to stay focused on work that I needed to wrap up at the end of last year.

I first taught this course back in 2019 when I was a Keith Haring Fellow at CCS Bard. The course was developed to support my own long-term research around a curatorial project that I've been working on for over five years now and that I planned to push forward in 2020. I wanted to bring this class back because I thought it was necessary to look at these materials again during this specific time in the shadow of the pandemic. When I taught the course the first time, I stated that I wasn't going to teach it again because I thought I would be able to move on to the curatorial project. Coming back to these materials, texts and teaching the course again is a way for me to take stock of what actually occurred during the pandemic, its effect on the community, and the disruption of that community.

The course looks at a large history of BDSM material culture through the centering of blackness, queerness, and material culture. The syllabus features scholarly work that's produced by some of the top Black scholars and it also features an intergenerational BDSM community of Black practitioners. It also allows for a deep reading of material culture produced by people who are members of the BDSM community who are Black and queer. I look at archival materials sourced from formal institutions to people's personal holdings that I've been able to tap into and research. I look at pop culture, media, architecture and how that has affected the community as well as mediated the output of material culture.

This course’s importance is not to be debated in a moment where the Leather/BSDSM aesthetic is being exploited with no regard or understanding whatsoever of what the core iconography means. In film, fashion, club culture, etc. I realized during the pandemic that the course would be even more relevant because much of the community has been compromised with the dissolution of architectural spaces + immuno-compromised members. I’m interested in acknowledging the history of this culture + community. The fragility of this archive is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Centering the Black BDSM/Leather community is crucial as we have often been ostracized from the larger community + even further marginalized in architectural-based spaces (Dungeons, Play parties, Conferences, etc).

Course Description: Black Queer BDSM material culture resists contextualization in relationship to biographical narratives because of the underground elements of the community. This course will explore the material culture of this community from three perspectives: Architecture + Location, Visual Artists and Exhibitions, and Black Queer BDSM communities with a significant research focus on finding and presenting new materials. We will consider the fragility of archival engagement with these communities by surveying existing BDSM archives in research libraries, community groups, and individuals and their personal ephemera.

In the class that I'm teaching, I'm often situating and thinking about the possibilities of the BDSM dungeon as an architectural space that allows us to consider how people of difference are able to gather in space and come together with one interest in engaging in their respective desires and fantasies. I’m interested in how that space is governed by this acknowledgment of the need for architecture as a sort of binding agreement, so therefore, people aim, in an ideal situation, to treat each other with particular respect.

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Press…

This was a good read. Translators and Alchemists: On the “Interpretive Style” in American Art

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Announcements + Exhibitions + Events + and all else…

My writing is featured in a range of publications that are being released that feature my writing, and I am embarking on more research for my own writing this year.

First up…I’m finalizing the prep for the new show at Conceptual Fade, which will focus on Black poetry + poets and feature a range of people reading their favorite poems. I've pulled all of the inventory from the NFS Library that is written by poets and features Black poetry, and they are going to be on display for a couple of months for people to come in and engage in the space. This presentation will evolve over the weeks to include readings that can be found online, as well as a range of different kinds of archival materials related to poetics + poetry across a range of intergenerational Black poets.

March 2^nd at Dia:Chelsea Chryssa & New York + Book Launch Opening 

I wrote a piece, Sans Titre, for the upcoming Chryssa & New York monograph in support of the exhibition that's going to be at Dia Chelsea that opens the first week of March. I write a short poetic essay looking at Chryssa's work alongside some of her peers.

Also releasing in March, I have a short piece in the artist Kevin Beasley's first-ever monograph, A View of A Landscape that looks at the range of the work that he's produced in his career so far. It's a gorgeous publication that I think is going to blow some minds and disrupt + transform the ideas of what a publication and monograph or artist like Kevin can be: he who traverses sculpture, performance, and has a music-informed practice.

March 16^th + 30th Upenn MFA AWAY FROM CENTER Exhibition at Atelier Art gallery. I am curating the Spring UPenn MFA thesis exhibition for the graduating cohort of students, it's titled Away From Center. UPenn’s MFA program centers on conceptual art practices. I’m back asVisiting Curator after serving as Visiting Critic last year.

AWAY FROM CENTER is split into Part I [Opening March 16] + Part II [Opening March 30th]. About the exhibition: The works in this exhibition explore structures and materials that defy first take legibility while refusing passive engagement. These works purposely obscure, reveal, grieve, and elaborate form as a malleable function. The exhibition structure will engage the viewer with an arrangement that presents the refusal of a singular gaze by employing a choreographic method of pivoting to regain a firm stance and position. In this exhibition, which unfolds in two parts, the artists employ various methods of pushing information away from the center to engage with the periphery as a means to imagine.

Rod Rodgers Dance Company sharing the publication in their Limited Edition Longsleeve T-Shirts

This Friday, Feb 24^th there'll be a private celebration for the writers who are featured in my publication for The Trace of An Implied Presence that will be held at Nike NYC headquarters. Poet/writer/critic Harmony Holiday, scholar Dr. Samantha N Sheppard, and scholar Dr. Jasmine E. Johnson all contributed wonderful essays to the publication. This will be a chance to give the writers an opportunity to be acknowledged, to share their work with their family and their friends, as well as the dancers, and everybody who put real work into the project as a whole.

Its Madame TNM - IYKYK…

April 20 – 23^rd I will serve as a Judge for International Ms. Leather 2023 during this year’s IMsLBB. This is an honor that I do not take lightly. I was set to serve as a judge back in 2020 but with the pandemic in full effect, things were delayed. In the years in between I supported the virtual presentations by sharing a selection of my work for the community to take in and view. I’m sharing this now for those that are interested so that you can secure registration as it fills up quite fast. The host hotel JUST sold out!

Art, Music, Films, + Videos…

Saint Omer Film Poster

Saw some great shows recently in London; Camden Art Centre – Mohammed Sami’s The Point 0 was a revelation on order and destruction + Tate Modern has beautiful install of MARIA BARTUSZOVÁ. I had never heard of this artist prior to viewing her body of work.

Isaac Julien’s new installation in honor of Lina Bo Bardi at PMA. I attended the opening + it was a great time.

Musically I’m here: My Old Flame – Sarah Vaughn, Naqi – Mansur Brown, Mark Hawkins – Fate Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy new album is a stunner. + C.FRIM | Boiler Room: Melbourne – energy in this set is INSANITY. Fave new DJ at the moment.

Watching: Your Honor – This show. My chest! They did the impossible with this season as I seriously felt they could not make another season after the last, yet here we are and it is something ELSE. The writing is nothing short of excellent. Saint Omer – Stunning. So much use is made of the silence and the lead is a revelation. Learn To Swim – GREAT music in this film. Also, oddly a great editing study.

Reading: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious by CG Jung, Psychoanalysis in Black Novels - by Claudia Tate, 100 Artist Manifestos. Re-reading Extravagant Abjection by Dariek Scott

GO EAGLES! - I have lived and worked in Philadelphia for over 15 years so this past year was an amazing one to watch at a distance as the majority of our sports teams made it to the playoffs – the Phillies, the Union soccer team, and the beloved Philadelphia Eagles ( Jalen Hurt is a class act!) who gave it all they had at this year’s Super Bowl. They almost had it if it weren’t for that bad call at the end but alas. Till next season!

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I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't. - Audre Lorde

I fear no one walking this earth…

And until next month, I'll see you.

xTNM