UPTOWNflavor

The Studio Museum in Harlem – 144 W. 125 St, New York NY
14 November – 9 March 2008

At Kori Newkirk’s retrospective at the Studio Museum in Harlem, there is a clever neon sign installed. It reads “TAKE WHAT YOU CAN.”

Newkirk is keenly aware that “YOU” will deeply shape how you approach his work. Beyond the individual subjectivity of each viewer, it is a plain fact that black art intrinsically means something very different to the African Diaspora than it does to any other group. To approach any work that hangs at the Studio Museum in Harlem is to enter into the land of double meanings. Your commentator is certainly not going to claim the transcendent authority to see this art through both black and white eyes, or alternatively that it can be viewed in a color blind manner. The very act of visiting Harlem and walking through the Studio Museum’s door engages the viewer in the ongoing question of race and how art explores it. To pretend otherwise would run the dangerous risk of decontextualizing the work. Newkirk tells the viewer to take what you can, knowing that everyone will take away something different.

Read the whole article on ArtCal.net