Please note that this event is currently at capacity. Beginning at 5PM, we will begin an on-site waitlist for unclaimed tickets. Unclaimed tickets will be released at 5:45 PM to on-site waitlist guests in order of arrival.
The program will begin shortly after. If you already have a confirmed ticket for this event through Eventbrite, we encourage you to arrive early to check-in.
Thursday, May 11, 2023
6PM—7PM
169 Henry Street | New Haven, CT 06511
NXTHVN Aula
It is a great pleasure to announce our annual Keynote Conversation on May 11th. We are honored to have internationally recognized artist Amy Sherald in conversation with Allison Glenn, Co-Curator of the Counterpublic Triennial 2023. Amy Sherald is best known for her grayscale portraits of First Lady Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, with her paintings being held in collections throughout the world. During the conversation, Amy Sherald and Allison Glenn will discuss a survey of work created throughout Sherald’s career, including paintings from her recent solo exhibition The World We Make at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in London.
Please register here to attend this free, in-person event. Tickets will be available on a first come first serve basis. Doors open at 5:30PM.
A recording of the conversation will be available on our website in the weeks following the program.
ABOUT AMY SHERALD
Born in Columbus, Georgia, and now based in the New York City area, Amy Sherald documents contemporary African American experience in the United States through arresting, otherworldly figurative paintings. Sherald engages with the history of photography and portraiture, inviting viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of race and representation, and to situate Black life centrally in American Art.
Sherald received her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and BA in painting from Clark Atlanta University. Sherald was the first woman and first African American to receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; she is also recipient of the 2017 Anonymous Was A Woman Award and the 2019 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award. In 2018, Sherald was selected by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait commission for the National Portrait Gallery. Sherald’s work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC. In October 2022, Sherald presented her first solo exhibition in London.
ABOUT ALLISON GLENN
Allison Glenn is a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, special projects, and major new commissions by a wide range of contemporary artists. She is one of the curators for the Counterpublic 2023 triennial, running April 15-July 15, 2023 in St. Louis, presenting the work of Sir David Adjaye OM OBE, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Maya Stovall, in collaboration with The Griot Museum of Black History and the George B. Vashon Museum.
Glenn received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the 2021 groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance an exhibition that reflected on the life of Breonna Taylor, centered on her portrait painted by Amy Sherald. The New York Times selected the exhibition as one of the Best Art Exhibitions of 2021. Her writing has been featured in catalogs published by The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Prospect New Orleans, Princeton Architectural Press, Studio Museum in Harlem, California African American Museum, Kemper Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and she has contributed to Artforum, ART PAPERS, Hyperallergic, Fresh Art International, ART21 Magazine, and Gulf Coast Quarterly, amongst others. She was listed on the 2022 ArtNews Deciders list and the 2021 Observer Arts Power 50 List.