Naomi Beckwith, Massimiliano Gioni, Glenn Ligon and Mark Nash discuss ‘Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America’
New Museum presents ‘Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America’, an exhibition originally conceived by Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019) for the New Museum, and presented with curatorial support from advisors Naomi Beckwith, Massimiliano Gioni, Glenn Ligon, and Mark Nash. “Grief and Grievance” will be an intergenerational exhibition, bringing together thirty-seven artists working in a variety of mediums who have addressed the concept of mourning, commemoration, and loss as a direct response to the national emergency of racist violence experienced by Black communities across America. The exhibition will further consider the intertwined phenomena of Black grief and a politically orchestrated white grievance, as each structure defines contemporary American social and political life. ‘Grief and Grievance’ will comprise works encompassing video, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, sound, and performance made in the last decade, along with several key historical works and a series of new commissions created in response to the concept of the exhibition.
The curatorial roundtable was hosted during the opening week of ‘Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America’. The conversation included Naomi Beckwith, Manilow Senior Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum, Glenn Ligon, artist, and Mark Nash, Professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz. The conversation convened all four curatorial advisors’ friendships and professional relationship with Okwui Enwezor.
