Perelman Auditorium
Perelman Building
Artists Jordan Casteel and Thomas J Price reflect on their work in the exhibition The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure in conversation with curator Ekow Eshun.
London-based curator and writer Ekow Eshun is the originating curator of The Time is Always Now. Jordan Casteel is a New York-based painter who depicts her surroundings through landscapes and portraits of her community in Harlem and the Hudson Valley. Multidisciplinary artist Thomas J Price, who lives and works in London, draws attention to the psychological states of his fictional characters in celebrated large-scale figurative sculptures.
Things to Know:
- This is a hybrid program. You can register either for the in-person event or register to watch it live via Zoom.
- There will be time for a Q&A at the end of the program.
- The program will be recorded. A link to the recording will be sent to everyone who registers for the virtual component of the program.
About the speakers:
Jordan Casteel’s figurative portraits and landscapes reveal our underlying temperaments with gestural brushwork and bold swaths of color. From the New York City subway and the streets of Harlem to the woodlands of Upstate New York, Casteel foregrounds the people of color who share a collective experience through a vantage point of self-reflection.
Casteel received her BA from Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, for Studio Art in 2011 and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (2014). Casteel was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2021. Casteel’s solo exhibition titled Field of view, curated by Lauren Haynes, is now on view through November 23, 2024 at the Hill Art Foundation in New York.
In 2020, Casteel presented a solo exhibition titled Within Reach at the New Museum, New York. Casteel’s work has also recently been included in exhibitions at institutions such as The Brooklyn Museum, NY (2024); The National Portrait Gallery, London (2024); The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MoCA) (2023); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2023); The Modern, Fort Worth (2022); The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (ICA) (2022); Minneapolis Institute of Art (2021); The Art Institute of Chicago (2021); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville (2021); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) (2021); San Francisco Museum of Art (SFMOMA) (2020); and MCA Chicago (2020).
In 2019, High Line Art commissioned a larger-than-life mural of The Baayfalls (2017).
Ekow Eshun is a writer, broadcaster, award-winning curator. Described by Vogue as ‘the most inspired - and inspiring - curator in Britain’, Eshun’s critically acclaimed exhibitions include In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery, for which he was awarded the Curatorial Prize 2023 by the Association for Art History, and the landmark The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, at the National Portrait Gallery, a major study of the Black figure and its representation in contemporary art.
He is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth, overseeing Britain’s foremost public art programme, and the former Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. He is the author of the memoir Black Gold of the Sun, which was nominated for the Orwell Prize for its exploration of race and identity/ and his writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Financial Times and The Guardian. He has contributed catalog essays on numerous artists including Mark Bradford, Kehinde Wiley, Chris Ofili, John Akomfrah, Deborah Roberts and Wangechi Mutu.
Thomas J Price’s multidisciplinary practice confronts preconceived attitudes towards representation and identity, foregrounding the intrinsic value of the individual and subverting structures of hierarchy. Celebrated for his large-scale figurative sculptures, Price draws our attention to the psychological embodiment of his fictional characters, highlighting nuanced understandings of social signifiers and predetermined value. Amalgamated from multiple sources, the works are developed through a hybrid approach of traditional sculpting and intuitive digital technology. Price balances methods of presentation, material and scale to challenge our expectations and provide cues for deeper human connection. He encompasses historic constructs with a newness that at first glance can go unnoticed, but that live in the public realm as silent totems for change.
Price was commissioned by Hackney Council to create the first permanent public sculptures to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants in the UK, unveiled in June 2022. His solo presentation, ‘Witness’, in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem was on view in Marcus Garvey Park from 2021 – 2022.
Born in 1981, Price lives and works in London. He studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London and has held solo exhibitions at institutions including: Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; The National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; MAC, Birmingham, UK; Royal College of Art, London, UK; Harewood House, Leeds, UK; and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK.