17 May 2021 6pm
ma ma | in residence invite curator, art historian, writer and organizer Chaédria LaBouvier to contribute a triptych work: a short, written introduction, clips of an unfinished film project, and a talk. All works will focus on interrogating what’s been called an art-world reckoning, and the cost and site of this foundation.
Admission to this online event is free; we encourage you to register in advance. Live captioning will be provided.
Chaédria LaBouvier is a curator, art historian, writer and organizer. She is the curator of Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story, held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2019. She is the first Black curator in the Guggenheim’s 80-year history, as well as the first Black woman, first person of Cuban descent to curate an exhibition at the museum, as well as the first Black author of a Guggenheim catalogue and the youngest independent curator to mount an exhibition. The exhibition was also Basquiat’s first in a major Manhattan museum in 26 years, and the first to bring the works of Michael Stewart to the public. As an organizer, LaBouvier crowdsourced $16,000 to give to activists across the United States during the George Floyd protests. She has been outspoken about the racism she experienced at the Guggenheim, which created space and inspired a generation of museum and gallery workers to begin speaking up about the toxicity within art world spaces. She is a founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, a former contributing writer for Elle, and graduate of Williams College and UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television.
ma ma is a curatorial collective and roving art space founded by Magdalyn Asimakis and Heather Rigg in 2018. ma ma is interested in how embodied experience and knowledge can be articulated in multiple media. They have curated several exhibitions and programs in Toronto–with local and international artists and curators–exploring how power structures and social infrastructures are built and navigated. They are currently working on two forthcoming publications: A Big Heritage With A Glorious Past (with Critical Distance Centre for Curators), and ma ma at The Table: A Diasporic Cookbook (with Art Metropole and Brittany Shepherd). More information about ma ma is available at mamaprojects.net.
SESSION is a project modelling itself after an incubator that invites cultural practitioners to engage with questions that emerge out of a given exhibition.
SESSION is made possible with Leading Support from TD Bank Group
