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This week, New York\u2019s New Museum will open the posthumous exhibition of renowned curator Okwui Enwezor: \u201cGrief And Grievance: Art and Mourning in America.” The long-awaited showcase will be presented with support from the first Black chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum Naomi Beckwith, New Museum artistic director Massimiliano Gioni, artist Glenn Ligon, and curator Mark Nash.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrief and Grievance\u201d is described as an \u201cintergenerational exhibition\u201d featuring 37 artists across various mediums reflecting on their respective generations. From videos and photographs to paintings and sculptures, the exhibit will encompass artwork of the last decade along with new commissions to show the role of mourning and commemoration in parallel to the heightened prominence of racial tensions in America\u2019s political atmosphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From its conception, Enwezor envisioned the exhibition as his most personal and political curation. While Covid-19 delayed its opening (it was originally slated to open near the presidential election as a response to the nation\u2019s dilapidated democracy and the rise of policy weaponizing), it is still an important time for this work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the media\u2019s normalization of white nationalism, the last two years have made clear that there is a new urgency to assess the role that artists, through works of art, have played to illuminate the searing contours of the American body politic,\u201d Enwezor wrote in his initial narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The late curator believed that the concept of mourning transcends generational, social and economic boundaries to affect the reality of Black people in America at-large.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America\u2019 is a tribute to Okwui Enwezor\u2019s courage, relentless focus, and fierce intelligence as a giant in our field and one of the most important curators of his generation. His presence remains vivid, as does his legacy to transform the history of art and exhibition-making,\u201d Lisa Phillips of the New Museum said in a statement. \u201cOkwui’s vision and the voices of the artists selected for this exhibition could not be more relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrief and Grievance\u201d will open on February 17 and be on display through June 6.<\/p>\n