“Black Paris” Talk Series Comes to Five US States

In Atlanta, Alicia Knock will meet with important actors working to promote and archive Black and African American art, including director Cheryl Finley of the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective, curator Melissa Messina of the Mildred Thompson Estate, the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library at Emory University, and founding director Dr. Fahamu Pecou of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta.

This symposium takes place as a parallel event to Ming Smith: Jazz Requiem – Notations in Blue at The Gund at Kenyon College until December 15, 2024. Spanning the 1970s to the present day, this exhibition reflects on American artist Ming Smith’s early and formative years traveling in Europe and examines how these experiences have shaped her practice and continue to influence her more recent work.

During her groundbreaking career, Lois Mailou Jones traversed diverse cultural landscapes and artistic styles. Her engagement with the arts of Africa and the Caribbean began in 1930s Paris, a theme of the current exhibition Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939.

Jones’ art and legacy will be the focus of a conversation moderated by the exhibition curator, Robyn Asleson, with guest speakers Carol Rhodes Dyson, adjunct professor of art history at Howard University; Alicia Knock, curator in the Contemporary Creation and Prospective Department at the Centre Pompidou; and Christina-Kelly Grant, former Smithsonian American Art Museum fellow and Villa Albertine resident.

This event is a joint program of the National Portrait Gallery and Villa Albertine.

Join Villa Albertine for a talk on Paris as a site of refuge and transnational Black solidarity.
The conversation will feature Denise Murrell, curator of the The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Alicia Knock, curator of the upcoming Paris Noir exhibition at Centre Pompidou (Spring 2025), Paris, and Kimberly Gant, curator at Brooklyn Museum, in connection with her 2022-2023 traveling exhibition Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence & the Mbari Club. 

In retracing the period after World War II through the 1990s, the speakers will reflect upon the changing artistic, political, and personal strategies employed by Black artists between Africa, United States, and France, as they sought to navigate those decades of historical and artistic transformations.

In New Orleans, Alicia Knock’s itinerary includes a tour of Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration at the Historic New Orleans Collection and Williams Research Center In New Orleans, guided by curators Eric Seiferth and Libby Neidenbach, followed by a visit to the archives. Knock will also explore the Amistad Research Center, meeting with Director Kathe Hambrick, and will connect with Ebony Patterson, Co-Artistic Director of Prospect and MacArthur Genius Grant awardee, as well as tour the Joan Mitchell Center to engage with resident artists.

At Xavier University, she’ll meet with university leadership to discuss potential partnerships and host a discussion on curatorial practice with students from Xavier, Dillard, Loyola, and Tulane. Additionally, she may participate in a public discussion moderated by Anne-Collins Smith, alongside notable figures like Kim Vaz-Deville, Xavier professor of Education, co-curator of Quai Branly’s Black masking Indian exhibition, and Darryl Montana, Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters (pending confirmation).

Knock’s agenda includes visiting the Backstreet Cultural Museum, Musée f.p.c. (dedicated to New Orleans’ Free People of Color), and the New Orleans African-American Museum (all pending confirmation).