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Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, knew she wanted to work in art from a young age. In college, she double-majored in art history and African American studies; she understood that what she’d been taught was incomplete, because art by Black people was mostly absent from her assigned reading. In the academic world, few people taught Golden anything about Black art, but she had grown up with it, and immersed herself in studying it. At 26, she became the Whitney’s first Black curator. The shows she worked on were unprecedented—and sometimes controversial. But “what the critics missed was that contemporary art was changing, radically and permanently, from a mostly white, high-culture enterprise to something far more diverse and unpredictable,” Calvin Tomkins writes. “Most of the artists in Golden’s shows at the Whitney have become prominent in a transformed art world where, now that the blinders are off, there is no doubt about the importance and centrality of their work in America’s cultural history.” “When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a curator,” Golden told Tomkins. “I understood that my time was never my own, it had to make sense for others. It had to open up space for others. But I feel that I am where I want to be, doing exactly what I am meant to be doing.” At the link in our bio, read a profile of the curator and museum director who has played a critical role in desegregating the art world. Photograph by @lyleashtonharris for The New Yorker.

February 11, 2024