iThe Studio Museum in Harlem · Harlem
Tone
A group show of nineteen artists — including Roy DeCarava, Kerry James Marshall and Lorna Simpson — exploring tone, from black to white and every value between, as an expressive material language.
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Kerry James Marshall wouldn't let white be the brightest thing in his photograph. In Naomi he saturates the shadows with blue-black and replaces the whites with tints of purple, so even the light comes out violet. Glenn Ligon goes the other way, mixing coal dust into Stranger #86 for a field of near-total black, titled after James Baldwin's essay.
Everything here comes from the Studio Museum's own collection: about twenty works in black, white and the values between, from an undated daguerreotype to an embossed paper piece Chiffon Thomas made this year. Not all of it is photography. You also get Larry Walker in charcoal, a Chris Ofili silkscreen, a Yiadom-Boakye oil and a Paul Anthony Smith drawn in graphite on stoneware. Zanele Muholi's self-portrait was made on 116th Street, nine blocks south, if you want to see it in colour afterwards.
No critic has reviewed it yet. Admission is pay-what-you-can ($16 suggested), free on Sundays and for under-16s, and the museum stays open until 9pm on Fridays.
Look for
Kerry James Marshall, Naomi
Look at the highlights: Marshall swapped the photograph's whites for tints of purple and soaked the shadows in blue-black.
Glenn Ligon, Stranger #86
Coal dust mixed into oil stick and gesso builds a field of very dark black, from a series named after Baldwin's "Stranger in the Village".
An unidentified daguerreotype
A seated Black woman with a steady gaze, her dark dress and pale scarf on a silver plate that tarnish has turned warm sepia.
Gary Simmons, Lean / To
A wooden shack drawn in black lines of different weights, then smudged and erased with cartoon speed lines so it seems to be disappearing.
Lorna Simpson, Appeared
Figures from 1950s to 1970s Ebony and Jet hair ads surface and recede through washes of three different blues, alongside her recurring iceberg.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want colour: apart from Marshall's violet and Simpson's blues, it is black, white and grey.
With kids
Admission is free for children 16 and under.
Also at The Studio Museum in Harlem
On now nearby
Image credits
5
- TonePhoto: Kris Graves
- Anna Maria Maiolino. ANNA—And the Infinite LineCourtesy of Hauser & Wirth
- Common SenseCourtesy of Brooklyn Museum
- Luminous ColorCourtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum
- The Studio Museum in Harlem19h00s, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0