Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Journalist Calvin Tomkins observed that the art world has a Before and an After, and the pivot is Thelma Golden. He wrote that when Golden “was a young curator in the '90s, her shows centering Black artists were unprecedented. Today, those artists are the stars of the art market.” Even before she became Director and Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Golden transformed the possibilities for Black artists, and brought the rest of us into her world. In this session, Thelma and her friend and colleague, Glenn Lowry, the longtime Director of the Museum of Modern Art, discuss how they have worked together– and separately– to bring more people of color into the museum world and how that has changed what we see and how we see it.
Journalist Calvin Tomkins observed that the art world has a Before and an After, and the pivot is Thelma Golden. He wrote that when Golden “was a young curator in the '90s, her shows centering Black artists were unprecedented. Today, those artists are the stars of the art market.” Even before she became Director and Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Golden transformed the possibilities for Black artists, and brought the rest of us into her world. In this session, Thelma and her friend and colleague, Glenn Lowry, the longtime Director of the Museum of Modern Art, discuss how they have worked together– and separately– to bring more people of color into the museum world and how that has changed what we see and how we see it.
