Q&A moderated by Phyllis Hollis, the founder and host of Cerebral Women Art Talks.
The idea for RING THE ALARM… A Conversation with series Renee Cox began with discussions on an exhibition of Black Artists that Renee Cox will be curating for the summer of 2023.
“Guild Hall is very excited to present this first installment of Ring the Alarm for 2021. We believe now more than ever that the need for open dialogue on art, race and politics is timely and something that we as a community at large need to engage in more. The response to the first 2 talks with Derrick Adams and Sanford Biggers was truly inspiring and we plan to continue this series of conversations leading up to the 2023 Summer exhibition that Renee Cox will guest curate.” –Christina Mossaides Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator
-
Shinique Smith
Shinique Smith is a Los Angeles based painter and sculptor known for her monumental abstractions of calligraphy textiles and collage. Smith’s personal histories and belongings intertwine with thoughts of the vast nature of ‘things’ that we consume and discard and how objects resonate on an intimate and social scale. Over the last twenty years, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from vintage clothing and explored concepts of ritual through tying, writing and gestures inspired by her travels and her early graffiti roots in Baltimore. Through her process, Smith builds a complex material vocabulary that deftly interweaves brushstrokes, private narratives and symbolism for the viewer to divine and intuit. Smith’s practice operates at the convergence of consumption, displacement and spiritual sanctuary, revealing connections across space, time, and place to suggest the possibility of constructing worlds renewed by hopeful delight.
She has exhibited over 20 solo presentations at institutions such as California African American Museum, The Frist Center, MOCA North Miami, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Studio Museum in Harlem. Her exuberant works are featured in many prestigious collections including Baltimore Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Art Institute, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Whitney Museum. In 2020, Smith was awarded a Tufts Alumni Travel Fellowship and she has also received awards from Joan Mitchell Foundation Tiffany Foundation and Anonymous Was a Woman among others. Smith earned her BFA and MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art where she was also awarded the Alumni Medal of Honor.
-
Renée Cox
Renée Cox is a visual artist, working foremost in photography and video. Her work arises at this intersection of history, race theory, and sexuality. In her practice, Cox works to deconstruct stereotypes, engage the viewer and to challenge their preconceived ideas about gender and race. She explores the possibilities of new and affirming self-representations for Black diasporic peoples as a visual corrective to both art history and history writ large—transforming dispossession into self-possession. By deconstructing the Black female body, she reveals the myths behind it.
Cox began her career as a commercial photographer, working for Condé Nast, and the music and film industries. She turned to fine art after receiving an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1992. Since then, Cox has worked as a visual artist, educator, curator, lecturer, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine. The Archives of American Art (Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.) acquired Cox’s personal archive in 2019.
Renée Cox (b. Colgate, Jamaica) lives and works in Harlem, NY and Amagansett, East Hampton. Her work is included in several institutional collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Princeton Art Museum.
Photo: Renée Cox
-
Phyllis Hollis
Phyllis Hollis is currently an independent trustee of a NASDAQ traded REIT (DHC) and on non-profit boards of leading art organizations offering Finance, Investment, and Strategic Planning, and Digital Marketing expertise. She was previously the President/CEO of a boutique Broker-Dealer/ Investment bank.
She has more than thirty years’ experience in the financial services industry. Hollis began her career in technology working for IBM as a Systems Engineer and later transitioned to the financial services industry working for Salomon Brothers in Mortgage Sales and Trading. In 1994, Hollis became a co-founder of the first TFI focused minority investment bank supported by Merrill Lynch, a strategic partner.
In early 2020, during the onset of the pandemic, Hollis established 'Cerebral Women Arts Talks', a podcast promoting underrepresented Artists and Art Professionals.
She is an executive committee member of the MoMA Black Arts Council and previously a trustee of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and the School of Visual Art Alumni Society.
