This n' That: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash

By Samuel Stone

9/11 Tribute in Light sends powerful beams skywards after earlier cancellation

After being cancelled exactly one month ago due to public health concerns regarding COVID-19, the Tribute in Light memorial was reinstated by Governor Andrew Cuomo in cooperation with state health officials, who provided personnel and supervision in order to ensure the safety of those tasked with the installation of the tribute. The decision was reached after a nationwide outcry against its cancellation.

The twin beams of light—generated by eighty-eight vertical spotlights assembled atop the Battery Park Garage six blocks from One World Trade Center—soar roughly four miles upwards and can be seen from approximately sixty miles away. This past Friday marked the nineteenth anniversary of the September 11th attack on the Twin Towers. In remembrance of those who perished, the Tribute in Light was activated as originally planned, and shone brilliantly until dawn.

Photo by Matthieu Joannon on Unsplash

Metropolitan Museum of Art hires its first-ever full-time Native American curator

Patricia Marroquin Norby has been brought on as Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Met, an appointment which marks the first time that the 150-year-old museum has hired an indigenous American person. Dr. Norby is scheduled to join the staff of the American Wing of the museum tomorrow.

Prior to this appointment, Dr. Norby held roles such as Senior Executive and Assistant Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, and Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at The Newberry in Chicago.

Her credentials include a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an MFA in printmaking and photography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has also taught courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in American Indian Studies and Native American art at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The author of numerous publications, Dr. Norby’s latest is a book entitled Water, Bones, and Bombs, which is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press.

© The Studio Museum in Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem names its ’20-’21 artists-in-residence

Though temporary closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Studio Museum in Harlem—dedicated to “work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture”—has named Widline Cadet, Texas Isaiah, Genesis Jerez, and Jacolby Satterwhite as its artists-in-residence for the upcoming year. The eleven-month residency, typically awarded to only three artists each year, includes a studio space and stipend for each recipient, who are all expected to work in the space for a minimum of twenty hours per week, and who will display their work in exhibition at the end of the program.

Ms. Cadet is an award-winning Haitian-born artist currently working in New York. She received a BA in studio art from The City College of New York and an MFA from Syracuse University. Her multimedia approach to visual art “explores notions of visibility and hypervisibility, black feminine interiority, and selfhood.”

Mr. Isaiah is an award-winning, Brooklyn-born artist currently splitting his time between Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York. His work, which has been displayed in exhibitions across the country, “attempt[s] to shift the power dynamics rooted in photography to display different ways of accessing support in one’s own body.”

Bronx-born Ms. Jerez, who currently lives and works in New York, received her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology and was the 2019 Resident at the BronxArtSpace. She employs a multimedia method in order “to create a new counter-archive and narrative of her upbringing.”

And Mr. Satterwhite, born in Columbia, South Carolina and currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. His artistic practice “address[es] crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality, and fantasy through immersive installations, virtual reality, and digital media.”