London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner has been tapped to curate the sixteenth iteration of the Museum of Modern Art’s Artist’s Choice exhibition series. The designer will select fifty works from the New York institution’s collection which will appear in the museum’s galleries from 18 of November.
Wales Bonner has settled upon the theme “Spirit Movers,” which the designer has said is meant to evoke multiple histories, inspire contemplation, and conjure new connections between people and places. The exhibition will center Black cultural and aesthetic practices inspired by the African diaspora and will feature works by artists including Terry Adkins, Moustapha Dimé, David Hammons, Agnes Martin, Man Ray, and Betye Saar.”Spirit Movers” will be accompanied by a catalogue placing works in conversation with seminal texts by Black authors of the past century, among them Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
Wales Bonner curated her first institutional exhibition, “A Time for New Dreams,” in 2019 at London’s the Serpentine Gallery. She is lead researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
“It is an immense honor to engage with the artists and works in MoMA’s collection, and I wish to extend my deepest thanks to the museum for allowing me the space to create so freely,” said Wales Bonner. “I hope the exhibition and associated publication resound with the spirit of the contributing artists and continue to conjure new dreams and new visions.”