Books by Thelma Golden

Lorna Simpson (Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series)

by Suzan-Lori Parks, Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones

Photo-based artist and film-maker Lorna Simpson (b.1960) is considered to be one of the key representatives of African-American visual culture. Emerging in the 1980s, Simpson was, in 1993, the first African-American woman ever to show in the Venice Biennale and to have a solo exhibition in the 'Projects' series of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is also one of very few African-American artists ever to have exhibited at Documenta, as she did in both 1987 and 2002. Simpson's well-known fragmented photographs, combining images with fragments of text, create mysterious and quietly intriguing works that reflect the silence of a portion of society - African-American women - that is rarely if ever represented in art. She raises profound questions about how we represent, see and communicate with each other and ourselves.
Thelma Golden, Curator of Simpson's autumn 2002 exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, talks with the artist about the shift from her signature photographic work to more cinematographic and sculptural art. In her Survey, critic and scholar Kellie Jones places the work in the context of the history of African-American culture as well as the recent history of self-portraiture in art through photography and performance. Chrissie Iles, Curator of Simpson's film presentation at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002), analyses in her Focus the artist's filmworks. The artist's fragmentary use of speech is paralleled in her Artist's Choice, an extract from Top Dog/UnderDog by contemporary African-American playwright Suzan Lori Parks, and in her project notes included in her Artist's Writings.

Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art

by Thelma Golden, Thomas Lax, Antwaun Sargent, Jamillah James, Jessica Brown, Graham Boettcher, Connie H. Choi, Anthony Graham, Lauren Haynes, Hallie Ringle, Adeze Wilford, Gordon Dearborn Wilkins, Bernard Lumpkin

What’s new, now and next from contemporary Black artists
A New York Times 2020 holiday gift guide pick

This book surveys the work of a new generation of Black artists, and also features the voices of a diverse group of curators who are on the cutting edge of contemporary art. As mission-driven collectors, Bernard I. Lumpkin and Carmine D. Boccuzzi have championed emerging artists of African descent through museum loans and institutional support. But there has never been an opportunity to consider their acclaimed collection as a whole until now.

Edited by writer Antwaun Sargent (author of The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion), Young, Gifted and Black draws from this collection to shed new light on works by contemporary artists of African descent. At a moment when debates about the politics of visibility within the art world have taken on renewed urgency, and establishment voices such as the New York Times are declaring that “it has become undeniable that African American artists are making much of the best American art today,” Young, Gifted and Black takes stock of how these new voices are impacting the way we think about identity, politics and art history itself.

Young, Gifted and Black contextualizes artworks with contributions from artists, curators and other experts. It features a wide-ranging interview with Bernard Lumpkin and Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem; and an in-depth essay by Antwaun Sargent situating Lumpkin in a long lineage of Black art patrons. A landmark publication, this book illustrates what it means (in the words of Nina Simone) to be young, gifted and Black in contemporary art.

Artists include: Mark Bradford, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton, Pope.L, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Sadie Barnette, Kevin Beasley, Jordan Casteel, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Bethany Collins, Noah Davis, Cy Gavin, Allison Janae Hamilton, Tomashi Jackson, Samuel Levi Jones, Deana Lawson, Norman Lewis, Eric N. Mack, Arcmanoro Niles, Jennifer Packer, Christina Quarles, Jacolby Satterwhite, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Sable Elyse Smith, Chanel Thomas, Stacy Lynn Waddell, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Brenna Youngblood, and more.

All These Liberations Women Artists in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection

by Thelma Golden, Susan Cahan, Lorna Simpson, Lowery Stokes Sims

A dynamic look at the vast creative production of contemporary women artists from around the globe



A celebration of the work of women artists of color, this book explores the ways in which struggles for freedom and equality are deeply intertwined with shared feminist practices, art techniques and movements, and the notion of diaspora through the extraordinary collection of social activist and patron Eileen Harris Norton. Featuring work by Sonia Boyce, Maya Lin, Julie Mehretu, Shirin Neshat, Adrian Piper, Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and many others, All These Liberations draws out the intimate connections among artist, collector, and the social worlds that surround them. For nearly five decades, Harris Norton has championed both artists and curators of color, helping to reshape museum practice and the surrounding art market.



Essays in this volume by art historians and curators address vital political, social, and personal issues, as well as topics such as spirituality, domestic life, memory and historical trauma, the body, intimacy, power dynamics, and violence toward women. The book also features an interview with Harris Norton by Thelma Golden, director and chief curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem; a foreword by artist Lorna Simpson; and a roundtable conversation among leaders in the art world discussing Harris Norton's impact on their careers and on the careers of contemporary women artists globally.



Distributed for Marquand Books

Lorna Simpson

by Naomi Beckwith, Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones, Chrissie Iles

The most comprehensive and up-to-date monograph available on the work of celebrated artist Lorna Simpson, a trailblazer who continues to influence and inspire

Lorna Simpson is a multimedia artist known for her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. In 1993 Simpson was the first African-American woman ever to show in the Venice Biennale and to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

This landmark book documents Simpson's career in its entirety, up to her most recent work - Simpson's portrait of Rihanna for the January 2021 cover of Essence has been deemed as one of the most iconic fashion images ever made by a panel of experts in The New York Magazine.

In doing so, it sheds light on the remarkable path that Simpson paved to global critical acclaim and art-world stardom. The first edition of this sell-out volume has been thoroughly revised and updated, including a new essay by Guggenheim Deputy Director Naomi Beckwith.