Black Icons of Art: Thelma Golden and Rujeko Hockley
Black Icons
Thelma Golden and Rujeko Hockley
R: courtesy of the guest, L: Jody Rogac
Overview
WNYC’s Rebecca Carroll sits down for an intimate and unfiltered conversation with Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Rujeko Hockley, assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, for the launch of Black Icons of Art — a new limited series.
The pair will talk to Rebecca about their experiences growing a beloved Harlem institution, cultivating diversity at historically white institutions and their thoughts on what lies ahead for the art world.
About the Series
In Black Icons of Art, Rebecca Carroll sits down with some of the art world’s most influential Black creators, thinkers and curators. Artists and critics will reflect on their creative processes, their career journeys and the unique struggles they faced breaking into the art world. Rebecca previously hosted a limited series on Black Icons of Podcasting, featuring some of the podcasting world’s most influential Black hosts and producers.
A champion for underrepresented artists, Thelma Golden has received acclaim for her decades-long career from the Obama Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Ford Foundation. A recent LA Times profile described her as “trailblazing” and “chang[ing] the face of art all over the U.S.”
Rujeko Hockley came up under Thelma Golden’s tutelage, beginning her career at the Studio Museum and establishing herself as a cultural force at the Brooklyn Museum. Culture magazine named her one of 10 Young Curators to Watch in 2016. After starting at the Whitney in 2017, Hockley co-curated the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the first to feature primarily female and minority artists.