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Linda Goode Bryant in "Friends & Strangers"Descriptive Audio
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Standing amid brick buildings and concrete roads, artist Linda Goode Bryant works the land, supplying underserved communities with plant-based food through Project EATS, which she founded. Her work in institution-building began long before Project EATS. In 1972, the artist moved to New York City and began working at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she spoke to Black artists who continually expressed feeling shut out of the art world. In response, Goode Bryant said, “Let’s just do it ourselves,” and the Just Above Midtown (JAM) gallery emerged from that decision. Committed to showing the work of Black artists and other artists of color alongside white artists, the gallery aimed not to replicate the discrimination of other institutions at the time. Choreographing the community that gathered at JAM was a part of Goode Bryant’s artistic practice, bringing artists from across the city and the country to participate in the project, liStanding amid brick buildings and concrete roads, artist Linda Goode Bryant works the land, supplying underserved communities with plant-based food through Project EATS, which she founded.ke New York City–based artists Janet Olivia Henry and Randy Williams and West Coast artists Senga Nengudi, Houston Conwill, and David Hammons. Goode Bryant made a space for experimentation in Black and contemporary art and became home to vital conversations, like the explosive opening of David Hammons’s Greasy Bags and Barbeque Bones at JAM.
Artist Maren Hassinger recollects that money was not the objective at JAM, but instead, the goal was that artists would make new and extraordinary work. The community gathered at JAM catalyzed artists to develop new and better art, as observed by artist and choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones. Currently, Goode Bryant leads Project EATS, a New York City–based urban farming nonprofit with six farms growing plant-based food for communities without access to locally grown foods. At Project EATS, communities gain access to produce and learn how to farm themselves. Forty years after JAM first opened, Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces opened at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition charts the sixteen years JAM was open, bringing together a suite of groundbreaking works exhibited at JAM and working to bring its radical spirit into the institution. “I could really, really, really look up and see the elders sitting in the rafters and say, ‘Y’all did it. We’re here. We’re in the infrastructure of this mofo now.’ And I like that.” says Goode Bryant. “Because we should be. We should’ve been. And we are.”
More information and creditsCredits
Executive Producer: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Nick Ravich. Director: Chiemi Karasawa. Editors: Mary Ann Toman, Lynn True. Cinematography: Sam Cullman. Archival Producer: Leah Ford. Associate Producer: Andrea Chung. Assistant Curator: Jurrell Lewis. Design & Animation: Ryan Carl, Nikita Iziev. Composer: Andrew Orkin. Additional Photography: Nick Curran, Jane Macedo Yang, Carla Mejia. Assistant Camera: Isa Fernandez, Bailey Lica, Colin Morris. Location Sound: Genna Edwards, Robert La Rosa, Steve Lopez, Fiona Mcbain, Eric Perez. Advising Producer: Ian Forster.
Additional Art21 Staff: Lauren Barnett, Hannah Degarmo, Lolita Fierro, Joe Fusaro, Molaundo Jones, Emma Nordin, Anna Pruett, Jessica Svenson, Noor Tamari, Nora Wimmer.
Production Assistant: Danica Drezner. Video Post-Production Services: Cut + Measure. Video Post-Production Producer: Alex Laviola. Colorist: Chris Ramey. Online & Conform: David Gauff. Additional Video Editors: Addison Post, Adam Varca. Additional Animation: Andy Cahill. Audio Post-Production Sound Services: Konsonant Post. Re-Recording Mixer: Gisela Fullà-Silvestre. Sound Editor: Ben Kruse. Assistant Editors: Ellen Askey, Stephanie Cen, Michelle Hanks. Additional Research: Susan Thompson. Station Relations: De Shields Associates. Legal Counsel: Franklin Weinrib Rudell + Vassallo.
Interns: Stephanie Ades, Sekou Cherif, Yeon Cho, Michaela Esteban, Emma Flood, Amber He, Emma Kanne, Carina Martinez, Renee Rienecker, James Santiago, Dani Wieder.
Artwork Courtesy: Linda Goode Bryant; Willie Birch, “Woman Feeding Child” (1983), Part Of The “Solid State Series;” Elizabeth Catlett, © 2023 Mora-Catlett Family / Licensed By Vaga At Artists Rights Society (Ars), NY; Valerie Maynard, © 2023 Estate Of Valerie J. Maynard / Artists Rights Society (Ars), New York; Betye Saar, “Fragments” (1976) / Courtesy Of The Artist And Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.
Archival Materials: African American Performance Art Archive, American Museum Of Folk Art, Baltimore Museum Of Art, Adam Avila, Dawoud Bey, Sydney Blum, Dwight Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White Archives, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Coreen Simpson Photography, Krista Dibernardo-Williams, Austin Donohue, Meg Eginton, Estate Of Houston Conwill, Robert Gerhardt, David Hammons, Hatch Billops Collection, Hauser & Wirth, Palmer Hayden, Jane Comfort And Company, Dr. Kellie Jones, Philip Mallory Jones, Kinolibrary, George Klass, La Modern, Lawrence D. Morris Estate, Lorna Simpson Studio, Mark Liflander, Jeff Morgan, The Museum Of Modern Art, Senga Nengudi, Nys Office Of General Services, Harmon Outlaw, Herb Perr, Rago/Wright, Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds, Ryan Lee Gallery, Sean Kelly, New York, The Studio Museum In Harlem Archives, Susan Inglett Gallery, Russ Thompson, Vaga/Ars, Doug Vann, Wendy Ward Elhers, Faythe Weaver, John Wronn.
Special Thanks: The Art21 Board Of Trustees, Susan Block, Laura Coxson, Ramon Ariel De Los Santos, Michelle Elligott, Maren Hassinger, Janet Olivia Henry, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Marielle Ingram, Keith Jackson, T Lax, Media Mavens, Meg Montgoris, Sam Nichols, Jared Michael Nickerson, Cole Palatini, Ryan Pattie, Project EATS, Randy Williams.
Major underwriting for Season 11 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, Lambent Foundation, The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis, Robert Lehman Foundation, and Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman.
Series Creators: Susan Dowling and Susan Sollins.
©2023 Art21, Inc.
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