The last exhibition conceived by late curator Okwui Enwezor will open at New Museum

The New Museum in New York will open on next January 27 the exhibition “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America”, originally conceived by late curator Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019). 

The museum invited him to develop the concept for the exhibition already in 2018: Enwezor focused on black mourning in respect to white nationalism in American society, as expressed by different black artists. He also asked the artist Glenn Ligon to serve as an advisor to the exhibition. 

After the premature death of Enwezor in 2019, a group of friends and former collaborators of his took over the organisation of the exhibition. Among them, Glenn Ligon; Mark Nash, Professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz, and co-curator of many of Enwezor’s projects; Naomi Beckwith, the Manilow Senior Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, also in the jury of the 2015 Venice Biennale curated by Enwezor; and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director at the New Museum. They worked together to collect Enwezor’s legacy and accomplish his vision for the exhibition.

The result is an intergenerational exhibition featuring thirty-seven artists, working across different media and addressing the topic of racism in contemporary American society. Enwezor also expressed the will to open in proximity to the American presidential election, to react to Donald Trump’s racist politics. Although postponed due to the Covid-19 emergency, “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America” still holds its powerful message to American society.