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Studio Museum in Harlem Announces Fall/Winter 2012–13 Season

The Studio Museum in Harlem is proud to announce the Fall/ Winter 2012–13 season, featuring Fore and Gordon Parks: A Harlem Family 1967, both on view November 8, 2012 to March 10, 2013. Juxtaposing new work in diverse media with iconic mid- twentieth century photography, Fore and Gordon Parks together exemplify the breadth of the Studio Museum’s mission.

Fore is the highly anticipated fourth installment of the Studio Museum’s “F” series, which includes Freestyle (2001), Frequency (2005–06) and Flow (2008). Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden conceived of Freestyle in 2000, recognizing a need to both invest in the presentation of emerging artists of African descent and identify the diverse themes and ideas these artists were working with at the beginning of new century. Freestyle and its successors launched an international debate about the terms of black art, as well as the careers of many artists.

Like its popular and critically acclaimed predecessors, Fore is a non-thematic group presentation reflecting a multitude of ideas, approaches and processes. Featuring twenty-nine emerging artists of African descent living and working in the United States, the exhibition brings a new generation into the forefront of visual and critical dialogue.

The artists in Fore embrace a wide range of media and draw from a number of art-historical strategies, including realist painting, site-responsive projects and incorporation of found objects and materials. Reflecting the artistic, cultural and social changes that have occurred locally and nationally over the past five years, many work in performative, socially- engaged and time-based media; others bring twenty-first- century perspectives to traditional media, including painting, sculpture and drawing.

“The ‘F’ series is so important to the Studio Museum because it continues our founding mandate to present new, innovative, and experimental work and to respond directly and immediately to the creative climate of the artistic community,” says Golden. “Fore will offer a wide, encompassing and honest view of an incredibly exciting group of young artists.”

Organized by Assistant Curators Lauren Haynes and Naima J. Keith and Exhibition Coordinator and Program Associate Thomas J. Lax, Fore reflects the collaborative vision and individual voices of three emerging curators, and continues the Studio Museum’s commitment to reimagining and redefining exhibitions of contemporary art. Fore will occupy and activate multiple spaces in the Museum, embracing performances, screenings, lectures and conversations as integral parts of the exhibition. In conjunction with Fore, the Studio Museum will publish a catalogue including full-color reproductions, essays by Haynes, Keith and Lax and a biography and commissioned essay by an emerging critic, curator or art historian for each artist.

For more information visit studiomuseum.org