Antwaun Sargent Named New Director At Gagosian Gallery

ANTWAUN SARGENT, CURATOR AND DIRECTOR, GAGOSIAN: Yes, I mean, I think what was important is, you have a group of 12 artists. So, it was really sort of thinking about the different ways that black artists are engaging spaces, right? And so you have David, who’s obviously thinking spatially in terms of architecture, but then you have also other artists like Carrie Mae Weems, who’s thinking about sort of her relationship to space through a series of photographs, where she sort of juxtaposes herself to monuments and to public squares. And so we can consider the ways in which the black body is represented and treated and mistreated in those spaces, right? And so, throughout the show, you really have a dynamic mix of artists really sort of thinking about how black people, blackness is sort of considered in our public and private spaces. Another artist in the exhibition is Rick Lowe. And his painting, which is behind me, really sort of thinks about Black Wall Street, right, the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma, race massacre, right? We’re on the centennial of that, right? And so through his abstract use of colors, red and green and blue and black and white, he’s really sort of thinking about the history, trying to conjure not only the violence, but also the profound economic loss, and also the ways in which folks in that community of Greenwood have sought to rebuild and have sought to sort of make the country remember that massacre, remember that moment in our history.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And the president has just said that it will be a national day of memorial. And that means times are changing. And I just want to ask you, because, reading for this interview, come across the name Linda Goode Bryant, who was an artist, a filmmaker, et cetera. And, in the ’70s, she had tried maybe a different version of what you’re trying to do, to lease space in Manhattan to showcase the work of black artists. And she famously says she got one of two responses from agents and landlords, a hung-up phone or a string of racist remarks, followed by a hung-up phone. Well, it’s taken nearly 50 years for you to make your spaces. Are times changing, or is it still going too slowly? Compare you and Linda.