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 RP: When the HBO documentary looked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Harlem on my Mind show, and they interviewed [Met curator and director] Thomas Hoving, there was a part of me that said okay now we're going to cut over to Lowery Stokes Sims, who was not there at that exact moment. But she pops up shortly thereafter and is this formidable key curator and thinker in New York City during this time period. One would have hoped that the filmmakers would have found a way to have Lowery’s insight around what it means to be a curator at an institution that, at least in the ’70s and ’80s, really didn't have any kind of deep investment in African-American art. Yet she pushed and prodded the various directors and others to acquire work in a yeoman-like way.

T.S.: Can you name one other exhibition that's been pivotal, influential and sort of changing the game in the last 30 years?

R.P.: Kongo: Power and Majesty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015. When they did that Kongo show they really did their homework. They told a story of a Black diasporic moment that spanned centuries of interaction between Europe and Central Africa, the fusion of Christianity and traditional African beliefs. They were able to borrow all of those fantastic Nikisi Nkondis. The Kongo show was a fresh, brilliant and delightful immersion for me into an aspect of the African diasporic visual experience, a very narrow one, looking at Congo.

T.S.: What do you see as the primary opportunities and challenges for young scholars, curators and practitioners going forward, in this moment?

R.P.: I would say that what faces the young scholar is the charge to really make an impact. I would argue that to make an impact one should go for the tough road, as opposed to the easy road. The easy road is to kind of put your ear to, not the ground, but to your computer, and to see all the faddish and hip stuff that's happening, and you do your version of that. I remember Kerry James Marshall saying this in the auditorium at the Nasher: Do something that nobody else is doing. Do something that's really going to stand apart and set you apart in terms of your contribution to the field, to the discipline, to the culture.

I’m going back to David Driskell. He plugged ahead for years and years when he taught at Fisk doing important shows, writing about people, interviewing people. Nobody gave him the time of day, you know, at The New York Times or at HBO. But he knew it was important. He knew that he had to make his contribution, and we are all the better for him forging in that direction.

 

 

 

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