In this conversation curator and art critic Antwaun Sargent, and writer and editor Yaniya Lee discuss Black aesthetics, public and private histories, and the transformative power of the family album.

Antwaun Sargent & Yaniya Lee: In Conversation is presented by Wedge Curatorial Projects in collaboration with Gallery TPW, as part of the exhibition, Out of Many, curated by Emilie Croning. The exhibition pairs vintage 35mm slides from Jorian Charlton's family archive from the 1970s and 80s in Jamaica, Toronto, and New York with her own photographic practice that explores new visual references around Black aesthetics and Jamaican-Canadian identity. To learn more, please visit the exhibition site.

Biographies

Antwaun Sargent is writer, editor, curator living in New York City. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker and various art publications. Sargent is the author of “The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion” (Aperture) and the editor of “Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists” (DAP). He is also a director at Gagosian Gallery.

Yaniya Lee is a Toronto-based writer and editor interested in the ethics of aesthetics. Lee has written for Vogue, Flash, FADER, Vulture, VICE Motherboard, Canadian Art and C Magazine. She was a founding collective member of MICE Magazine and is presently a member of the EMILIA-AMALIA working group, which was artist-in-residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2017). Lee has participated in residencies at Banff (2017), the Blackwood Gallery (2018), Gallery 44 (2018) and Vtape (2019-2020). In November 2019, Lee and curator Denise Ryner co-convened the "Bodies, Borders, Fields Symposium" in Toronto, and in the following year, co-guest-edited "Chroma," an issue of Canadian Art dedicated entirely to black artists and black art histories. Lee was previously on the editorial advisory committees for Fuse and C Magazine, and now sits on the board of directors of Mercer Union. Lee teaches Art Criticism at the University of Toronto and is senior editor-at-large at Canadian Art .

Wedge Curatorial Projects is a non-profit organization with a focus on Black identity in contemporary art. Wedge organizes exhibitions and lectures that explore diasporic narratives, identity and issues of representation. To learn more, please visit our website.

Gallery TPW is a leading artist-run centre dedicated to exhibiting underrepresented artistic and curatorial practices that push the boundaries of lens-based work. To learn more, please visit our website.

Photo credits: courtesy of Antwaun Sargent and Yaniya Lee