A Golden Age for "Post-Black" Art

By RON STODGHILL II

A renaissance is taking root on Harlem's 125th Street, and anyone searching for the artistic soul of the community will invariably be drawn to Thelma Golden, deputy director and chief curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, who is not only reinvigorating one of the neighborhood's most venerable institutions but also helping redefine the image of African Americans in American art.

Brash, visionary and often controversial, Golden, 35, is the country's major cheerleader for what she calls "Post-Black" art, or work by a generation whose approach to questions of racial identity has been liberated and informed by America's growing multicultural fabric. After majoring in art history and African-American studies at Smith College, Golden spent nearly a decade as an associate curator at the Whitney Museum, where she first made a name for herself with the provocative 1994 exhibit "Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art," which attempted to subvert old stereotypes about black men and black sexuality by placing them in a fresh context.

Last year Golden was brought to the Studio Museum by her mentor, Lowery Stokes Sims, a former curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Golden's debut Harlem show, "Freestyle," an exhibition of 28 young artists, included such works as a sound installation by Nadine Robinson that mixes political speeches by George W. Bush and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. against laugh tracks. Says Golden: "I'm here to present new and daring contemporary art."

--By Ron Stodghill II