This is an excerpt from the essay Biggers and Boghossian: A Diasporic Voyage to Cultural Consciousness that will be featured in an upcoming exhibition catalogue, available April 2024.
"Christ in the Manger" by Francis Musangogwantamu, along with nine other selected artifacts from other institutions in Virginia, will be featured in an online public voting competition, which will take place from February 20th to March 3rd, 2024. The artifact that receives the most votes will receive the People’s Choice award and a $1,000 grant to be put towards the object’s conservation treatment.
In this post, we will dive into Lasekan’s painting Grandfather’s Pipe, and his political cartoon The Inextinguishable Fire of the Human Soul, to discuss the similarities between these two visually opposing artworks.
Tashae and I recently visited the African Modernism in America exhibition at the Phillips Collection and connected with colleagues at two conservation labs, thanks to funds provided by the Mellon Grant for professional development and research.
In 2021, The Chrysler Museum of Art, in partnership with the Hampton University Museum was awarded a $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The highly competitive grant aims to diversify the field of Curation and Conservation by conducting a three-year pilot fellowship program for two aspiring museum professionals who have completed master’s degrees. The curatorial fellow, Tashae Smith, and the conservation fellow, Elizabeth Robson, will examine the Chrysler Museum’s traditional African collection and Hampton University Museum’s Harmon Foundation Collection of Modern African Art. Their work will demonstrate the ongoing importance of collecting, preserving and studying non-Western art.
About the fellowship
