Advocate and Collaborate w/ curator Kilolo Luckett

Studio Noize: Black Art Podcast

Pittsburgh-based art historian and curator, Kilolo Luckett joins the Studio Noize fam today! Its always exciting to have dynamic, interesting women on the show because they have so much to offer. Kilolo has created an experimental, contemporary art platform with Alma Lewis and still works as an independent curator with artists like Stephen Towns, Amani Lewis and Thaddeus Mosley. She talks about building connections with artists that she curates, the importance or reading for artists and creating Alma Lewis as a place where artists can grow in their practice. Kilolo shares what she sees as the job of a curator and how to created a culture that supports artists in every way. Listen, subscribe, and share!

Episode 190 topics include:

building a connection to artists

what an artist reads

advocating for artists

what a curator does

the importance of narratives in art

creating Alma Lewis

art culture

supporting artists during a residency

Kilolo Luckett bio:

Kilolo Luckett is a Pittsburgh-based art historian and curator. With more than twenty-five years of experience in arts administration and cultural production, she is committed to elevating the voices of underrepresented visual artists, especially women, and Black and Brown artists.

Luckett is Founding Executive Director and Chief Curator of ALMA | LEWIS (named after abstract artists Alma Thomas and Norman Lewis), an experimental, contemporary art platform for critical thinking, constructive dialogue, and creative expression dedicated to Black culture.

Among the many exhibitions to her credit are Familiar Boundaries. Infinite Possibilities (2018), Resurgence – Rise Again: The Art of Ben Jones (2019), I Came by Boat So Meet Me at the Beach by Ayana Evans and Tsedaye Makonnen (2020), Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges: Photographs by L. Kasimu Harris (2020), and Dominic Chambers: Like the Shapes of Clouds on Water (2020) at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center; Amani Lewis: Reimagining Care (2021) and Lizania Cruz: Performing Inquiry (2022) at ALMA | LEWIS; Stephen Towns: Declaration & Resistance (2022), which premiered at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and travels to Boise Art Museum in Boise, Idaho, and Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (2023); and Luckett co-curated SLAY: Artemisia Gentileschi & Kehinde Wiley (2022) at The Frick Pittsburgh.

She has curated exhibitions by national and international artists such as Peju Alatise, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Thaddeus Mosley, Tajh Rust, Devan Shimoyama, and Shikeith. She served as an Art Commissioner for the City of Pittsburgh’s Art Commission for twelve years. Luckett has held positions as Curator of Meta Pittsburgh’s Open Arts, Consulting Curator of Visual Arts at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Director of Development at The Andy Warhol Museum, and Curatorial Assistant at Wood Street Galleries, where she helped organize shows that included Xu Bing, Louise Bourgeois, Larry Bell, Catherine Opie, Nam June Paik, and Tim Rollins + K.O.S.

See more: Alma Lewis website + Kilolo Luckett’s IG @kilololuckett

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