Join us for a walkthrough of ‘The New Bend’ led by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen.
Curated by Russell, this exhibition travels from the gallery’s New York location to Los Angeles in October, with contributions by contemporary artists working in the raced, classed, and gendered traditions of quilting and textile practice. Their unique visual vernacular exists in tender dialogue with, and in homage to, the contributions of the Gee’s Bend Alabama quilters – Black American women in collective cooperation and creative economic production – and their enduring legacy as a radical meeting place, a prompt, and as intergenerational inspiration. This exhibition acknowledges the work of Gee’s Bend quilters such as Sarah Benning (b. 1933), Missouri Pettway (1902-1981), Lizzie Major (1922-2011), Sally Bennett Jones (1944-1988), Mary Lee Bendolph (b.1935), and so many more, as central to expanded histories of abstraction and modernism.
This event is free, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.
About Legacy Russell
Legacy Russell is a curator and writer. Born and raised in New York City, she is the Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen. Formerly she was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Russell’s academic, curatorial, and creative work focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Her written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2021 Creative Capital Award. Her first book is Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020). Her second book, BLACK MEME, is forthcoming via Verso Books.
