Wikipedia:Meetup/Black Lunch Table/PaceFellowship

**Wikimedia Fellowship with Pace Gallery**
When and Where
Date:	September 2022-April 2023
Location:	Pace Gallery NYC, 540 W 25th St, New York, NY 10001

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Wikimedia Fellowship with Pace Gallery[edit]

This six-month-long fellowship culminates with an exhibition titled [action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics at Pace’s New York gallery from February 1-25, 2023. The first appointed fellow, Kristen Owens, will create a new bibliographic text based on her research into the Black American and Black diasporic artists in Pace’s history.

Central to Owens’ fellowship is a text by Carolyn Fowler titled Black Arts and Black Aesthetics: A Bibliography (1981). A self-published bibliography of 800 entries, it was inspired by the popular Black Arts Movement of the time.

Owens’project on Black bibliography is critical to advancing the work of documenting and disseminating information about artists. It harnesses the potential of collections that are not directly public-facing and creates an opportunity to share that information. The traditions and lineage of Fowler’s work are taken up in multiple ways in this partnership.

Many Black artists and cultural workers are missing or under-documented in the world's largest and most accessible encyclopedia, Wikipedia. In the field of mainstream contemporary art, Black artists are still marginalized within their field. BLT’s list of artists whose Wikipedia pages need improvement or creation is over 1300 names long. A formidable and growing challenge, an element of this fellowship is the improvement of Wikipedia articles of Black artists.

Moreover, the difficulty that Fowler faced in publishing and distributing her work as a young Black academic is reflected in the challenges Wikipedia editors face when seeking reliable and verifiable sources that satisfy notability requirements on the encyclopedia. Access to the collection and archive of Pace will provide valuable source texts to improve Wikipedia.

[action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics[edit]

[action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics will function as a reading room where visitors will have the opportunity to directly engage with a selection of catalogues, theoretical and scholarly essays, and other key publications and archival materials focused on Black art and visual culture. Curated by Owens, these titles will include The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and about Black American Artists, 1960–1980; Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power, among others. Owens’s bibliographic text will also be available for visitors to read. In the way of artworks, Edge, Encounter #4 (Liquid a Place) (2022)—a work on paper by Torkwase Dyson, whose practice has been a focus of Owens’s research—will preside over the living room set-up, which will include comfortable seating for visitors. The bibliography is available here.

This exhibition will be complemented by public programming organized by Pace Live—the gallery’s interdisciplinary platform for commissioning, producing, and presenting new live art performances, musical acts, and other events— as well as original editorial content published across Pace’s digital channels.

Deeply engaged with Black Lunch Table’s work in reframing the art historical canon, the Wikimedia Fellowship focuses on editing and expanding Wikimedia entries for frequently overlooked artists. Centering on Pace’s research library, a vital resource comprising over 11,000 volumes, the fellowship is supported by the gallery’s Research and Archives team.^[1]

Events and conversations[edit]

Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond, Kristen Owens, and Paul Ninson in conversation[edit]

Publication Date: February 14th, 2023

To mark the opening of [action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics, Pace's Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond Culture & Equity Program Manager, Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond, spoke with Owens and Paul Ninson, founder of Dikan Center in Accra, Ghana.

Read their conversation here.

Kimberly Drew, Kimberly Annece Henderson, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed in conversation[edit]

Date: February 7th, 2023
Time: 6 PM EST
Location: Instagram Live

Informed by Carolyn Fowler’s Black Arts and Black Aesthetics: A Bibliography, this event aims to explore interpretations, embodiments, and appraisals of Black Aesthetics through an interdisciplinary conversation. By conceptualizing the archive as a site of both history and futurity, we are invited to engage citation as a devotional practice and consider the ways in which Black knowledge production is a communal action.

Asmaa Walton and Kristen J. Owens in conversation[edit]

Publication date: February 2nd, 2023

To mark the opening of [action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics, Owens spoke with arts educator Asmaa Walton, who established the nonprofit Black Art Library in 2020. To learn more about the Black Art Library, please visit @blackartlibrary on Instagram.

Read their conversation here.

Howard Rambsy II and Kristen J. Owens in conversation[edit]

Publication date: February 2nd, 2023

To mark the opening of [action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics, Owens spoke with Rambsy about the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the changing landscape of archival and bibliographic practices, and more.

Read their conversation here.

BLT BINGO[edit]

Date: January 1st-Febraury 28th, 2023
Location: Online

This iteration of BLT BINGO features Black American and Black diasporic artists who have been represented by or exhibited with Pace Gallery during its 60-year history.

We will receive BINGO submissions until February 28th, 2023 by email. At that point, we will verify submissions in the order received and announce a first, second, and third-place winner.

Read the rules and get started here.

Artists at Pace[edit]

Below is a comprehensive task list of artists who have exhibited/worked with Pace Gallery, compiled by Kristen J. Owens. Some of these artists already have existing Wikipedia pages that can be improved while others need one to be made.

We encourage editors to prioritize building pages for artists who do not have a page or whose page is a stub over developing a page that is substantial. Please always defer to Wikipedia's NOTABILTY guidelines for new pages.

About Kristen J. Owens[edit]

Kristen Owens is a librarian, curator, and arts educator whose interdisciplinary research, writing, and curatorial work is situated in African American and Black Diasporic studies. She is currently Librarian for African American and Black Diaspora Studies at New York University Libraries. From 2019 to 2022, Owens worked as Associate Curator at Paul Robeson Galleries at Express Newark, Rutgers University, and from 2018 to 2019 she was Coordinator of Public Programs, Education, and Engagement at Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. Owens holds a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Studies from Montclair State University, a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Long Island University, and a master’s degree in Visual Culture from New York University.

About Black Lunch Table[edit]

Black Lunch Table (BLT)is a nonprofit organization and sixteen-year ongoing artist collaboration.BLT’s primary aim has been the production of discursive sites, wherein cultural producers engage in dialogue on a variety of critical issues.

Black Lunch Table Wikimedians mobilize the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikipedia articles that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists. In the field of mainstream contemporary art, Black artists are still marginalized within our field.

Wikipedia estimates that 77% of their editors are white and 91% of their editors are men. Our work shifts this demographic and empowers people to write their own history. Our sessions and events, including BLT Photobooth and edit-a-thons, equip new editors with the skills and resources to create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles and encourages existing editors to focus on Wikipedia knowledge gaps.

Press[edit]

Ologundudu, Folasade. "Pace and Black Lunch Table Are Opening the Gallery's Library to the Public for the First Time". ArtNews.

Kandek, Barbara. "Black artists belong on Wikipedia — Black Lunch Table is making it happen". Wikimedia Foundation.

^ https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/action-query-black-arts-black-aesthetics/

[1] ttps://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/action-query-black-arts-black-aesthetics/

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