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Legacy Russell

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Legacy Russell
Born
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Alma materMacalester College (BA)[1]
Goldsmiths, University of London (MRes)[2]
Occupation(s)Executive director and chief curator[3]
OrganizationThe Kitchen[4]
Notable workGlitch Feminism[5]
PredecessorTim Griffin[4]
Websitelegacyrussell.com

Legacy Russell is an American curator, writer, and author of Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, published by Verso Books in 2020.[5] In 2021, the performance and experimental art institution The Kitchen announced Russell as the organization's next executive director and chief curator. From 2018 to 2021, she was the associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Early life and education

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Russell was born in New York City and grew up in the East Village. She is the daughter of Harlem-born photographer and technologist Ernest Russell and Kamala Mottl, a community gerontologist. She is the great-granddaughter of Nolle Smith, Black cowboy, engineer, and Hawaii statesman.[6] She attended Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in Manhattan.[7] Russell holds a dual-major BA from Macalester College in Studio Art and Art History and English & Creative Writing,[2] as well as an MRes in Art History and Visual Culture with distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London.[7][8] Her graduate dissertation focused on the notion of "re-performing reality" and shared research on artists such as Devin Kenny, Ann Hirsch, Awol Erizku.[9]

Career

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Russell worked at the online platform Artsy, expanding the company's gallery relations across Europe.[10] She has worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and CREATIVE TIME.[citation needed] She is a contributing editor at BOMB Magazine.[10]

Writing

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Russell writes about art, gender, race, and technology, particularly as they intersect with histories of cyberculture. In 2012, Russell coined the term "Glitch Feminism",[11] which Russell says "embod[ies] error as a disruption to gender binary, as a resistance to the normative".[12]

In 2019, The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation awarded Russell the Arts Writing Award in Digital Arts, which offers awardees a spot in the Rauschenberg Residency fellowship.[8]

Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, was published in September 2020 by Verso Books.[13][12] A Forbes review stated, "Glitch Feminism is a rallying cry, a recapturing of cyberfeminism oriented to include and spotlight the many queer and non-white voices who in their practice live out the awesome potential of an enmeshed digital feminism: the glitch."[14] The New York Times stated the book is "Grounded in theory... but a fast, percussive read".[15] According to Russell's website, her second book, Black Meme, "explores the impact of Blackness, Black life, and Black social death on contemporary conceptions of virality borne in the age of the Internet."[16] Black Meme was awarded a Creative Capital Award in 2021.[17]

Curation and academic research

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Russell's curatorial and academic work focuses on queer histories, blackness in visual culture, Internet culture, feminism, and new media. As a curator she has done work around her originating concept of Glitch Feminism. Russell has curated exhibitions and projects at the Museum of Modern Art,[18] MoMA PS1,[19] Institute of Contemporary Art, London,[20] Performa's Radical Broadcast,[21] Kunsthall Stavanger[22] in Norway, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.[23]

Russell was associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem from 2018 to 2021.[24][13] In 2021, The Kitchen announced that Russell would succeed Tim Griffin as the institution's next executive director and chief curator; she is the first Black person to hold the position of executive director and chief curator at The Kitchen since its founding in 1971.[3]

Other activities

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In 2023, Russell was part of the jury that selected a group of ten artists – including Kantemir Balagov, Moor Mother and Dalton Paula – for Chanel's Next Prize.[25]

References

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  1. ^ "Legacy Russell named Executive Director of the Kitchen". Artforum. 8 June 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Legacy Russell, Emerging Digital Arts Writer". Thoma Foundation. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  3. ^ a b Mitter, Siddhartha (8 June 2021). "Legacy Russell Is Named Next Leader of the Kitchen". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  4. ^ a b Goldstein, Caroline (8 June 2021). "Rising Star Curator Legacy Russell Has Been Named Director of the Kitchen, New York's Influential Performance Art Space". Artnet News. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Best Art Books of 2020". The New York Times. 26 November 2020. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  6. ^ Gugliotta, Bobette (1971). Nolle Smith: Cowboy, Engineer, Statesman. Dodd, Mead. ISBN 9780396063902.
  7. ^ a b "Legacy Russell on Glitch Feminism, Curating and the Upside of Growing Up in New York". Cultured Magazine. 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  8. ^ a b "Legacy Russell wins 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Arts". Contemporary And (in German). Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  9. ^ Russell, Legacy. "Prayer? Or Practice? Social Shrines and the Ritualized Performance of Reality in Contemporary Art". Academia.edu.
  10. ^ a b Armstrong, Annie (2018-08-09). "Studio Museum in Harlem Names Legacy Russell Associate Curator". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  11. ^ Davis, Ben (28 September 2020). "'I Say Tear It All Down': Curator Legacy Russell on How 'Glitch Feminism' Can Be a Tool to Radically Reimagine the World". Artnet. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
  12. ^ a b Lavender, Pandora (15 April 2019). "7 Questions: Legacy Russell". Frieze. Retrieved 2020-06-18.
  13. ^ a b "Artforum.com". www.artforum.com. 9 August 2018. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  14. ^ Damiani, Jesse. "On Embodying The Ecstatic And Catastrophic Error Of Glitch Feminism: Book Review". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-01-11.
  15. ^ Smith, Roberta; Cotter, Holland; Farago, Jason; Mitter, Siddhartha (26 November 2020). "Best Art Books of 2020". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  16. ^ "Black Meme". legacyrussell.com. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  17. ^ "Black Meme". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  18. ^ "Answering the Colonizers of Modernism". Hyperallergic. 2019-11-02. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  19. ^ "Best of 2019: Our Top NYC Art Shows". Hyperallergic. 2019-12-10. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  20. ^ "Next: 28 Art Curators to Watch Who Took on New Appointments in 2018". 30 December 2018. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  21. ^ "PERFORMA". performa-arts.org. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  22. ^ "LEAN". Kunsthall Stavanger. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  23. ^ Mitter, Siddhartha (2019-07-10). "Studio Museum in Harlem Names Artists in Residence". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  24. ^ Editorial, Artsy (2020-02-20). "4 Curators on the Artists They're Celebrating This Black History Month". Artsy. Retrieved 2020-06-17.
  25. ^ Daniel Cassady (27 March 2024), Chanel Awards $108,000 Prizes to Artists Dalton Paula, Ho Tzu Nyen, and More ARTnews.
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