A conversation between Curator, Rachel Delphia and Artist, Sharif Bey to discuss his work since his major 2021 solo exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, in which the artist exhibited a survey of his studio practice alongside pieces created onsite in response to the museum’s collection.This conversation will focus specifically on the artist’s newest series, the Guardians, to consider how Bey uses sculpture as autoethnography, exploring individual and collective identity through the recontextualization of forms that have historically been used to represent status or power. The Guardians series furthers Bey’s enduring exploration of Nkisi nkondi figures, expressing questions of legacy, ornamentation, and matriarchal power. Commenting on these works, Curator Rachel Delphia writes, “It is no surprise that Bey’s Guardians are women. Each sculpture carries literal and figurative baggage, in their attributes and in the symbolic weight that generations of African American mothers bear.” This conversation will also delve into the importance of relationships shared between artists and curators extending beyond specific institutional projects, and the ways these dialogues can enrich and expand an artist’s studio practice.

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