Studio Salon is the Museum's literary society that invites language lovers to participate in an ongoing series of artist talks, book launches and writing workshops inspired by our exhibitions. This special edition of Studio Salon is presented on the occasion of Lorraine O'Grady's extended exhibition, Art Is…, in which author Uri McMillan will frame a cross-generational dialogue around the release of his new book, Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance.

Representing a diversity of artistic media and approaches, Lorraine O'Grady, Simone Leigh and Narcissister each uniquely subvert viewer expectations and challenge social norms, often utilizing the black female body as public flashpoint. McMillan will guide us as we discuss  Art Is… and each artist's distinct practice in relation to the book's in-depth exploration of performance and black female embodiment. We will also unpack the perils and possibilities in staging oneself as an art object, and delimit the evolving stakes for black women artists entering into the museum context.