Hamptons Black Arts Council Welcomes MoMA’s Black Arts Council for a Day of Cultural Exchange
Hamptons Black Arts Council Welcomes MoMA’s Black Arts Council for a Day of Cultural Exchange
On July 19, 2025, the Hamptons Black Arts Council (HBAC) was honored to host members of the Museum of Modern Art’s Black Arts Council for a special day trip from New York City to the East End, fostering dialogue, connection, and shared appreciation for Black artistry and cultural heritage.
The day commenced with an exclusive tour of renowned contemporary artist Rashid Johnson’s studio. Guests were given a rare glimpse into Johnson’s creative process and the conceptual underpinnings of his practice, deepening their understanding of the artist’s influential contributions to contemporary art.
Following the studio visit, attendees gathered for a private luncheon set within the stunning sculptural gardens and home of AC and Thelma Hudgins, longtime patrons and champions of the arts. Surrounded by thoughtfully curated works and verdant landscapes, the luncheon provided a space for meaningful conversation, networking, and the exchange of ideas among artists, curators, and cultural leaders.
In the afternoon, the group ventured to The Church in Sag Harbor, an interdisciplinary arts center housed in a restored 19th-century Methodist church. The visit underscored the East End’s role as a vital hub for creative innovation and community engagement.
The day concluded with a highlight: an intimate walkthrough of MAMI WATA at the Eastville Community Historical Society, led by the exhibition’s curator and HBAC founder, Storm Ascher. Ascher offered insight into the exhibition’s thematic exploration of mythology, resilience, and diasporic narratives. Accompanying her, artist Tariku Shiferaw spoke about his two monumental works from the Mata Semay series featured in the show—paintings that had also been prominently highlighted at The Watermill Center’s Artist’s Table benefit for HBAC earlier in July. His reflections provided an enriched perspective on the interplay between personal heritage, formal abstraction, and broader cultural histories.
This collaborative day between MoMA’s Black Arts Council and HBAC reflected the shared mission of amplifying Black voices in the arts, building lasting connections, and celebrating the rich cultural fabric of the East End.
Guild Hall Hosts HBAC Members for Juneteenth performance by Whitney White and Exhibition Tour by Melanie Crader
Writer, Performer, and Tony-Nominated Director Whitney White brings The Case of The Stranger to life in this new and original song cycle.
With a score rooted in soul, jazz, R&B, and diverse geographical soundworlds, The Case of the Stranger takes its title from a passage in Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas Moore — one of the earliest known pleas for a compassionate refugee policy. The piece explores themes of identity, migration, and the power of unexpected kinship.
Created by Whitney White, in partnership with Maxim Pozdorovkin with music direction by Ben Covello, this song cycle brings White’s signature style to the forefront, emphasizing the raw power of voice and sound in an intimate, deeply resonant experience.
Cast and Musicians to include Whitney White (Actor/Vocalist), Veronica Otim (Actor/Vocalist), Rotana Tarabzouni (Actor/Vocalist), Ben Covello (Keys & multi-instrumentalist), Clyde Daley (Trumpet), Emily Fredrickson (Trombone), Nathan Repasz (Percussion & multi-instrumentalist), Mohan Ritesma (Bass), and Harvey Valdes (Guitar, Oud).
A conversation will follow the program with Whitney White, Minerva Perez (Executive Director, OLA) and Oscar Molina (Artist), moderated by Monique Long (Curator / Residency Thought Partner).
The Case of The Stranger was developed as part of the 2024 Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence program. This performance is presented in-association with Little Island.
WHITNEY WHITE
is an Obie and Lilly Award winning director, actor, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Tony Award nominee, a recipient of the Susan Stroman Directing award, an Artistic Associate at the Roundabout and part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her original musical Definition was part of the 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab, and her four-part musical exploration of Shakespeare’s Women and ambition is currently under commission with the Royal Shakespeare Company (UK).
She has developed work with: Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre, Ars Nova, The Drama League, Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, The Movement, Jack, Bard College, NYU Tisch, Juilliard, Princeton, SUNY Purchase, South Oxford, Luna Stage and more.
Whitney was a staff writer on Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO (Amazon, Media Res).
Whitney is a believer in collaborative processes and new forms. Her musical discipline is rooted in indie-soul, and rock. She is passionate about black stories, reconstructing classics, stories for and about women, genre-defying multimedia work and film. Past fellowships include: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, Colt Coeur and the Drama League. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA Political Science, Certificate in Musical Theatre: Northwestern University.
EXHIBITION TOUR WITH MELANIE CRADER
FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS: ARTIST-MADE FURNITURE
Sunday, May 4, 2025 – Sunday, July 13, 2025
“I started making couches about 1969 or 1970. I needed some place to sit down, which is the best reason for making them, I suppose.” —John Chamberlain.
Artists often come to be associated with specific mediums or bodies of work when in fact their practices are much more expansive. Visual artists are frequently also musicians, designers, performers, filmmakers, writers, furniture makers, and so on. An encounter with one of the couches made by John Chamberlain, an artist best known for his metal sculptures, can be surprising, but the reality is that artists integrate their studio practices into all their life activities.
This presentation focuses on East End artists who have produced functional furniture as an extension of their creative practices—as a means of problem-solving, as an element of designed living, and as a way to foster social spaces. Functional Relationships: Artist-Made Furniturepresents work by Scott Bluedorn, John Chamberlain, Liz Collins, Quentin Curry, Peter Dayton, Connie Fox, Kurt Gumaer, Mary Heilmann, Yung Jake, Donald Judd, Julian Schnabel, Karen Simon, Strong-Cuevas, Mark Wilson, Robert Wilson, Evan Yee, Nico Yektai, and Almond Zigmund.
In conjunction with Functional Relationships, Guild Hall commissioned two projects as further explorations of this common practice: Lindsay Morris’s photographs of interior spaces show how artists utilize furniture and shape their domestic environments, while Almond Zigmund’s installation Wading Room in the Marks Family South Gallery provides an artist-designed environment for activation through public use and a series of participatory programs.
This exhibition was organized by Melanie Crader, museum director and curator of visual arts, with Philippa Content, museum manager and registrar and Claire Hunter, museum coordinator and curatorial associate.
MAMI WATA Benefit Exhibition at Eastville Historical Society’s Heritage House Museum
SAG HARBOR, NY – Superposition Gallery is honored to present MAMI WATA, a group exhibition curated by Storm Ascher set within Eastville Community Historical Society’s Heritage House Museum. Participating artists include: Derrick Adams, Patrick Alston, Jessica Taylor Bellamy, Sanford Biggers, Layo Bright, Michael A. Butler, Alisa Sikelianos-Carter, Renée Cox, Damien Davis, Ellon Gibbs, Ashanté Kindle, Audrey Lyall, Eilen Itzel Mena, Ludovic Nkoth, Tariku Shiferaw, and Khari Turner.
MAMI WATA, named after the goddess deity and water spirit from African and Afro-Caribbean mythology, is a curation of works deeply rooted in matrilineal restorative energy. Participating artists were invited to embody the complexities that lie in this mythological symbol, from prosperity and fertility to chaos and misfortune. “This exhibition sits on the soil of Sag Harbor’s SANS neighborhoods—Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, Ninevah—modernist Black beach enclaves built by families denied access elsewhere.” says Ascher.
Lagos-born artist Layo Bright cast a mold of Ascher’s face in gold glass, presenting her in Storm Ascher in Yemọja Blue (2025)—a kiln-fused and mirrored glass work set in a custom frame—now glowing within the Heritage House. This piece marks a continuation of Bright’s acclaimed Bloom series, first introduced in her solo museum exhibition at The Aldrich. Through her intricate glasswork, Bright gives women their flowers, crowning their faces with delicate bouquets of glass blossoms. The title honors Yemọja, the revered water spirit in Bright’s Yoruba culture, known as the mother of all Orishas and of humanity itself.
Tariku Shiferaw reflects on his paintings Kuba (2023) and Nummo (2023), part of his ongoing Mata Semay series—works that have recently been acquired by institutions such as LACMA. Each six feet tall and wide, these immersive paintings take their title from the Amharic phrase Mata Semay, meaning “night sky.” Storm Ascher draws connections between the series and the ancient practices of stargazing, wayfinding, and storytelling—traditions that often relied on the sky’s reflection in water. “Through the series, I explore mark-making using the concept of mythology as a societal tool to imagine value systems and societal norms,” says Shiferaw.
Renée Cox, a longtime resident of Amagansett, donated her Queen Nanny portrait from 2004, photographed in her native Jamaica and part of her Queen Nanny of the Maroons series. In this body of work, Cox embodies the historical figure Queen Nanny, who led the Jamaican Maroons in their resistance against British colonial rule in the early 18th century. The portrait honors the strength and resilience of women like Nanny—women who, much like those who helped build the communities now known as SANS, shaped history in their own coastal enclaves.
Khari Turner generously donated two works to the cause: Protea and Gloriosa. These massive, six-foot, rotund paintings on canvas were created using ocean water collected from across the African diaspora—a signature element in Turner’s practice. “They’re from my first museum show in Wisconsin,” he shares. “Both depict elders surrounded by native plants from West Africa. The theme centered around family—they represent ethereal ancestors, the ones who sow the seeds for new generations, but also the ones with flowers on their graves.”
With a multitude of celebratory moments, a total of eight works included in the exhibition will also be donated to the institution on behalf of The Hamptons Black Arts Council founded by Storm Ascher to initiate the newly established “Hamptons Black Arts Council Contemporary Art Collection.” A labor of love and true intentions, Ascher is working closely with Executive Director Dr. Georgette Grier-Key to ensure lasting legacy for Black folks in site specific spaces reclaimed for Black history such as this.
Storm Ascher, Founder of Superposition Gallery comments “MAMI WATA is not an exhibition—it’s an altar. A gathering of artists who summon the celestial, the matrilineal, the mythic. Their works ripple and reference like the goddess herself—fluid, powerful, plural. Superposition artists draw from memory, migration, and the metaphysical, carrying many worlds inside. Together, we build a legacy of care, resistance, and return. Thank you for joining me in preserving Eastville—a sacred site holding so many Black stories in its soil. ”
Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director of Eastville Community Historical Society comments ““This year, our Juneteenth Jubilee Celebration theme is “Disruptors; Disobedient Defiant Doers!” Storm Ascher embodies defiant leadership, and Superposition is symbolic to the celebration of US, Black and BIPOC art, expression, and experiences in the same way the Black Arts Movement did rejecting traditional theories. We are thrilled to honor Superposition Gallery this year. In the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, we salute and celebrate those who are committed to disrupting narratives that don’t serve the people. We salute and celebrate those who are defiant to all forms of oppression. We salute and celebrate those who dismantle systems that promote injustices. We salute and celebrate those who deconstruct norms that divide. We salute and celebrate those who do, the doers who act on behalf of those who can’t, those who engage in Good Trouble.
Originally dedicated to preserving the historical St. David AME Zion Church and archiving the history of the working-class community in Eastville, the Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor continues to fundraise for the church and its adjacent cemetery, in addition to hosting community gatherings and exhibitions. Ascher has spent summers in the Hamptons for over a decade and now stands as a pillar of the Eastville community, developing her curatorial and artistic practice here over the past six years. Through her consulting work with the society, the Hamptons Black Arts Council was born. Hamptons Black Arts Council (HBAC) leads with its mission to uphold the legacy of Black arts institutions on the East End through advocacy, acquisition development, and support for infrastructure and operations. The Eastville Community Historical Society will honor Storm Ascher this year at their Second Annual Juneteenth Jubilee on June 19th, 2025
Full curatorial statement can be found HERE.
Images from the exhibition and artist bios can be found HERE
For further information, interviews, and image requests please contact Tameka Shockley and Olivia Dent at superposition@purplepr.com. .
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About Superposition Gallery
Superposition Gallery was founded in 2018 by artist and curator, Storm Ascher. She started her curatorial projects with a mission to subvert gentrification tactics used in urban development through art galleries. Superposition Gallery puts on exhibitions, performances, and events
highlighting artists from around the world to foster relationships with collectors and institutions. Representation by Superposition Gallery gives artists a platform to exist in multiple contexts at once. By collaborating with spaces that have a consciousness of the neighborhood in which they reside, Superposition Gallery takes on the life of the nomadic artist and resident. Curatorial projects come to fruition through iterations of borrowed space in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and internationally.
About Hamptons Black Arts Council
Hamptons Black Arts Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization in the State of New York. Founded by Storm Ascher in 2023, Hamptons Black Arts Council leads with the mission to uphold the legacy of Black Arts Institutions on the East End through advocacy, acquisition development, and infrastructure and operations support. The organization aims to increase awareness and advocacy of Black art organizations through public programming, education, and networking. HBAC is continuously growing contemporary collections of artwork by artists of diverse backgrounds through exhibitions and fundraising.
About Eastville Community Historical Society
Celebrating its 44th year, it was established to uplift the unity in community through humanities, preservation, history, art, and education; linking three cultures and keeping space for cultivation and creatives. The Mission of the Eastville Community Historical Society is to preserve historic buildings and research, collect and disseminate information about the history of the Eastville area of Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, County of Suffolk, State of New York, and one of the earliest known working-class communities composed of African Americans, Native Americans and European immigrants.
Watermill Center Hosts Superposition Artists and HBAC Members for Juneteenth Weekend in The Hamptons
In celebration of their participation in the Eastville Heritage House Museum’s MAMI WATA exhibition in Sag Harbor with Superposition Gallery, Watermill Center has partnered with HBAC for its Summer programming.
Participating residents include Tariku Shiferaw, Audrey Lyall, Khari Turner, Ashanté Kindle, Ellon Gibbs, Damien Davis, and Quinn Davis.
Artists’ Table Brunch and Presentation with Tariku Shiferaw at Watermill Center
Join The Watermill Center + Hamptons Black Arts Council on Saturday, June 21, for a presentation by artist Tariku Shiferaw, followed by a locally sourced meal by Chef Cleon Clarke of Page Sag Harbor in celebration of Juneteenth.
Tariku will be discussing a new series of works that will be included in Superposition Gallery’s MAMI WATA Benefit Exhibition at the Eastville Community Historical Society this summer, made possible by Hamptons Black Arts Council. Sound elements and a new painting from his Mata Semay series will also be temporarily displayed on the grounds of Watermill during Juneteenth weekend.
ABOUT ARTISTS' TABLE
Artists’ Table is Watermill’s year-round brunch and dinner series, offering guests the chance to intimately connect with our Artists-in-Residence. Artists’ Table features a private presentation by our international artists, followed by a chef-prepared meal with locally-sourced ingredients.
Artists' Table at The Watermill Center is supported by Drs. Mark and June Halsey and Halsey Dermatology.
ABOUT TARIKU SHIFERAW
Tariku Shiferaw is known for his practice of mark-making that explores the metaphysical ideas of painting and societal structures. This formal language of geometric abstraction is executed through densely layering material to create “marks,” gestures that interrogate space-making and reference the hierarchy of systems. As the artist explains, “A mark, as physical and present as cave-markings... reveals the thinker behind the gesture—an evidence of prior markings of ideas and self onto the space.”
Apart from paint on canvases, Shiferaw also incorporates ready-made objects and materials in his installations, often using transparent and colored mylar, and subverting their utilitarian characteristics in assembly or hanging to create a body of evocative works that question perception and space. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, growing up in Los Angeles, and currently based in New York City, Shiferaw finds inspiration from the diverse cultures in his environments, particularly in the areas of music and language. Shiferaw’s ongoing series of paintings One of These Black Boys references musical genres that have originated in Black communities—Hip-hop, R&B, Reggae, Afrobeats, Blues, and Jazz—a context that charges the works with musical references, identities, and cultural histories. Shiferaw’s work may be understood in the framework of midcentury abstraction, but the artist also infuses this formal vocabulary with critical observations from popular culture.
Museum exhibitions that have presented works by Tariku Shiferaw include Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (2024); Spectrum: On Color & Contemporary Art at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco, California (2023); The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland and Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri (2023); You’d Think By Now at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York (2022); Geometries at Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York (2022); Men of Change, organized by The Smithsonian Institution, and held at the California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles (2021); Unbound at the Zuckerman Museum of Art (ZMA), Kennesaw, Georgia (2020); What’s Love Got to Do with It? at The Drawing Center, New York, New York (2019); A Poet*hical Wager at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Ohio (2017-18); and the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Shiferaw has participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art (Studio), in Open Sessions at The Drawing Center (2018- 2020), and has been an artist-in-residence at the LES Studio Program in New York City, at the World Trade Center through Silver Art Projects, and at ARCAthens, Greece.
Shiferaw was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1983, raised in Los Angeles, California, and now lives and works in New York City.
ABOUT CHEF CLEON CLARK
Chef Cleon Clarke is a Jamaica-born culinary artist and the executive chef at the acclaimed Sag Harbor restaurant, Page. Inspired by his grandmother, he began cooking at a young age and later honed his skills through training at George Brown College and Penn Foster Career School. Clarke launched his professional career in the hotel industry, where he developed his knowledge of French and Italian cuisine. After migrating to the United States in 2007, he embraced the diversity of the American culinary landscape and eventually settled in the Hamptons. At Page, Clarke has continued to refine his craft, exploring the artistry of culinary fusion.
ABOUT HAMPTONS BLACK ARTS COUNCIL
Hamptons Black Arts Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization in the State of New York. Founded by Storm Ascher in 2023, Hamptons Black Arts Council leads with the mission to uphold the legacy of Black Arts Institutions on the East End through advocacy, acquisition development, and infrastructure and operations support. The organization aims to increase awareness and advocacy of Black art organizations through public programming, education, and networking. HBAC is continuously growing contemporary collections of artwork by artists of diverse backgrounds through exhibitions and fundraising.
ABOUT SUPERPOSITION GALLERY
Superposition Gallery was founded in 2018 by artist and curator, Storm Ascher. She started her curatorial projects with a mission to subvert gentrification tactics used in urban development through art galleries. Superposition Gallery puts on exhibitions, performances, and events highlighting artists from around the world to foster relationships with collectors and institutions. Representation by Superposition Gallery gives artists a platform to exist in multiple contexts at once. By collaborating with spaces that have a consciousness of the neighborhood in which they reside, Superposition Gallery takes on the life of the nomadic artist and resident. Curatorial projects come to fruition through iterations of borrowed space in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and internationally.