Thursday, April 27, 2023, 6:30 pm
Dia Chelsea 537 West 22nd Street New York, New York
Lisa Cohen and Tiona Nekkia McClodden, contributors to the exhibition catalogue Chryssa & New York, will reflect on Chryssa’s practice in relation to their own work and the challenges of the archive. The discussion will be moderated by exhibition curator Megan Holly Witko.
Lisa Cohen’s writing brings together queer poetics and archival research to explore ephemeral, undervalued forms of knowledge and feeling. The author of All We Know: Three Lives (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle award, she is completing a book about friendship, grief, HIV/AIDS, and long Enlightenment legacies, as well as a collection of poems.
Tiona Nekkia McClodden is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work explores and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary. McClodden’s interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations.
Chryssa & New York is co-organized by Dia Art Foundation and the Menil Collection, Houston, in collaboration with Alphawood Foundation at Wrightwood 659, Chicago. The exhibition is co-curated by Megan Holly Witko, external curator, Dia Art Foundation, and Michelle White, senior curator, the Menil Collection, Houston. Public programs are made possible by support from the Consulate General of Greece in New York.
May 5, 2021 - Städelschule
This lecture will center and deconstruct the meaning of the mask in theory and form in relation to Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s works and their respective influences. She will approach this lecture in the form of a triptych which will explore the following: Unmasking, THE FULL SEVERITY OF COMPASSION, 2019; Veil, Se Te Subio El Santo, 2016 which will explore the mask as disclosure; Obscure, The Brad Johnson Tape, III, 2017 will explore the mask as a device of illegibility
May 3, 2021 - New Museum - NYC
A conversation with artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden in dialogue with New Museum curator Margot Norton, Allen and Lola Goldring Curator at the New Museum.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,” this conversation series and highlights the practices of artists participating in this exhibition.
March 5, 2020
A Conversation with Tiona Nekkia McClodden | Bucksbaum Award Presentation
For this program, 2019 Bucksbaum Award winner Tiona Nekkia McClodden discusses her artistic practice at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary alongside curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo. The Bucksbaum Award is given in each Biennial year to one of the participating artists whose work demonstrates a singular combination of talent and imagination. McClodden’s contribution to the 2019 Biennial, I prayed to the wrong god for you, combines video and sculptural elements in a highly personal ritual dedicated to Shango, a deity or Orisha within the Afro-Cuban religion Santería/Lucumí, whose origins can be traced to the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Curator Ladi’Sasha Jones introduces McClodden and her interdisciplinary practice spanning documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installation. Oluremi C. Onabanjo is a curator and scholar of photography and the arts of Africa based in New York City. The former Director of Exhibitions and Collections for The Walther Collection, she has organized exhibitions in Europe, North America, and Africa. Ladi'Sasha Jones is a writer and curator based in Harlem. She has written for Aperture, Arts.Black, Avery Review, Temporary Art Review, and Recess, among others. Currently, Jones is the artist engagement manager for The Laundromat Project.
January 27, 2020
Queer Archives: Between the Individual and the Institutional | The New School
March 30, 2019
Dark as the Door to a Dream Curated by Tavia Nyong’o
An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove----Tiona Nekkia McClodden
Sept 28, 2018
Whitney Museum
New York, NY
In his memoir Close to the Knives, David Wojnarowicz writes: “Transition is always a relief. Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.” Inspired by Wojnarowicz's approach to histories both personal and public, this roundtable discussion brings together artists of a younger generation to look back on Wojnarowicz’s moment and milieu and to reflect on the aesthetics and politics of that period in relationship to the present. Speakers include A.K. Burns, Em Rooney, Ken Okiishi, and Tiona Nekkia McClodden. The exhibition’s co-curator David Breslin, De Martini Family Director of the Collection, moderates.
June 8, 2017
Of Publics, Places, and Politics (Photography Expanded 2017)
featuring Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Nato Thompson
The Photography Expanded symposium, on June 8, explored collectivity, authorship, participation, and collaboration in photography and creative documentary practice. Presenters showcased projects from a range of disciplines and fostered exchange about what it means to partner with other makers, subjects, and publics.
Learn more at magnumfoundation.org/photography-expanded
December 15, 2017
Black Marks That Make Up Letters, with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Meg Onli, Morgan Parker, Kameelah Janan Rasheed & Simone White
August 13, 2016 Presentation by Tiona Nekkia McClodden, 2016 Fellow Sommerakademie im Zentrum Paul Klee at the Kunsthalle Bern