Ep.158 features Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Curator, Department of Media and Performance at The Museum of Modern Art. T. is a writer and curator specializing in Black art and performance. They recently prepared the exhibition Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present (2022) with Lilia Rocio Taboada in collaboration with JAM’s founder, Linda Goode Bryant. Their other collaboratively organized exhibitions at MoMA include Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done (2018), with Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph; the Projects Series for emerging artists, co-led with Lanka Tattersall; Unfinished Conversations (2017), inspired by John Akomfrah’s installation on the cultural theorist Stuart Hall; and the contemporary art survey Greater New York (2015). Previously, they worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem. A native New Yorker, Lax holds degrees in Africana studies and art history from Brown and Columbia universities and is a PhD candidate in performance studies at New York University, where they are working on a project about mothers. They were the inaugural recipient of the Cisneros Research Grant, traveling to Brazil in 2020.

Website https://thomasjlax.com/

NYU https://tisch.nyu.edu/performance-studies/phd-students/thomas-jean-lax

Artnet https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thomas-lax-1550668

i-D https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/88gnp4/thomas-lax-on-bringing-radical-black-art-to-moma

Pioneer Works https://pioneerworks.org/programs/jacolby-satterwhite-in-conversation-with-thomas-lax

MoMA https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5078

Artforum https://www.artforum.com/print/202210/thomas-t-jean-lax-s-highlights-of-2022-89671

https://www.artforum.com/print/202009/thomas-j-lax-84373

Literary https://lithub.com/author/thomasjlax/

Hunter College https://huntercollegeart.org/2023/01/26/linda-goode-bryant-in-conversation-with-thomas-t-lax/

Vogue https://www.vogue.com/article/interview-with-thomas-t-jean-lax-by-domenica-bucalo

Ssense https://www.ssense.com/en-us/editorial/culture/play-time-with-moma-curator-thomas-lax

David Hammons. Untitled. 1976.
Grease and pigment on paper. 29 × 23 in. (74 × 58.4 cm).
© David Hammons. Hudgins Family Collection, New York

Flier for Just Above Midtown Gallery. c. 1985.
Collection Linda Goode Bryant, New York

Installation view of Just Above Midtown:
Changing Spaces, on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York from October 9, 2022 – February 18, 2023.
Photo: Emile Askey

Barbara Mitchell (center right) and Tyrone Mitchell (far right) at the opening of the exhibition Synthesis, November 18, 1974.
Photograph by Camille Billops. Courtesy the Hatch-Billops Collection, New York