Iconic Black art gallery subject of new MOMA exhibit

A new exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City pays tribute to Linda Goode Bryant’s groundbreaking gallery for artists of color, ABC 7 NY reports. 

Just Above Midtown (JAM) was an art gallery and hub for Black artists in New York City from 1974 until 1986. According to a MoMA news release, Bryant was a 25-year-old educator and mother when she started JAM in 1974. She said the goal of the space was to “present African-American artists on the same platform with other established artists.” 

Nearly half a century after JAM launched, MoMA’s “sees” it. The “Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces”exhibit, which runs through Feb. 18, 2023, “presents artists and artworks previously shown at JAM in a wide range of mediums, and archival material.”

JAM showcased conceptual art, abstraction, installations, performance and video exhibits from emerging artists and key figures in the late-20th-century art world, including David Hammons, Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady and Howardena Pindell. 

“At that time they needed, black artists in particular, not just a place to show which JAM provided, but also a place to gather, come together, experiment and do whatever it is they wanted to do with one another,” said Thomas Lax, who curated the MoMA exhibition, ABC 7 reports.

Bryant noted that the mission was to give the artists an outlet for their respective creative visions. “It was really about how do you support artists being as creative as they can be,” she said. “The galleries and museums were not showing African-American and other artists of color, and so I said, let’s ‘do it ourselves,’ and decided to start JAM.”  

At the time, JAM’s space was located just four blocks away from MOMA, but it may well have been 400 or 4,000 for the good it did. “JAM was on 57th Street. MOMA was on 53rd, and we couldn’t get MOMA’s attention,” Bryant recalled.

Nevertheless, the spirit of JAM endures, according to Bryant. “The love and respect, the family that we built is as strong today as it was back then,” she told ABC 7.

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