“How and when might weight be shared between one body and another? Can a body be a figure and a ground? An end and a means? Simultaneously agent and support?”
Jemison has presented solo exhibitions and commissioned performances at JOAN Los Angeles, Greene Naftali, Mass MoCA, Jeu de Paume, CAPC Bordeaux, the Museum of Modern Art, LAXART, and other venues. Her work has been included in significant generational exhibitions, including Greater New York (2021) and the Whitney Biennial (2019), and is part of many public collections, including the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her novella A Rock, A River, A Street was published by Primary Information in 2022; she has also written for Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail.
Jemison’s collaborative projects include at Louis Place (a writing community co-founded with Quincy Flowers and led with Naima Lowe), Mikrokosmos (a platform for listening and performance with Justin Hicks), Future Plan and Program (a publishing project), and Alpha’s Bet Is Not Over Yet (with Jamal Cyrus). She learns with and from her students at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she is an Associate Professor.
Currently
Steffani Jemison. Annet Gelink, Amsterdam, NL (November 2024 - January 2025)
Air de Repos (Breathwork). CAPC Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France (November 2024 - May 2025)
Movements Toward Freedom. Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO (September 2024 - February 2024)
Scrawlspace. Rubin Foundation, New York, NY (September 2024 - Decmeber 2024)
Speech Lives in a Series of Daily Attempts: Artists & Publishing. Essex Art Center Gallery, Lawrence, MA (September 2024 - October 2024)
Seeing Through Stone. San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA (April 2024 - January 2025)
speech lives in a series of daily attempts: artists & publishing. Wagner Foundation Gallery, Cambridge, MA (March 2024 - August 2024)
Tomorrow is a Different Day, Collection 1980-now, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL (ongoing)
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Mississippi Museum of Art (Summer 2022), Baltimore Museum of Art (Fall 2022) Brooklyn Museum (Spring 2023) California African American Museum (Summer 2023-Spring 2024) UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Spring 2024)
Selected recent solo exhibitions, screenings, commissions
Art Basel Paris+. Paris, France (October 2024)
Steffani Jemison: Tumblers. CAC Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland (June 2024 – Aug 2024)
Bound. Greene Naftali, New York, NY (January 2024 - February 2024) [4Columns] [Frieze]
Sin Rumbo. Confrontar la Imago Mundi, Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Palma, Palma, ES, (February 2023 - January 2024)
Screening: The Short Films of Steffani Jemison. Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL (October 2023)
End over End, JOAN Los Angeles. (February-April, 2022) [Hyperallergic]
Steffani Jemison at Annet Gelink. (February-April, 2022)
Steffani Jemison: WLD, Madragoa. (2021)
Steffani Jemison: Broken Fall, Greene Naftali, New York. (2021). [NY Review of Books] [Brooklyn Rail] [New York Times]
End over End, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati. (2021)
Figure 8, Urban Video Project, Everson Museum Plaza. (2021)
On Similitude, Triple Canopy. (2020)
Decoders / Recorders, De Appel. (2019)
Steffani Jemison: New Videos. (Stedelijk Museum, 2019)
Steffani Jemison, Kai Matsumiya. (2019)
Art of the Real (Lincoln Center, 2018)
Conversations at the Edge, Gene Siskel Film Center. (2018)
Sensus Plenior, Jeu de Paume. (2017)
Sensus Plenior, CAPC Bordeaux. (2017)
Plant you now, dig you later, MASS MoCA. (2017)
Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine, Museum of Modern Art. (2015)
Steffani Jemison: Same Time, LAXART. (2013)
Selected recent group exhibitions
Dietrich. Francesca Pia Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland (June 2024 – August 2024)
Expanded With. Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli, Italy (May 2024 - June 2024)
The Apex is Nothing. Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY (May 2024 - June 2024)
New Directions: Recent Acquisitions. Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY (March 2024 - October 2024)
This, Too, Is a Map: Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2023, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (September - November 2023)
Counterpublic Triennial, St. Louis (April - July 2023)
Of Mythic Worlds: Works from the Distant Past until the Present, The Drawing Center (March - May 2023)
Angela Davis: Seize the Time, Oakland Museum of California (Winter 2022-Summer 2023)
New Formations, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA (October 2022 - March 2023)
Our whole, unruly selves, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA. (November 2021 – June 2022)
Greater New York, MoMA/PS1. (October 7, 2021 - April 18, 2022)
CLOSER, Kuntsverein Dusseldorf. (2022)
In Between Days: Video from the Guggenheim Collection, (group exhibition) Guggenheim Museum. (2021)
The Inconstant World, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. (2021)
Enunciated Life, California African American Museum. (2020-2021)
Wild Frictions: The Politics and Poetics of Interruption, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati. (2021)
Wild Frictions: The Politics and Poetics of Interruption, Kunstraum Kreuzberg. (2021)
Black Refractions: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem. (2019-2021)
100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center. (2020-2021)
Scrivere Disegnando, Centre d’art contemporain Geneva. (2020)
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum.(2019)
Direct Message, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. (2019-20)
Out of Easy Reach, DePaul Art Museum. (2018)
Speech Acts, Institute of Contemporary Art. (2017)
Crossing Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum. (2014)
Fore, Studio Museum in Harlem. (2012)
Recent publications, texts, context
Tara Aisha Willis. “Steffani Jemison’s A Rock, A River, A Street.” Brooklyn Rail. 2023
Olamiju Fajemisin. “CLOSER.” Artforum. 2022
Ben Lerner. “Force of Gravity.” The New York Review of Books. December 16, 2021
Erica N. Cardwell. “How Steffani Jemison Made Movement an Extension of Being.” Frieze. September 17, 2021
Steffani Jemison: Recitatif (What if we need new words?), Interview, Cindy Sissikho. Video viewing room, The Kitchen. June 2021.
“How the Studio Museum in Harlem Transformed the Art World Forever,” Harper's Bazaar. March 2021
May 29, 2020 (text) MoMA Magazine. June 2020
Recent readings, lectures, and workshops
Lecture: Diversities in Practice: Steffani Jemison. Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (November 2023)
Reading and Screening: A Rock, A River, A Street. Black Feminisms Lab, Yale University, New Haven, CT (October 2023)
Lecture: Experimentation and Medium-Specificity in Painting. Yale School of Art Colloquium, Yale University, New Haven, CT (September 2023)
Lecture: Troubling Representation: Max and Iris Stern International Symposium, Montreal, CA (September 2023)
Reading and screening: Steffani Jemison: A Rock, A River, A Street. Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, NE. (June 2023)
Reading: Steffani Jemison: A Rock, A River, A Street. With Sam Vernon. CCA Berlin, DE. (June 2023)
Reading: Steffani Jemison in Paris! After 8 Books, Paris, FR. (June 2023)
Reading: A Rock, A River, A Street with Steffani Jemison, Rile*, Brussels, BE. (June 2023)
Reading: Steffani Jemison and Sadé Powell, The Poetry Project, New York, NY. (March 2023)
A Screening and Reading with Artist Steffani Jemison, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. (March 2023)
Reading: Segue Reading Series: Steffani Jemison & Anne Waldman, Artists Space, New York, NY. (February 2023)
Reading: Spanner in the Works/Plan B, Tibet House, New York, NY. (February 2023)
A Rock, A River, A Street by Steffani Jemison Book Launch, Center for Art, Research, and Alliances New York, NY. (January 2023)
Visiting Artist, Yale Norfolk. (June 2022)
Artist Lecture, Standing Wave, Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Germany. (March 2022)
Three Archival Events, Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ. (October 2021)
Workshop, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY. (May 2021)
Artists or Institutions, Sculpture Center, Queens, NY. (March 2021)
Coded language / Private language: Steffani Jemison & Jonathan Gonzalez, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY. (October 2020)
Visiting Artist, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. (February 2020)
Special projects + collaborations
Justin Hicks and Steffani Jemison perform as Mikrokosmos. Mikrokosmos performances and exhibitions have been presented by the Center for Contemporary Art Berlin (2022), the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2022), Zimmerli Art Museum (2021-2022), Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Albertinum (2020), Nottingham Contemporary (2018), Western Front (2017), MASS MoCA (2017), festival steirischer herbst (2016), and other venues. Their work is in the public collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Their album Another time, this time, one time was published by Western Front in 2019.
Steffani Jemison and Jamal Cyrus: Alpha’s Bet Is Not Over Yet debuted at the New Museum in 2011. Alpha’s Bet has also been presented in exhibitions at Tufts University Galleries (2019), Juxtaposition Arts (2013), and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art (2012).
Future Plan and Program commissions literary work by artists of color. FPP has published books by: Martine Syms, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Harold Mendez, Jina Valentine, Szu-Han Ho, and others. Future Plan and Program was created with support from Project Row Houses.
at Louis Place is a platform for writers. Created in collaboration with Quincy Flowers; led collaboratively with Naima Lowe.
Selected public collections
Art Institute of Chicago
Albright-Knox Museum
Brooklyn Museum
George Eastman Museum
Guggenheim Museum
Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Kadist Foundation
Museum of Modern Art
San Jose Museum of Art
Stedelik Museum
Studio Museum in Harlem
Whitney Museum
Fellowships
Herb Alpert Award—Visual Arts (2021) * Guggenheim Foundation (2020) * NYFA Film/Video (2018) * Radcliffe Institute (2017-2018) * Ann Plato Fellowship (2011) * Core Program (2009-2011).
Grants + awards
Creative Capital (2020) * Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize (2020) * Tiffany Foundation (2014) * Art Matters Foundation (2013) * Flaherty Philadelphia Fellowship (2007)
Residencies
Robert Rauschenberg Artist-in-Residence (2016) * Jacob Lawrence Gallery (2016) * Sharpe Walentas Studio Program (2015-2016) * Smack Mellon (2014-2015) * Hermitage Artist Retreat (2013) * Studio Museum in Harlem (2012-2013) * Denniston Hill Artist Colony (2012) * International Studio and Curatorial Program (2012) * Project Row Houses (2011) * The Wassaic Project (2010) * Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008)
Biography, education
Born in Berkeley, California; grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio; currently live and work in Brooklyn, New York. MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009); BA in Comparative Literature, Columbia University (2003).
Teaching
Currently - tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University New Brunswick.
Past - Columbia University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Low-Residency Program, Parsons The New School for Design Fine Arts, Wellesley College, Trinity College, Rice University, the Cooper Union, etc.