Lauren Tate Baeza is the curator of African Art at the High Museum in Atlanta and recently curated an amazing exhibition featuring the work of African printmaker, Bruce Onobrakpeya. We got Lauren on the show today to talk about the exhibition (you know your boy JB loves the prints!), the approach to contemporary African art, Bruce Onobrakpeya’s long storied career, judging art and all types of topics. Lauren has a brilliant thought process and is here to enlighten us all about the wonder “transitions” in the art world. Listen, subscribe, and share!

Episode 172 topics include:

Bruce Onobrakpeya’s work and career

“The Mask and the Cross” exhibition at the High Museum

Catholic church’s influence on Nigerian art

telling a story with an exhibition

designing an exhibition

artists embracing mistakes

technical printmaking

unlocking mastery

exoticizing African art

2022 Hudgens Prize

Lauren Tate Baeza joined the High Museum of Art in November 2020 as the Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art. Baeza oversees the African art collection of more than one thousand objects, including extraordinary examples of masks and sculpture, exceptionally fine textiles, beadwork, metalwork, and ceramics.

Prior to joining the High, Baeza served as director of exhibitions at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights from 2018 to 2020. During her tenure there, Baeza maintained the Center’s two ongoing installations in its American Civil Rights Movement and Global Human Rights Movement galleries and organized sixteen temporary exhibitions and installations, including Fragments, a collaboration with celebrated designer Paula Scher, featuring passages from Dr. King’s handwritten speeches and letters.

Concurrent with her position at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Baeza also curated the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, featuring approximately ten thousand items, and managed the James Allen and John Littlefield Collection. Previously, she served as executive director of the APEX Museum in Atlanta, which interprets, presents, and celebrates Black history.

Baeza holds a Master of Arts in African studies from the University of California, Los Angeles; a Bachelor of Arts in Africana studies with a cultural studies concentration from California State University, Northridge; and a certification in curatorial studies from Sotheby’s Institute of Art.

See more: Lauren Tate Baeza at The High Museum + Lauren Tate Beaza IG @elletatebaeza

Presented by: Black Art In America

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