Harlem Is Everywhere: The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism

What happens when our most intimate possessions end up in art museums?

Today, Harlem Is Everywhere is featuring an episode from another podcast from The Met called Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time. Each episode tells the stories of artists' materials to explore how and why people make art.

In this episode, we cover blankets and quilts. Blankets comfort and keep us warm. They accompany us through our lives. They are keepers of some of our most intimate stories. We look at a group of artists who harness this power of blankets and quilts as totems for memory, community and cultural survival.

Guests:

Loretta Pettway Bennett, Gee's Bend quilt maker

Marie Watt, artist

Ally Barlow, associate conservator, Department of Textile Conservation, The Met

Louisiana P. Bendolph, Gee's Bend quilt maker

Louise Williams, board president, Freedom Quilting Bee Legacy

Featured artworks:

Qunnie Pettway, Housetop, ca. 1975: https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/qunnie-pettway/work/housetop

Marie Watt, Untitled (Dream Catcher), 2014: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/849042

Louisiana P. Bendolph, Housetop quilt, 2003: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/654095

Annie E. Pettway, “Flying Geese” Variation, ca. 1935: https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/artist/annie-e-pettway/work/flying-geese-variation

Willie "Ma Willie" Abrams, Roman Stripes quilt, ca. 1975: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/654081

For a transcript of the episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/immaterialblankets

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Immaterial is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Magnificent Noise and hosted by Camille Dungy.

Our production staff includes Salman Ahad Khan, Ann Collins, Samantha Henig, Eric Nuzum, Emma Vecchione, Sarah Wambold, and Jamie York. Additional staff includes Julia Bordelon, Skyla Choi, Maria Kozanecka, and Rachel Smith.

Sound design by Ariana Martinez and Kristin Muller.
Original music by Austin Fisher.
Fact-checking by Mary Mathis and Claire Hyman.
Sensitivity listening by Adwoa Gyimyah-Brempong.

Immaterial is made possible by Dasha Zhukova Niarchos. Additional support is provided by the Zodiac Fund.

Special thanks to Eva Labson, Scott Browning, Curator Amelia Peck, and Avery Trufelman.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What was the political legacy of the Harlem Renaissance? In the final episode, we’ll explore the lasting impact of the art and organizing that happened during the 1920s and ’30s and how it paved the way for the civil rights movement. We’ll highlight some key political events of the time and explore the work of artists such as Romare Bearden and Augusta Savage. We’ll also touch upon what it means for The Met to tell this story in 2024, more than fifty years after its controversial exhibition “Harlem on My Mind.”

Learn more about the exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance

Objects featured in this episode:

Romare Bearden, The Block, 1971

Augusta Savage, Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp), 1939

Guests:

Mary Schmidt Campbell, curator, writer, historian and former president of Spelman college

Jordan Casteel, artist

Denise Murell, curator of the exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism

Bridget R. Cooks, Chancellor’s Fellow and professor of art history and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine

Original poem: Major Jackson’s “The Block (for Romie)”

For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere

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Harlem Is Everywhere is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What were the sounds of the Harlem Renaissance? Jazz and blues exploded onto the scene. People flocked to uptown venues like the Savoy Ballroom, where they could dance the Lindy Hop all night long. In this episode, we’ll learn how the music of the Renaissance was part of a larger boundary-breaking nightlife that involved gambling, speakeasies, and hole-in-the-wall clubs where people could express gender and sexuality in new ways. We’ll learn about the artists, musicians, and performers who embodied this spirit of creative experimentation and transgression—and whose work remains fresh decades later.

Learn more about the exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance

Objects featured in this episode:

James Van Der Zee, [Person in a Fur-Trimmed Ensemble], 1926

Jacob Lawrence, Pool Parlor, 1942

Archibald Motley Jr. paintings: The Liar, 1936; and Picnic, 1934

Guests:

James Smalls, art historian and professor

Richard J. Powell, art historian and professor

Christian McBride, Grammy Award winning musician and composer

Original poem: Carl Phillips’s “At the Reception”

For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere

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Harlem Is Everywhere is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did the literature of the Harlem Renaissance play a central role in conversations around Black identity in America and abroad? In this episode we’ll learn about publications like Opportunity, The Crisis, and Fire!! which each promoted a unique political and aesthetic perspective on Black life at the time. We’ll learn about Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston before they became household names and explore how collaboration and conversation between artists, writers, and scholars came to define the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance.

Learn more about the exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance

Objects featured in this episode:

Laura Wheeler Waring’s covers of The Crisis, September 1924 and April 1923

Winold Reiss, Cover of Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, February 1925

Winold Reiss, Langston Hughes, 1925

Aaron Douglas, Miss Zora Neale Hurston, 1926

Guests:

Monica L. Miller, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University

John Keene, poet and novelist

For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere

#HarlemIsEverywhere

Harlem Is Everywhere is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What role did fashion play in the Harlem Renaissance? Artists at the time were committed to creating a new image of Black life in America and abroad. In this episode, we’ll explore how Black self-representation evolved during this period through the photography of James Van Der Zee and paintings by artists like William Henry Johnson and Archibald J. Motley, Jr. We’ll also examine how fashion conveyed community values and offered new modes of individual expression that challenged racist stereotypes and created a shared sense of dignity.

Learn more about The Met's exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance

Objects featured in this episode:

James Van Der Zee, Nude, Harlem, 1923 (1970.539.27)

William Henry Johnson, Street Life, Harlem, ca. 1939–1940

James Van Der Zee, Couple, Harlem, 1932 (2021.446.1.2)

Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Black Belt, 1934

Guests:

Bridget R. Cooks, Chancellor’s Fellow and professor of art history and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine

Robin Givhan, Senior critic-at-large, The Washington Post

For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere

#HarlemIsEverywhere

Harlem Is Everywhere is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What was the Harlem Renaissance? During the Great Migration, major cities across America proved fertile ground for artists and intellectuals fleeing the Jim Crow South. In this episode we hear about Alain Locke’s famous anthology The New Negro: An Interpretation, which gathered some of the best of fiction, poetry, and essays on the art and literature emerging from these communities. Locke’s anthology demonstrated the diverse approaches to portraying modern Black life that came to characterize the “New Negro”—and embodied some of the highest ideals of the era.

Learn more about The Met's exhibition at metmuseum.org/HarlemRenaissance

Objects featured in this episode:

Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr., Self-Portrait, ca. 1941 (43.46.4)

Winold Reiss, Roland Hayes, cover of Survey Graphic, March 1925 (F128.9.N3 H35 1925)

Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction, 1934

Guests:

Denise Murrell, curator of The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism; Merryl H. and James S. Tisch Curator at Large, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History and professor of African/African American Studies at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; distinguished scholar in the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fall 2023

Monica L. Miller, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English and Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University

Bridget R. Cooks, Chancellor’s Fellow and professor of art history and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine

Mary Schmidt Campbell, former president of Spelman College; former executive director and chief curator emerita, The Studio Museum in Harlem

For a transcript of this episode and more information, visit metmuseum.org/HarlemIsEverywhere

#HarlemIsEverywhere

Harlem Is Everywhere is produced by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Audacy's Pineapple Street Studios. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Introducing Harlem Is Everywhere, a brand new podcast from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hear how music, fashion, literature, and art helped shape a modern Black identity.

Presented alongside the exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, the podcast is hosted by writer and critic Jessica Lynne. The series features a dynamic cast of speakers who reflect on the legacy and cultural impact of the Harlem Renaissance.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.