About

A conversation between Curator, Rachel Delphia and Artist, Sharif Bey to discuss his work since his major 2021 solo exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, in which the artist exhibited a survey of his studio practice alongside pieces created onsite in response to the museum’s collection.This conversation will focus specifically on the artist’s newest series, the Guardians, to consider how Bey uses sculpture as autoethnography, exploring individual and collective identity through the recontextualization of forms that have historically been used to represent status or power. The Guardians series furthers Bey’s enduring exploration of Nkisi nkondi figures, expressing questions of legacy, ornamentation, and matriarchal power. Commenting on these works, Curator Rachel Delphia writes, “It is no surprise that Bey’s Guardians are women. Each sculpture carries literal and figurative baggage, in their attributes and in the symbolic weight that generations of African American mothers bear.” This conversation will also delve into the importance of relationships shared between artists and curators extending beyond specific institutional projects, and the ways these dialogues can enrich and expand an artist’s studio practice. About the Panelists An artist and educator, Dr. Sharif Bey was raised in a large African American family in Pittsburgh, PA. While relatives left high school for jobs in industry, Bey had a pivotal experience as a young ceramics apprentice at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. He earned a BFA from Slippery Rock University, an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a PhD from Penn State University. Inspired by functional pottery, modernism, Oceanic/African art and Art of the African diaspora, Bey’s ceramic and mix-media works investigate the cultural and political significance of adornment and the symbolic and formal properties of archetypal motifs across time and place. He is a 2022 recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship, and his work can be found in numerous museum collections. Bey lives in Syracuse with his wife and three children. Rachel Delphia is The Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman Curator at Carnegie Museum of Art and a specialist in modern and contemporary design and craft. Her exhibitions include Extraordinary Ordinary Things (2021), Sharif Bey: Excavations (2021) and the forthcoming Beate Kuhn (2024). She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon and the Winterthur Museum / University of Delaware. Image: Sharif Bey, Ancestral Vestiges. February 3 - August 5, 2023. Belger Arts Center. Kansas City, MO. Image courtesy of the artist and albertz benda, New York and Los Angeles.