Phoenix Art Museum announces artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and curator Larry Ossei-Mensah for 2023 Lenhardt Lecture

Feb, 21, 2023

Special Events and ProgramsNew Acquisitions

Phoenix Art Museum announces artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and curator Larry Ossei-Mensah for 2023 Lenhardt Lecture

The event on March 22 places the Ghanaian artist in conversation with the Ghanaian-American cultural critic, whose portrait by Quaicoe has been acquired by PhxArt

PHOENIX (February 21, 2023) – This spring, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will present renowned artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe in conversation with curator and cultural critic Larry Ossei-Mensah during the Museum’s spring Lenhardt Lecture, a key component of the Dawn and David Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Quaicoe is known for his lush portraits of friends and family members that utilize bold colors to communicate personal narratives and distinct identities. His figurative forms, including a recent series of Black American cowboys, exude empowerment, redemption, sophistication, humility, curiosity, and quietude and often reflect U.S. gender and race dynamics. Coinciding with the program at PhxArt, the Museum has acquired Quaicoe’s portrait Profile of Larry Ossei (2022), which will be on view this spring in the Museum’s Katz Wing for Modern Art and is the fifth work acquired by the Museum through the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. This spring’s Lenhardt Lecture will place Quaicoe in dialogue with the subject of this recent acquisition—Larry Ossei-Mensah—representing an exciting opportunity to learn about the process of portraiture and the give and take between artist and subject. The event will be presented on March 22, 2023 at 7 pm in the Museum’s Whiteman Hall. Tickets are free for Museum Members and $5 for the public and can be reserved here.

“We are thrilled to bring Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and Larry Ossei-Mensah to Phoenix Art Museum as part of our ongoing Lenhardt Lecture series, made possible through the vision and generosity of Dawn and David Lenhardt,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Quaicoe’s ability to capture the essence of his subjects is masterful, and his portrait of Ossei-Mensah—a rising force in the field of contemporary art—is no different. This work, with Ossei-Mensah dressed as a cowboy, provides an opportunity for our visitors to consider stories and identities historically excluded from narratives about the American West as well as the art world at large, and we are grateful to the Lenhardt family for enabling the Museum to add this important painting to our permanent collection.”

Born in Accra, Ghana, and now based in Oregon, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (b. 1988) is one of the leading West African artists of his generation. Quaicoe approaches painting as an exploratory medium that presents an opportunity to engage with topics of personal identity, pervading social dynamics, and the history of painting itself. Rendered in an approachable scale, his richly textured portraits are intimate and powerful, utilizing bold, concentrated fields of color to capture the emotions and defining characteristics of his sitters. His recent series of portraits featuring Black cowboys modernize the genre, discontinuing a widespread inaccurate and exclusionary account of U.S. history. Quaicoe, who studied painting at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design for Fine Art, has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including ONE BUT TWO (Haadzii) (2021) and Black Like Me (2020) at Roberts Projects gallery in Los Angeles, Calif., as well as BLACK RODEO: Cowboys of the 21st Century (2022) at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels, Belgium.

For the spring Lenhardt Lecture at PhxArt, Quaicoe will appear in conversation with Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic Larry Ossei-Mensah. A native of the Bronx, Ossei-Mensah uses art as a forum to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. Currently, he serves as curator-at-large at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and formerly served as the Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. Ossei-Mensah has worked with artists such as Steve McQueen, Catherine Opie, Nick Cave, Guadalupe Maravilla, Ebony G. Patterson, Judy Chicago, and Amoako Boafo, to name a few, and his exhibitions and projects have appeared in various national and international venues, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong and London; the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco; MASS MoCA; and the 7th Athens Biennale in Athens, Greece, which he co-curated with OSMK Social Club.

“Dawn and I are very pleased to welcome Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and Larry Ossei-Mensah to Phoenix Art Museum for this spring’s Lenhardt Lecture,” said David Lenhardt, vice chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “Quaicoe’s empowering works use portraiture as a form of diasporic cultural investigation, allowing us to probe into social topics of our past and present. We are excited to help bring him and Ossei-Mensah to Phoenix so our community can learn more about their collaboration, their processes, and the histories they are focused on uncovering and uplifting.”

Quaicoe’s Profile of Larry Ossei (2022) is the fifth work acquired into the Museum’s collection with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, which was expanded in 2021 to support the diversification of the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others. The painting fashions Ossei-Mensah, considered a rising curatorial star, as a Black cowboy, interrogating the erasure of Black identity within an art-historical context and within western American histories. The work will be on view in the Museum’s Katz Wing for Modern Art beginning this spring and in conjunction with the March Lenhardt Lecture.

“Quaicoe’s portrait of Ossei-Mensah not only diversifies the Museum’s holdings of contemporary art but broadens our understanding of the American West and what we consider American art,” said Christian Ramírez, assistant curator of contemporary and community art initiatives. “We are grateful to the Lenhardt family for their continued dedication to expanding representation across our programs and acquisitions.”

For more information about the Spring 2023 Lenhardt Lecture, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About the Dawn and David Lenhardt Lecture and the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative
The Dawn and David Lenhardt Lecture engages Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world. In 2018, the inaugural lecture presented New-York based artist Jim Hodges, and subsequent lectures have featured artists Shara Hughes, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Arcmanoro Niles, Teresita Fernández, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Derek Fordjour, and Rashid Johnson.

The Lenhardt Lecture is a key component of the Dawn and David Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Made possible through the generosity of the Arizona-based Lenhardt family, the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative was established in 2017 to deepen the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art through various programs, namely the Lenhardt Lectures, which engage Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world; the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, which enables Phoenix Art Museum to collect works by contemporary artists; and the Dawn and David Lenhardt Gallery, designated for the presentation of contemporary art, including works acquired with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, loans from national and local collectors, and a rotating series of artworks from the Lenhardts’ own collection. In 2021, the initiative was expanded to support the diversification of the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others. Since 2017, the Museum has acquired artworks by Shara Hughes, Arcmanoro Niles, Derek Fordjour, Rashid Johnson, and, now, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative.

About Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (b. 1988, Accra, Ghana) is one of the leading West African artists of his generation. Quaicoe attended Ghanatta College of Art and Design for Fine Art in Accra, Ghana, with a focus on painting. His images explore themes of empowerment and redemption, sophistication and humility, curiosity and quietude, and in his work, color becomes its own language of transformation, whether social, political, or personal. Each of Quaicoe’s figures represent the reclamation of cultural dignity, embracing the idea of origin and personal narrative within the framework of gender and race dynamics. Quaicoe has been the subject of solo exhibitions including ONE BUT TWO (Haadzii) (2021) and Black Like Me (2020) at Roberts Projects gallery in Los Angeles, Calif.

About Larry Ossei-Mensah
Larry Ossei-Mensah (b. 1980) uses art as a forum to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. The Ghanaian-American curator and cultural critic has organized exhibitions and programs featuring artists such as Firelei Baez, Steve McQueen, Catherine Opie, Nick Cave, and Guadalupe Maravilla, among others. He has also collaborated with creatives such as Derrick Adams x Jay-Z, Marco Brambilla, and Mikael Owunna, along with global venues such as The MCA Denver, Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong and London, and the 7th Athens Biennale in Athens, Greece, which he co-curated with OSMK Social Club.

A native of The Bronx, Ossei-Mensah co-founded ARTNOIR, a nonprofit dedicated to driving racial equity in the art world. Currently, he serves as curator-at-large at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with upcoming exhibitions scheduled at the Seattle Art Museum and Denver Art Museum.