Linda Goode Bryant, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 2022

Linda Goode Bryant gives an experimental lecture at Skowhegan, where she talks about her many decades of work as an interdisciplinary artist, gallerist, writer, film-maker, and community organizer. Goode Bryant begins her talk by creating a space for the participants to question the hierarchical model of the traditional artist lecture, and instead creating a space where they can talk amongst one another that goes underneath the conversation in order to arrive at a place of respect and love. Goode Bryant speaks about the early days of her legendary gallery, Just Above Midtown, and how it became a space that taught her how to care for herself by learning how to care for others. Goode Bryant stresses the importance of Just Above Midtown being a space that had the freedom, arrogance and power to not be defined by dominant structures. Goode Bryant talks about the many exhibitions and programs she had at the gallery, and how it taught her to seek out the good rather than avoiding the bad. One of the biggest resources Just Above Midtown had was debt, which allowed the gallery to flourish because there was no opportunity cost in the kinds of programs and exhibitions that the space cultivated. Goode Bryant also shows an archival film that depicts some of the many artists who participated in Just Above Midtown, including David Hammons and Senga Nengudi to name a few. Following the screening, a discussion takes place where participants use the history of space and geometry as an entry point to have an intimate conversation around power, desire, things that are not seen, the transience yet permanence of building, and nurturing and supporting one another in times of precarity. The participants ask questions and share many thoughts and responses amongst one another, such as reflecting on what it means to live in times of dominant structures, and how one can think about changing the problematic nature of dominant structures. Other questions that are asked are: How can artists imagine something different for themselves, and what are some of the resources artists can have to create that? How can workers fight back against some of the exploitative and abusive ways in which universities treat their adjunct teachers? How can artists operate from a place of abundance rather than a place of lack? How can artists deconstruct their inherent privileges and oppressions? Once the participants finish speaking, Goode Bryant elegantly ends the conversation by stating that there is joy in this room, even if joy is not something that is being talked about. Goode Bryant states the importance of not losing sight of joy and to hold tight to the possibility of something different; that acting as opposed to too much talking is what gets work done. Ultimately it is one’s actions that dictate what artists can do.