On Friday, May 31, 2024, art collector and Art + Practice co-founder Eileen Harris Norton hosted a cocktail reception at Good Behavior at the MADE Hotel in Manhattan.
The event was in celebration of the recently published book and catalog All These Liberations: Women Artists in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection. The event gathered friends, family, scholars, and art world professionals to learn more about the book and to celebrate and gain more insight into the incredible women artists highlighted in the book, such as Sadie Barnette, Mona Hatoum, Maya Lin, Julie Mehretu, Ana Mendieta, Senga Nengudi, Shirin Neshat, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald, Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
The cocktail party was uniquely curated to reflect Harris Norton’s taste, with pink tablecloths, her favorite tunes, vibrant flowers by local NYC florist Talulot, a signature margarita cocktail, and delicious bites from the lounge’s impressive menu. Notable attendees included Eileen Harris Norton, Thelma Golden, Legacy Russell, Lorna Simpson, Taylor Renee Aldridge, Mark Bradford, Pamela Joyner, Amy Sherald, Susan Cahan, Jordan Weber, and Fatimah Tuggar.
“… lays the groundwork … and contributions of women artists.”
In her remarks at the cocktail party, Harris Norton thanked everyone involved in the book, with a special thank you to Taylor Renee Aldridge who brought the book to life. She also emphasized her hopes for the catalog: “We hope All These Liberations will be utilized as an important, educational resource that lays the groundwork for further scholarship on the work and contributions of women artists. And we are so excited to put this book in the hands of aspiring artists, collectors, leaders, and educators who continue to be forces of change.”
The evening before the cocktail, on Thursday, May 30, 2024, All These Liberations was celebrated in an “Ideas at Ford” conversation hosted by Darren Walker at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice between Thelma Golden and Eileen Harris Norton. Over 200 people attended the talk to hear more about the inspiration behind All These Liberations, Harris Norton’s background and long-time friendship with Golden, as well as the importance of this new book and its impact on the current cultural landscape and future scholarship. The enlightening conversation at Ford and the following cocktail party mark the first time the book has been celebrated in NYC, following its publication by Yale University Press on March 12, 2024.
“I would not be here without Eileen,” said Thelma Golden at the Ideas at Ford conversation. “We can’t look at this moment, where we all revel in the fact we can go to museums all over the world and see the works of Black artists, women artists, queer artists, who used to be known as regional, without thinking about the ways that Eileen has collected—and to see that as a norm now. We have to understand how that happened.”
Edited by Taylor Renee Aldridge, curator at the California African American Museum (CAAM), All These Liberations offers a unique look at Eileen Harris Norton’s life and a thorough analysis of the Eileen Harris Norton Collection, highlighting women artists, particularly Black women artists. With scholarly contributions from Sophia Belsheim, Susan Cahan, Chelsea Mikael Frazier, Kellie Jones, Kris Kuramitsu, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Steven Nelson, Legacy Russell, and Lowery Stokes Sims in the form of essays, discussions, a foreword by Lorna Simpson and an interview with Harris Norton and Thelma Golden, the book explores how struggles for freedom and equality are deeply intertwined with shared feminist practices, art techniques, movements, and the notion of diaspora.
Contributors to the book recount how Harris Norton has impacted their careers and the careers of contemporary women artists and curators globally. A chronological timeline within the book further contextualizes Harris Norton’s patronage in the wake of experiencing the Watts Rebellion, continuous political change, and the rise of the Los Angeles arts ecosystem.
In the introduction of the book, Renee Aldridge speaks to Harris Norton’s unique and impactful collecting style and motivations, writing “Eileen’s collecting methods and patron practices reflect her own sensible, aesthetic eye and are congruent with the many sociopolitical currents that have evolved throughout the world in recent decades, often mirroring an avant-garde impulse.”
Photo credit: 1) From left to right: Susan Cahan, Lorna Simpson, Thelma Golden, Eileen Harris Norton, Amy Sherald, Taylor Renee Aldridge and Dr. Chelsea Michael Frazier. All These Liberations Cocktail Event at Good Behavior, NYC. Photo by Sachyn Mital. 2) Darren Walker (left), Eileen Harris Norton (middle), and Thelma Golden (right), in conversation at the Ford Foundation for Social Justice. Photo by Eddie Mota. 2) Darren Walker, Eileen Harris Norton, and Thelma Golden.
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