Clifford Owens is an African-American mixed media and performance artist, writer and curator. Owens was born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Maryland, in 1971 and spent his early life in Baltimore. Owens is known for his works which center on the body and often include interactions with the audience and spontaneity.

Education and teaching

Clifford Owens attended the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...

(UMBC), then transferred to the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

, from which he graduated with a BFA in 1998. He received his MFA in 2000 from the

Mason Gross School of the Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is named for Mason W. Gross, the sixteenth president of Rutgers. Mason Gross offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance, Theater, Digi ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

in 2000, and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2001. He attended

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

in Maine in 2004 and was an Artist-in-Residence at The

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

2005–2006. Owens has taught at The

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

, The

, and

at Rutgers, as well as

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, and was a lecturer at the School of Art, Yale University in fall 2011.

Work

At Owens' first solos show at the

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

, he presented, ''Photographs with an Audience,'' a piece about how the history of performance art is intertwined with the history of photography. In it, he asked questions of the audience and those that had answered the same would have their picture taken as a group. In his solo exhibition ''Anthology'' at

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

, Owens performed instructional scores submitted by black artists that he had invited to participate. One score written by artist

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best ...

, was withdrawn by her while the exhibition was on view but was performed by Owens three times at

Exhibitions

Clifford Owens’ art has appeared in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His solo exhibitions include at On Stellar Rays Gallery in New York in 2008, “Perspectives 173: Clifford Owens”

(2011), “Anthology: Clifford Owens” Museum of Modern Art PS1 (2011-2012), and "Better The Rebel You Know''"'' in

Cornerhouse Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England (2014). His group exhibitions include "Distillation" in

Fylkingen Fylkingen - New Music and Intermedia Art is an artist-run venue and member based organisation committed to contemporary experimental performing arts. Over 300 artists from various disciplines use the space to develop and present new work. Today Fy ...

, Stockholm, Sweden (2003), "One Minute More" at

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

, New York, NY. (2009), "Collected. Reflections on the Permanent Collection" at The

, New York, NY. (2010), "100 Years" at

, Long Island City, NY. (2010), "GNY: 5Year Review" at

, Long Island City, NY. (2010 "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art" (Traveling show) at

(2012),

Grey Art Gallery The Grey Art Gallery is New York University’s fine art museum, located on historic Washington Square Park, in New York City's Greenwich Village. As a university art museum, the Grey Art Gallery functions to collect, preserve, study, document, in ...

(NYU),

, and the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

(2012)., "This Kiss" at

Danspace Project Danspace Project is a performance venue for contemporary dance. Its performances are held in St. Mark's Church in the East Village area of the Manhattan borough of New York City. History Founded in 1974 by Barbara Dilley, Mary Overlie, and Larr ...

, St. Marks Church.

Legacy Russell Legacy Russell is an American curator, writer, and author of ''Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto'', published by Verso Books in 2020. In 2021, the performance and experimental art institution The Kitchen announced Russell as the organization's next ex ...

and Clifford Owens. (2013), "Remains" at Fergus McCaffrey (2017), "Clifford Owens: Five Anthology Scores" at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019), and "Breathing Room: Bound and Loose" at Baltimore Museum of Art (2020).

Collections

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York * The

References

External links

Yale School of Art. Artist Biography.

Anthology. MOMA PS1
Exhibition publication. {{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Clifford 1971 births Living people African-American contemporary artists American contemporary artists Artists from Maryland American performance artists Rutgers University alumni University of Maryland, Baltimore County alumni 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people