Tiona Nekkia McClodden (July 2, 1981,

Blytheville, Arkansas Blytheville is the county seat and the largest city in Mississippi County, Arkansas, United States. It is approximately north of West Memphis. The population was 13,406 at the 2020 census, down from 15,620 in 2010. History Blytheville was found ...

) is an interdisciplinary research-based conceptual artist, filmmaker and curator based in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Early life

McClodden was born in Blytheville, Arkansas, in 1981. She went to

Clark Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Found ...

, majoring in film and psychology. Although she did not graduate from

Spelman College Spelman College is a private, historically black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium in Atlanta. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman re ...

, McClodden continued extracurricular education in film there.

Career and works

McClodden's work explores concepts of gender, sexuality and race, centering a black,

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

lineage. She produces her work through her film and media company Harriet's Gun, which she has said is a reference to

Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends, us ...

. She has created bodies of work in dedication to underrepresented African-American writers and musicians such as

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

and Florence B. Price or

Essex Hemphill Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957 – November 4, 1995) was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-Amer ...

, Brad Johnson and

Julius Eastman Julius Eastman (October 27, 1940 – May 28, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, vocalist, and performance artist whose work is associated with musical minimalism. He was among the first composers to combine minimalist processes with elements ...

, who made work in the 1980s during the

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

crisis in the US. Her work was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia as part of the ''Speech/Acts'' exhibit in 2017''.'' McClodden has been the recipient of several notable awards. She was the fifth recipient of the

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

Fellowship in Art and Activism at the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Human Rights Project at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

. In 2018, she was a

Magnum Foundation Magnum Foundation is a non-profit, photographic foundation located in New York City with a mission to expand diversity and creativity in documentary photography. History and mission Magnum Foundation was founded in 2007, in the midst of the c ...

Fund grantee. In 2017 McClodden won the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. She was a 2016 Pew Fellow and received a grant from Pew in 2018. McClodden showed in the 2019

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

, curated by

Rujeko Hockley Rujeko Hockley (born in Zimbabwe) is a New York-based US curator. Hockley is currently an Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Life and education Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Hockley relocated to Washington, D.C. with her famil ...

and

Jane Panetta Jane Panetta is a New York-based curator and art historian. Panetta is currently an Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Career Curating Before working at the Whitney, Panetta spent five years in the Painting and Sculpture Dep ...

. McClodden's exhibit was a three-hour-long, six-screen film documenting a religious pilgrimage she took to Nigeria, running on a loop. In March 2020, it was announced that McClodden would be included in Prospect.5 in New Orleans, LA, curated by Naima J. Keith and Diana Nawi. McClodden is the founder of Conceptual Fade, a combination gallery and library space in

Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

McClodden cites the inspiration for the space as the Pyramid Club as well as micro jazz bars in Japan. Conceptual Fade's library, is also McClodden's personal library, with a focus on Black artists and available to the public for research.

''The Brad Johnson Tape''

Inspired by a poem by Johnson published in ''Other Countries: Black Gay Voices'', McClodden created a 10-scene performance piece on VHS tape.

''A Recollection. + Predicated''

''A Recollection. + Predicated'' within ''Julius Eastman: That Which is Fundamental'' was curated by McClodden 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 ...

in New York City. It centered three years of research around Eastman (in collaboration with Julius Eastman Estate), an internationally lauded minimalist composer who died homeless just shy of fifty years old. This exhibition included an

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian l ...

of artwork by Carolyn Lazard,

Sondra Perry Sondra Perry is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, computer-based media, installation, and performance. Perry's work investigates "blackness, black femininity, African American heritage" and the portrayal or representation of black ...

, Chloe Bass, and

Texas Isaiah Texas Isaiah is a first-generation Black Indigenous American photographer and contemporary artist born in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently based in Los Angeles, CA. His family is from Guyana, Venezuela, and Barbados. He is the 2019 recipient o ...

and musical performances of Eastman's work.

''CLUB''

McClodden's piece, ''CLUB,'' took place in 2018 at the

Performance Space New York Performance Space New York, formerly known as Performance Space 122 or P.S. 122, is a non-profitable arts organization founded in 1980 in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in an abandoned public school building. Origin The former eleme ...

, in a space where

first exhibited. It explored the

liminality In anthropology, liminality () is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they w ...

of nightclubs, where visitors might leave their everyday persona outside and interact with different social boundaries.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* 2014: ''Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic, Movement I - The Visions'', Esther Klein Art Gallery - Philadelphia, PA * 2016: ''Dreaming of KIN'' - ''Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic, Movement I - The Visions'', Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY * 2017: ''KILO Iba Se 99'' Exposition Gemeente Amsterdam, Netherlands * 2018: ''CLUB'', Performance Space, New York, NY * 2019: ''Hold on, let me take the safety off'', COMPANY Gallery, New York, NY * 2021: ''Be Alarmed: The Black Americana Epic, Movement III - The Triple Deities'', Globe Dye Works, Philadelphia, PA * 2021: ''PLAY ME HOME'', Prospect New Orleans, New Orleans, LA * 2022: ''MASK , CONCEAL , CARRY,'' 52 Walker, New York, NY * 2023: ''THE POETICS OF BEAUTY WILL INEVITABLY RESORT TO THE MOST BASE PLEADINGS AND OTHER WILES IN ORDER TO SECURE ITS RELEASE,'' KunsthalleBasel, Basel, Switzerland

Writing

*"Texas Isaiah" ''Artforum'', Summer 2018. *"My Existential Limits to the Rectification of Past Wrongs, Or, So If You See Me Crying, It’s Just a Sign That I’m Still Alive", ''Triple Canopy'', April 25, 2019 *"Six Movements for Shango, Xangô, Changó, Ṣàngó," ''Love and Ethnology: the Colonial Dialectic of Sensitivity (after Hubert Fichte)'', eds. Diedrich Diedrichsen and Anselm Franke, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2019 *"The Brad Johnson Tape, X - On Subjugation, 2017" ''Souls Journal'', Volume 21, 2020 *''"''A Questionnaire on Decolonization" (Contributor), ''OCTOBER Journal'', December 1, 2020 *''"''Shawné Michaelain Holloway and Tiona Nekkia McClodden''," Black Futures'', eds. Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew, Random House Publishing Group, 2021

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:McClodden, Tiona Living people 1981 births Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni Spelman College alumni Clark Atlanta University alumni Filmmakers from Arkansas 21st-century American artists African-American women artists 21st-century American women