The Fifth Avenue Hotel and Kasmin Gallery are pleased to host an intimate conversation over dinner with artists vanessa german and Ming Smith. This program is presented on the occasion of german’s exhibition GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul and marks the debut of Overheard at The Fifth, a series of salon-style dinners with thought leaders across disciplines that welcomes complexity, curiosity, and connection.
About vanessa german
vanessa german views her work as an act of restorative justice. Her sculptures aim to confront and dismantle the emotional and spiritual weight imposed by the multi-generational oppression of African American communities. As a queer Black woman living in the United States, german has described this as a deeply necessary process. german is also a community leader. She founded Love Front Porch in 2011, an arts initiative for local families, which grew into ARThouse in 2014—a community space with a studio, garden, and artist residency. With GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul, german presents two series of new sculptures at Kasmin comprised of mineral crystals, beads, porcelain, wood, paint, and the energy that these objects bring to life to form monumental heads and figures in the act of falling. Together, each body of work envisions the transformation of consciousness necessary to imagine a new world.
german is the recipient of numerous awards including the Heinz Award, Don Tyson Prize from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the United States Artist Grant in 2018, the Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2017, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant in 2015. german’s work is held in numerous museum collections including Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, High Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
About Ming Smith
Ming Smith captures everyday life through a transcendent and ethereal lens. Her work has a collaborative nature, often featuring legends of the art, music, and literary world of Harlem and beyond. Smith documents everyday moments of Black life, whether it be legends such as Grace Jones and James Baldwin or an anonymous passerby on the street— she creates a dreamlike poignancy for every subject. Smith creates a deliberate blurriness with experimental post-production techniques such as double exposed prints, which amplifies the sacredness of Black life while creating dream-like and vibrational images. Smith played an integral and steadfast role in the New York art scene in the later decades of the 20th century. Smith was the first Black female photographer acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and the first female member of the influential Black photography collective, Kamoinge. She was also one of the first African American women to break the color barrier in modeling alongside Toukie Smith. Smith began working for some of the top agencies in Paris, such as Wilhelmina Models, Ford Models and Pauline’s, where she became the first Black L’Oréal Ambassador. She was one of the iconic dancers in Tina Turner’s 1984 hit “What’s Love Got to Do With It”, music video, where she captured the historic photo of Turner during the filming.
