Re-Air: The Young Painter Curators Are Rushing to Work With

About this episode

The episode features an interview with young painter Taina H. Cruz, discussing her work and influences amidst her rising recognition in the art world.

This interview with the painter Taina H. Cruz first came out for the opening of the Whitney Biennial, and on the occasion of the opening of Greater New York at MoMA PS1, where Cruz is also featured, we're resurfacing it. This is a lot of attention for an artist who is relatively young (born in 1998), and who just earned her MFA from the famed Yale School of Painting last year. She’s worked in a variety of media, but is known now for paintings often featuring images of Black female figures with a moody, woozy, sometimes unsettled or unsettling atmosphere. Sometimes Cruz works in suggestions of African American and Caribbean folklore, or intimations of horror and fantasy. Sometimes, she’s played on the images of celebrities like Halle Berry or Tyra Banks. Sometimes she reworks her own personal photos of neighbors from New York. Since Cruz is an artist that the curators of these big shows are looking to, critic Ben Davis, wanted to get a sense of the influences—from art and otherwise—that are shaping her approach to art, and what she makes of all the attention.

People in this episode

Host: Ben Davis

Guest: Taina H. Cruz

Topics covered

• young artists
• painting
• Black female figures
• art influences
• Whitney Biennial
• MoMA PS1
• Caribbean folklore

Keywords

• Taina H. Cruz
• Whitney Biennial
• MoMA PS1
• Black female figures
• Yale School of Painting
• art influences
• Caribbean folklore

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1, Yale School of Painting

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