Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida, in partnership with The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, hosted an “abstracted black tie” dinner to celebrate the writers and the artists featured in Four Generations, The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, a book spearheaded by Joyner that proposes a radical reevaluation of the contributions to art history played by post-war and contemporary artists of color.

The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Act was started in 1999, and its focus was postwar and contemporary African American artists. The collection includes works by four generations of artists with pieces dating from 1945 to present. In recent, the collection has expanded to included artists from the broader African diaspora including South African artists Zander Blom and Mikhael Subotzky and Nicholas Hlobo, as well as artists based in the Europe and UK such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Isaac Julien.

The event began with cocktails from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by a talk moderated by Tate Modern’s Mark Godfrey, with Four Generations editor Courtney J. Martin and artists Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson and Kevin Beasley. The talk was followed by dinner, and during dessert a discussion was held between curators Christopher Bedford and Katy Siegel, co-curators of the U.S. Pavilion at next year’s Venice Biennale and co-curators of an exhibition drawn from the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection which will open at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans next October.

The event, which was held at the Hearst Tower Penthouse, marked a historic gathering of artists, curators, museum directors and gallery owners across generations to recognize and celebrate the achievements of artists of color and reframe their place within art history.

Attendees at the event included Melvin Edwards, Hank Willis Thomas, Jack Whitten, Thomas P. Campbell, Sheena Wagstaff, Jessica Morgan, Roland Augustine, Brent Sikkema and Casey Caplan.

Read the article and view pictures on Avenue.