Wakeupworld Salon: Jon Key

Join us for Wakeupworld Salon: Jon Key, organized in the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance's famed salons that brought together communities of artists and intellectuals to foster creativity and explore themes also found in our centennial exhibition100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity. We will keep the galleries open until 8pm, inviting you to view and gain inspiration from the exhibition, hear from one of the architects behind the Schomburg’s centennial branding artist, designer, educator, and writer Jon Key (6PM). Key is also the author of Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Artists, Designers, and Trailblazers. He will be in an intimate conversation atop of the famed Houston Conwill cosmogram Rivers. and will sign books following the conversation.

The evening is dedicated to Schomburg's enduring role as a research center and a convening space for intergenerational conversations, world-building, and creativity. This is the second installment of our Wakeupworld Salon series. *The salon takes its name--Wakeupworld--from Countee Cullen's mythical creature in his poem The Wakeupworld.

100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity celebrates 100 years of groundbreaking work at the Schomburg Center. Curated by Center Director, Joy Bivins, the exhibition explores Schomburg’s legacy through the prism of place, people, and material culture. Featuring iconic objects from each of Schomburg’s five collecting divisions across three galleries, 100 is filled with artwork, photography, rare publications and personal journals, audio recordings from the archive, and highlights the iconic Aaron Douglas 4-panel mural Aspects of Negro Life.

JON KEY

Jon(athan) Key is an artist, designer, educator, and writer originally from Seale, Alabama. Key began his design career at Grey Advertising in NYC before moving on to work with HBO, Nickelodeon, and The Public Theater. He is co-founder of the Brooklyn–based design studio Morcos Key with Wael Morcos and currently teaches at Cooper Union and SVA. Key is also a co-founder and design director of Codify Art, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to creating, producing, supporting, and showcasing work by artists of color, particularly women, queer, and trans artists. His work has been featured in Jeffery Deitch Gallery NYC, the Armory Show, The New York Times, and The Atlantic and his writing has been featured in publications such as The Washington Post, The Black Experience in Design, and AIGA.

From the publisher:

Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who got him. So he started asking himself questions:

What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer? A Queer graphic designer? Someone from the South? Could his identity be communicated through a poster or a book? How could identity be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male?

In Black, Queer, & Untold, acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key delves into these questions and manifests a book he (and so many others) needed when they were coming up. Black, Queer & Untold pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before. Jon offers these stories an enduring, reverential stage – and in doing so, gifts us a book that immediately takes its place among the creative arts canon.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, United States

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