Features

Storm Ascher in the New York Times and “Phillips x House of Crowns”
December 22, 2021 by Jeff Edwards
Color photograph of Storm Ascher standing in front of a wrought iron fence in fromt of a park with many trees. Vinyl reproductions of two paintings are attached to the fence, one on each side of Ascher.
Credit: via The New York Times (photographer: Jeremy Dennis)

Storm Ascher (BFA 2018 VCS) has been so busy lately that it’s hard to keep up on everything she’s doing these days. In addition to a recent interview in Visual Arts Journal about her nomadic exhibition space Superposition Gallery and her inclusion in Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for 2022, she’s been involved in organizing two recent (and very timely) exhibitions.


The first is a pop-up exhibition to raise funds for the Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor, an organization with a repository of information and artifacts documenting the little-known history of one of the oldest Black communities on the South Fork of Long Island. Part of the exhibition’s proceeds will go toward the preservation and digitization of the Society’s archive.


In a recent article in the New York Times, Ascher said of the exhibition

I wanted the curatorial theme to be about Black utopia, joy, leisure, luxury, things that have not been expected to be part of the Black experience but have persisted here since the 1800s.

A square flyer with white sans-serif text on a plain black background announcing the exhibition House of Crowns, with the name of the exhibition in the center, the names of the participating artists at the top, and the dates and address at the bottom

The second is “Phillips x House of Crowns,” a recent exhibition at the Phillips auction house on Park Avenue, co-curated by Ascher and Anwarii Musa of Artmatic Art Advisory. The group exhibition featured a

collection of art objects and concepts [that] aims to facilitate mentorship and conversations between artists at all stages of their practice under the associative notion of the crown—the result is a wide range of expressions and styles represented through painting, sculpture, photography and more.

In advance of “House of Crowns,” Ascher interviewed the participating artists about the creative challenges facing their generation, and the way these times have shaped their respective practices. You can read the whole thing here.


We expect to see a lot more from Ascher in the future; we’ll keep you posted here.