OPENING
“Let’s Hold Onto the Sublime”: 10 Artists, Critics, and Curators Reflect on the Legacy of Amy Sherald
WEDNESDAY 9:15 PM APRIL 2, 2025 WEST SIDE HIGHWAY
Many people know Amy Sherald as the artist whose commissioned 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama launched her into overnight art-world stardom. And while, in some sense, this is true, Sherald presides over a large body of work. The characters in her portraits—often reserved, candid in tone and expression, and rendered in her signature grisaille—now populate her sprawling, mid-career survey which opened last week at the Whitney Museum of Art. American Sublime is not only an appropriate title for a show that explores how Black identities shape American culture, but also a pertinent invitation to think about the promise of this country as it reaches a political boiling point. Last Wednesday, at the exhibition’s very busy opening, we slipped away with a slew of art-world characters, including Jerry Saltz, Marilyn Minter, Cynthia Rowley, and Miles Greenberg, and asked them to reflect on Sherald’s legacy and a country in crisis.
———
———
JERRY SALTZ
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“I was on the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery jury that discovered Sherald. At first I saw her work as very high-level illustration. I was late to catch the Acela back to New York and said I’d call my vote in the next morning. On the train ride I stared at the pic I took and realized that her figures were aware, had autonomy and attitude and that the way she painted the Black skin a sort of pewter or slate gray grisaille gave her paintings a singular surreal, very commanding presence. Thankfully, I voted for her to win the $20,000 First Prize. “
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“I’d love to see her paint poets Fred Moten or Amanda Gorman.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“D.H. Lawrence wrote about America, ‘Doom! Doom! Doom! Something seems to whisper it in the very dark trees of America.’ I would say we are at another onset of the long American night.”
———
MARILYN MINTER
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“The first time I saw it was at the show at Hauser & Wirth, I thought she was terrific. I’m a huge fan.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“Simone Biles.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“Kicking Trump’s fucking ass.”
———
ANTWAUN SARGENT
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“It was at the unveiling of the Obama portraits in Washington DC, and it was of Mrs. Obama, for the National Portrait Gallery. Everyone in the room did an audible gasp at the unveiling.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“Beyoncé.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“Tariffs, that’s what’s next.”
———
NA KIM
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“Yes, it was the portrait of Michelle Obama.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“Herself.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“Jesus Christ, I don’t know. Am I going to get flagged as a terrorist? America, you in danger girl.”
———
JED MOCH
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“Doesn’t everybody remember?! I feel like there’s no way you can’t remember because she’s one of these rare artists who was a big story before people knew the art. She was sort of plucked out of obscurity for that commission that set the world on fire.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“Honestly, JT.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“It’s not looking great, honey. Maybe we should just appreciate it for what it was and just call it a day. Let’s live in history and hope for the best. I don’t think we’re going to see an American sublime for quite a while, and so we might as well appreciate what it was.”
———
ERIC SHINER
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“I do, at Monique Meloche’s booth. Probably an art fair in Miami many, many moons ago. I immediately sensed a new aesthetic. One based on joy and love and color and all things good.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“I would never, ever recommend to an artist who they should paint, because as a curator and a museum director who’s now running an artmaking factory, the artist’s source of original inspiration is literally that nugget that makes art magic. And that has to come only from the artist, 1000%.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“A roller coaster ride. Good, bad, ugly, trauma. However, we all need to remember that none of that is new. There has been constant trauma in this country for generations. But when we think about Amy and the work that she’s showing here, she’s bringing joy to Black culture, to all of the wonderful things that Black culture has contributed to this country. And we also have to note always that Black folks have been facing oppression and lots of horrible things on a daily basis for hundreds of years here. And now it’s much broader, and it’s now up to not Black folks to fight this fight. Let’s see what happens, but I hope that America unites and creates something even more beautiful than we had before this all started.”
———
MILES GREENBERG
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“It was in Los Angeles the first time I saw one in person, I think at Hauser & Wirth. I kept the postcard from the show it pinned to my door for four years.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“Probably my friend Jeremy O. Harris. He got proposed to in front of one of her paintings, so I think that would be really sweet. Love wins!”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“I clutch my Canadian passport dearly to my heart. No, I think that reflecting on the sublime is what we can do right now. Thinking about what’s within our facility and what’s within our reach is what we can do right now. And people are noticing that and seeing how effective it is, on a personal level, on a spiritual level. Let’s hold onto the sublime. When we think or hold onto something, it can materialize and inspire the correct plan of action.”
———
DUSTIN YELLIN
Do you remember the first time you saw an Amy Sherald Painting?
“I first saw Amy’s work at her Hauser & Wirth show in 2019. Seeing the paintings in person, I was completely in awe of her mastery of the form: the palette and color choices, of course, but also the subtlety of gesture and sharpness of line. Amy conveys so much through the placement of a hand or the tilt of a head, as though, like [Ralph] Ellison’s protagonist, her figures operate on the lower frequencies, speaking on behalf of all humanity.”
Who should be Amy’s next subject?
“I would never think to give counsel to Amy on who her next subject should or could be. I only wait with curiosity to see where her pendulum of gravity and inquiry move her to make her next incarnations.”
The show explores the American Sublime. What’s next for America?
“Hopefully not the unravelling of law or the decomposition of democracy. In the age of super-intelligence, we will need to build new modalities of meaning making. The operating system for human civilization is changing at an incomprehensible rate. This will require new systems for governance, education and the relationships between humans and machines.”
———
CYNTHIA ROWLEY
