CLARENCE JOHNS
“eclectic by design”
What is the role of a curator? I know, I know, loaded question. But maybe that’s where the answer lies: in its complexities. The role isn’t static; it evolves and shifts. And the best curators have the ability to adapt and, at times, take contrasting visions and turn them into fluid vibes. Whether it’s building a playlist, crafting an exhibition, designing a space or composing a story, the goal is ultimately the same. To find a common thread of meaning no matter how vast the distance or divide. Maybe it doesn’t make sense at first glance or listen—those different materials, textures, sounds, tones, and worlds. But for those who choose to take a beat, immerse themselves, and examine the big picture, they will come to understand that this harmony, though intentional, is not an exact science, rather a felt balance. The connection is there, and if you dig deeper, you’ll appreciate the whole experience.
“I'm very eclectic with my taste. I really try to draw connections between work that seems disparate aesthetically or otherwise.”
Say hello to our #artist2lookout4 Clarence Johns. Based in Harlem, NY by way of Portland, OR, Johns is the founder of Carracci Art, Director of Hunter Dunbar Projects, and resident DJ at East Village Radio.
Yes, he wears many hats, but they aren’t worn in isolation. Each an extension of his creative spirit and deep passion for music and art. And just like his curatorial eye, they blend together in a way where they vibrantly mesh.
Johns has always had an appreciation for art. His father is an artist known as Texas Red, and he often went to museums growing up. But his fascination truly grew after taking an art history course while attending Sarah Lawrence College. “I love the connections that my professor, Dr. Judith Rodenbeck, was making between performance and dance and music and visual art. Since then, even till now, I am really motivated by the connections that go beyond the medium.”
He continues to weave all of his interests together. At Hunter Dunbar, for instance, a newer gallery based in Chelsea, he not only curates shows but also helps to produce music programming and other events to coincide with the artwork. In fact, the gallery is currently planning a survey exhibition of Dickie Landry’s work, who was an original member of the Philip Glass Ensemble from 1969 into the early ’80s and an accomplished visual artist in his own right. Stay tuned for that!
Michael Cummings,Homage to Nelson Mandela, 2014
He takes it further with his own gallery, Carracci Art, which he founded in March 2021. Its aim? To have music and art coexist by design. An assorted fusion of styles and mediums that seamlessly work together to offer guests both a visual and auditory experience. His exhibitions start with a more traditional reception for viewing and conversation, and then gradually shift into a social gathering centered around DJs and sound. It’s not about formality, however, but fostering an atmosphere for connection. “I understand the premise of the white cube, and I understand that it can aid in the experience of artworks, but I don't want it to seem too austere and too cold. I'm very passionate about people socializing, that's just such an important part of enjoying art. I want people to have a good time.”
When I asked him about the joys of running his own space, he quickly responded: it’s the artists. He is moved by the opportunity to present people’s work with authenticity and respect for their voice and vision. “It's really fun to take an artist's work, or multiple artists’ work, and put them together in a way that makes sense.” But it’s not all fun and games. There are a lot of challenges to managing a gallery, as one can imagine. Most notably, balancing creative vision with financial sustainability, building and maintaining an audience, and navigating visibility and competition. “Just trying to build a program, but then needing secondary market sales to help support all of the infrastructure and the overhead of having a gallery space in Chelsea. And I think sometimes, too, it's getting people to come and see the shows because there's so much going on in the New York gallery world that sometimes it's overwhelming. So, trying to make sure that people who might appreciate the shows actually know about it.”
That said, consider this me letting you all know about it!
If you want to check out Carracci’s current showcase, The Art of Being, Chapter 1: The Uptown Special, head to his space in Harlem, or stop by Hunter Dunbar for the latest exhibition by Hiroko Takeda. You can also catch Johns and his co-DJ, Jeremiah, at Lovely Day for their monthly residency, where they play a variety of genres. Or listen to their bi-weekly salsa sets at East Village Radio, streaming live from 1st Ave.
Do you see any parallels between curating a DJ set and curating an art show?
There is some crossover. Thinking about transitions between songs and putting together a DJ set isn't so dissimilar from thinking about the placement of two artworks next to each other—whether it’s the visual transition and aesthetic transition that's happening in the space. It's similar in a way, or it's comparable, to an audio transition, wanting to make it smooth and draw connections between things that are sometimes disparate and sometimes similar. And I feel like [finding that connection] is an important thing to do, because it can guide the audience to an understanding. I've tried to bring both together with the most recent idea for Carracci Art. I was thinking of the parallels and wanting to bring together my love for music and my love for visual art and curating. Ideally, I wanted to start it as a series of events that center around visual art exhibitions and a series of DJ sets. The current exhibit is titled The Art of Being, which is an interesting one because it's the name of the 2000 tech house track by Pure Science and it also relates to philosophy and metaphysics. I also like drawing parallels to some philosophical ideas, and I intentionally wanted to bring these things that I love into one space. For example, my dad's a philosopher and poet and artist who goes by the name Texas Red, and I hung three of his paintings from a series he has called Voletic Waves above the turntables and DJ set up. [The pieces] look like abstract spray paint on canvas, but they refer to a type of energy that he came up with in his own philosophical, theological practice. And I like connecting what he calls voletic waves, which are waves of will, so the energy of will that somehow is embodied in color and form, and relating that to music. I want to keep bringing all those things together with Carracci. Maybe we'll have a different venue and obviously different artworks, maybe different DJs, but the idea is to always have both music and art.
Who are some visual artists whose work feels musical to you—or musicians whose music feels visual?
That’s a good question. The first one that comes to mind is a great artist and friend, Azikiwe Mohammed. He’s also a DJ, and I think that there's some really wonderful parallels between his visual work and music, just in terms of his use of color, imagery and found frames and materials. He’s someone who I really respect, and I love his work. So, definitely on the visual side that's someone I would point to. And then with music, jazz. That's where my mind goes. Someone like Joe Henderson or Eric Dolphy, some of these great jazz musicians from the 60s and 70s, whose compositions really feel visual. It feels like when they're soloing, they're creating something in space that is visual to me. Maybe that's a personal experience with the music.
How do you select which artists or exhibitions to showcase?
At Hunter Dunbar, specifically, it has to do with some level of recognition. But I think that's also driven by market necessity. So, they want to see that an artist is maybe already showing with someone. And this isn't always the case, but that's sometimes a factor. Who have they already been showing with, or sales that they've made to other people? But oftentimes, the overall thing, and what actually translates to both Carracci Art and Hunter Dunbar, is word of mouth. Someone who you respect or someone who you trust or a close friend says, ‘hey, you should check out this person's work’. And I've been on studio visits where I've loved someone's work, fall in love with it, and then immediately become close friends with the person. It's an incredible experience when you go to someone's studio and you connect with their work and them as a person. And I feel like it's happened to me a few times, and it can change your life if you're open to it. Especially if you have the ability to show the work or try to promote it in some way, which I have had. And then there have been some instances where I've felt like this is an interesting learning experience for me, but I don't know that I want to necessarily show this work, which doesn't even mean that it's a value judgment. It doesn't mean that it's not good or doesn't have something to say, or doesn't warrant being shown. It's just a gut feeling. It's like when you meet someone and you’re figuring out if you’re going to be friends or not, or if you want to have another conversation with them. You just have to go with your gut.
When crafting an exhibit, are there any themes you find yourself constantly drawn to?
Yes, I'm very eclectic with my taste. I really try to draw connections between work that seems disparate aesthetically or otherwise—drawing connections between abstract work and something that's very, very figurative. Or something that’s more recent with something that's older. I have a piece in the current Carracci show by Armando Alleyne, Sunny Days, a figurative collage of people on the beach that he did in the 90s. And on the same wall there's a beautiful James Welling photo print of a book that feels very abstract. But the interesting thing is that I was trying to unite them, or bring them together in relating their palettes. There are certain things that are similar with color from one to the other that are enough to make you feel like there's this beautiful connection between the two.
What are some current trends that you’ve noticed in the New York art scene that’s shifting the narrative and culture?
A lot of focus on figurative work was really prominent for a few years, and I feel like it tends to swing back and forth between that and abstraction. I think people get overloaded when a lot of galleries are showing a certain kind of work, although there's so many nuances that it's difficult to generalize, but that's kind of what I've seen. Every time there's aesthetic saturation, it tends to swing back the other way. I also feel like there is an effort to try to showcase more women artists and more artists of color in galleries. But I think the focus is going away from mainly representational work and towards a wider variety of aesthetics put forward by women artists and artists of color. I can see that being more generally accepted than it was even, you know, let's say 10 years ago, right? And also, I think that materials are coming to the foreground even more so. Artists’ use of different materials that aren't necessarily just oil paint on canvas, or sculpture, or what have you. I think there's a wider acceptance of different materials, and I think people see that as exciting. Whether that's Hiroko’s work that's up at Hunter Dunbar or Mary Blakemore’s woven metal sculptures, one of which is up at my current Carracci Art show, I see people really drawn in because they see it as different and unique. They want to spend time with these works, even engage with it in a different way than painting or sculpture.
Speaking of Carracci Art, how did it come to be?
We were coming off lockdown and I was laid off from my previous gallery assistant job, but I wanted to still be working in the art world and engaging with art. I also wanted to write about work, and why not use Instagram as a platform for that? That was the initial idea. So, I approached friends of mine because I thought, I'd rather start with friends than cold dming or cold emailing artists that I like. And [my friends] said they’d be happy for me to post their work and write about it, see what happens. They were very generous and I'm grateful for that. It started to snowball from there slowly. But what happened was, an artist I work with, Edward Cabral, told me that I should apply for this art fair called Spring Break. They take on a lot of younger galleries and up and coming galleries, what have you, and you just have to submit a proposal. And [Edward] told me I had a good shot. So I applied, and I did a two person presentation with Michael Cummings and a younger painter, Evan Halter, and it was, I think, a great booth. But a lot of people were kind of taken aback because there were large scale quilts and then these small, very detailed paintings that were influenced by Renaissance and Baroque art. So, it was an interesting juxtaposition. It had some theological themes too, because one of the quilts of Michael’s I included was Christ Bearing The Cross [2023], which was almost like a Coptic figure of Christ carrying the cross, but it was based on a painting that's at the Met—it's a 15th century Italian painting.
I think a lot of people walked in and it wasn’t something they weren’t expecting to see at all. They were like, who are you and who's this artist? Some people were shocked. Maybe that's a good thing. So, I did this show at Spring Break, and Mary Blakemore, who I still show and work with, told me about studio spaces in Tribeca that people were using as galleries. And, small as it is, it's financially reasonable for leasing a gallery space downtown. I looked into it, and I was like, why not? I already have these artists I'm working with, and I want to show their work, and I already have ideas for shows. So, I just signed up and started the space. And in that same kind of way I was telling you about before, about being eclectic and trying to bring together different things, I included a quilt of Michael’s that was his homage to Nelson Mandela, a beautiful, beautiful piece right alongside a painting by Ed Salas that is very fresh and new, and was seemingly very disparate aesthetically, but I was, again, trying to bring these connections together through curating this show. It also had some theological kind of overtones, but I think it worked out really well. [The exhibition] was called Crafting Reverence, and it was the inaugural show. There have been a number of shows since. I had the space in Tribeca for a year, but The Art of Being exhibit is currently showing in my apartment in Harlem.
What are your goals for Carracci Art moving forward?
I'd like to continue to do this series of exhibits and see where that goes. I think it would be great to potentially do it in another space. Maybe one that's more accessible to a lot of people, if I find a space that would be willing to host the second iteration. But I would just like to do this series of pop ups, because, well, first of all, I have a full time job at Hunter Dunbar. And then secondly, you know, just the financial challenges of trying to get a full on space of my own for Carracci. It’s challenging right now, although I think as a goal for the future, it’s possible.
-
Apr 24, 2025