Name: Member Book Launch: Jack Whitten: The Messenger
Start: 2025-03-21T17:00
End: 2025-03-21T18:00
Location: Theater 3

No upcoming events

Held on Fri, Mar 21, 5:00–6:00 p.m.

MoMA, Mezzanine, Theater 3

The Celeste Bartos Theater

Jack Whitten. Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love In Painting) (detail). 2017. Acrylic on canvas. Jack Whitten Estate. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth. © Jack Whitten Estate. Photo: Christopher Stach

Member eligibility

Not eligible Annual Pass

Eligible: Access

Eligible: Explore

Eligible: Supporting

Eligible: Patron

For any questions, contact us.

Jack Whitten offered the world a new way to see. Over nearly six decades, he dared to invent novel forms of abstraction, constantly transforming both perception and our understanding of art in society. Raised in the segregated Jim Crow South in the 1940s, Whitten undertook an extraordinary journey in becoming an artist, convinced that by changing form, he could help change the world. His revelatory paintings, sculptures, and drawings are arrayed in full for the first time in MoMA’s major retrospective and publication.

To celebrate the publication of Jack Whitten: The Messenger, join us during Member Previews for an exclusive book launch featuring a conversation between artist Glenn Ligon, MoMA paper conservator Annie Wilker, and Michelle Kuo, MoMA’s chief curator at large and publisher, as they explore Whitten’s boundless practice, process, and innovative use of materials.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m. and the conversation will begin at 5:00 p.m. Please enter through the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building at 4 W 54th Street. Advance registration is required and capacity is limited.

Questions? Please contact [email protected].

Accessibility

Assisted listening capabilities available
FM assistive-listening devices (headsets and neck loops for T-coil compatibility) are available for sound amplification.

Sign language interpretation available
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation is available for public programs upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. MoMA will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Please contact [email protected] to make a request for these accommodations.

This event accompanies Jack Whitten: The Messenger.
This event is part of Other member programs.

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].