Talks: Larry Ossei-Mensah

Join Locust Projects and Oolite Arts for a conversation with Curator and Co-founder of ARTNOIR Larry Ossei-Mensah.

About the Speaker:
Larry Ossei-Mensah uses contemporary art as a vehicle to redefine how we see ourselves and the world around us. The Ghanaian American curator and cultural critic has organized exhibitions and programs globally featuring artists such as Firelei Baez, Ebony G. Patterson, Judy Chicago, Yinka Illori, Steve McQueen, and Stanley Whitney, to name a few.

A native of The Bronx, Ossei-Mensah is the co-founder of ARTNOIR, a global collective designed to engage this generation’s dynamic and diverse creative class and celebrate the artistry and creativity of Black and Brown artists worldwide. Ossei-Mensah contributed to the first-ever Ghanaian Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale with an essay on the work of visual artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Ossei-Mensah is the former Susanne Feld Hilberry Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCAD), Detroit, and currently serves as Curator-at-Large at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Ossei-Mensah co-curated with OMSK Social Club the 7th Athens Biennale in 2021. He has recently organized Purring Monster with Mirrors on Their Backs featuring Guadalupe Maravilla at MCA Denver. In addition, Ossei-Mensah curated Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo’s first museum solo exhibition, Soul of Black Folks, at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco, andthe Contemporary Art Museum Houston.
Currently on view Ossei-Mensah has curated Ghost of Empires ll at Ben Brown in London and Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art.