Romi Crawford
Romi Crawford | |
|---|---|
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | University of Chicago (MA, PHD) |
| Occupations | Educator; writer; professor of visual and critical studies |
| Employer | School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
| Known for | New Art School Modality |
Romi Crawford, is an American educator, writer, curator, art historian and professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).[1][2] She researches how artistic practice generates knowledge, particularly through collaboration engaging the intersections of race, culture, and visual representation.[3][4]
Education
Crawford attended University of Chicago where she received both MA and PhD in English literature, theory, and criticism.[1][5]
Career
Scholarship
Crawford is an art historian and professor of Visual and Critical Studies at SAIC, where her research focuses on how artistic methods function as forms of knowledge creation, often examining the relationship between art-making, race, ethnicity, American visual and pop culture.[1][4][5]
She is the initiator of two pedagogical platforms: the Black Arts Movement School Modality and the New Art School Modality (NASM) for collaborative, intergenerational learning and alternative values in arts education.[1][4]
New Art School Modality (NASM)
Launched in 2023, the New Art School Modality (NASM) proposes an alternative, non-degree model for art and art-historical study, grounded in practices of collaboration, experimentation, and improvisation associated with the Black Arts Movement.[6][7] Terra Foundation for American Art supports NASM initiative through a multi-year funding partnership, supporting free courses for students in Black art history.[4][7]
Documenta 16
In August 2025, Artistic Director Naomi Beckwith announced an all-female artistic team for documenta 16, naming Crawford alongside Carla Acevedo‑Yates, Xiaoyu Weng, and Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro to collaborate on the exhibition, publications, and programming for the 2027 edition.[3]
Selected Projects
Publications
- Crawford, Romi, ed. (2021). Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect. Chicago: Green Lantern Press; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780997416596
- The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago (co‑editor, with Abdul Alkalimat and Rebecca Zorach). Northwestern University Press, 2017. ISBN 9780810135932[8]
Exhibitions
- Citing Black Geographies, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago and New York, 2022.
- So Be It! Asé!: Photographic Echoes of FESTAC ’77, Richard Gray Gallery, New York, 2023.
- Radical Relations!: Memory, Objects and the Generation of the Political, University of Chicago Center for Gender Studies.[9]
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Romi N. Crawford – Faculty Profile". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- ↑ "Talk: Lee Quiñones, Dao-Yi Chow, and Romi Crawford". Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- 1 2 "Naomi Beckwith, Artistic Director of documenta 16, introduces her Artistic Team". documenta. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 "New Art School Modality: A Conversation with Romi Crawford". Terra Foundation for American Art. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- 1 2 "Leaning Into the City: The Photographs of Bob Crawford, 1966–1976". Graham Foundation. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- ↑ Mwaura, Denny (March 20, 2024). "The roving and fugitive New Art School Modality". e-flux. e-flux Publishing. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- 1 2 Small, Zachary (July 10, 2023). "With Art Colleges Closing, a Chicago Museum Has an Alternative". The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2026.
- ↑ "The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
- ↑ "Romi Crawford". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Retrieved February 21, 2026.