ECHOES Episode 6

This month, we revisit a conversation between curators (and Art Papers contributing editors) TK Smith and Lauren Tate Baeza. They discuss their contributions to our Spring 2020 issue: Art of the New Civil Rights Era. They talk about framing that moment in the context of multi-generational activism, and about how contemporary artists contribute to the discourse of racial justice.

TK Smith is a curator, writer, and cultural historian. His interdisciplinary research engages materiality to analyze art, identity, and culture. As a public scholar, he serves as a conduit between artists, ideas, and communities to produce thoughtful exhibitions, publications, and programs. He currently works as Curator, Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora, at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Smith’s writing has been published in exhibition catalogues, academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers where he is a contributing editor. In 2022, he was awarded an Andy Warhol Writers Grant and in 2024 he was awarded a Leo and Dorothea Rabkin Prize. He has been a visiting lecturer at numerous academic and cultural institutions, including Cornell University, where he taught undergraduate courses on cultural criticism. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he is completing his dissertation Granite, Power, and Piss: The Transformation of a Confederate Symbol.

Lauren Tate Baeza is a curator, anthropogeographer, and Africanist based in Atlanta. She has a professional background in art museums, history museums, and international nongovernmental organizations. Baeza joined the High Museum of Art in November 2020 as the Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art. Prior to joining the High, Baeza served as director of exhibitions at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights from 2018 to 2020. Concurrent with her position at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Baeza also curated the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection. Previously, she served as executive director of the APEX Museum in Atlanta, which interprets, presents, and celebrates Black history. 

In addition to her curatorial and museum work, Baeza led and consulted with environmental and community development initiatives in Kenya and Uganda. She has also lectured and taught seminars at the Nafasi Academy in Tanzania—as well as the University of California, Los Angeles; Georgia State University, and California State University—and published articles with ART PAPERS and the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First).

Baeza holds a Master of Arts in African studies from the University of California, Los Angeles; a Bachelor of Arts in Africana studies with a cultural studies concentration from California State University, Northridge; and a certification in curatorial studies from Sotheby’s Institute of Art.