Michael Richards
(1963–2001)1995–96 Artist in ResidenceThrough material and conceptual engagement, Michael Richards explores ideas of freedom and escape in relationship to blackness, diaspora, faith, and vulnerability.
Biography
Embodying a dual sense of suffering and hopefulness, the work of Michael Richards is prescient and haunting in the wake of his untimely passing.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Kingston, Richards grew up in the shadow of the post-independence and post-civil rights movements in the United States and Jamaica. In 1981, he moved to New York to attend Queen’s College. There, he found himself deeply influenced by flight, having spent much of his childhood traveling by plane. He addressed topics in his work such as the Tuskegee Airmen, Greek mythology, and African and African American folklore. In addition to the recurring theme of aviation and wings within his sculptures, installations, and drawings, he regularly used his body as a model to investigate historical and ongoing violence against Black people.
Richards noted that his practice centers “The psychic conflict which results from the desire to both belong to and resist a society which denies blackness even as it affirms. In attempting to make this pain and alienation concrete, I use my body, the primary locus of experience, as a die from which to make casts.”1 During the last decade of his life, he exhibited widely, including at the Corcoran Gallery, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Artists Space. His works were presented alongside that by other rising Black artists of the 1990s, such as Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, and Kerry James Marshall. In 2001, he received a fellowship from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) that included studio space on the Ninety-Second floor of the World Trade Center. He tragically passed away in the September 11 attacks, having spent the night in his studio.
Richards earned his BA from Queens College and MA from New York University. He also studied in the Whitney’s Independent Study Program. In addition to the Studio Museum and LMCC, he also completed residencies at Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation; Socrates Sculpture Park; and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts with Oolite Arts. The Studio Museum has presented his work in To Carry Me Home: Artists-in-Residence 1995–1996 (1996) and Passages: Contemporary Art in Transition (1999).
Exhibitions and Events
Michael Richards
(1963–2001)1995–96 Artist in ResidenceThrough material and conceptual engagement, Michael Richards explores ideas of freedom and escape in relationship to blackness, diaspora, faith, and vulnerability.
Brer Plane in the Briar Patch, 1996
Biography
Embodying a dual sense of suffering and hopefulness, the work of Michael Richards is prescient and haunting in the wake of his untimely passing.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Kingston, Richards grew up in the shadow of the post-independence and post-civil rights movements in the United States and Jamaica. In 1981, he moved to New York to attend Queen’s College. There, he found himself deeply influenced by flight, having spent much of his childhood traveling by plane. He addressed topics in his work such as the Tuskegee Airmen, Greek mythology, and African and African American folklore. In addition to the recurring theme of aviation and wings within his sculptures, installations, and drawings, he regularly used his body as a model to investigate historical and ongoing violence against Black people.
Richards noted that his practice centers “The psychic conflict which results from the desire to both belong to and resist a society which denies blackness even as it affirms. In attempting to make this pain and alienation concrete, I use my body, the primary locus of experience, as a die from which to make casts.”1 During the last decade of his life, he exhibited widely, including at the Corcoran Gallery, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Artists Space. His works were presented alongside that by other rising Black artists of the 1990s, such as Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, and Kerry James Marshall. In 2001, he received a fellowship from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) that included studio space on the Ninety-Second floor of the World Trade Center. He tragically passed away in the September 11 attacks, having spent the night in his studio.
Richards earned his BA from Queens College and MA from New York University. He also studied in the Whitney’s Independent Study Program. In addition to the Studio Museum and LMCC, he also completed residencies at Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation; Socrates Sculpture Park; and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts with Oolite Arts. The Studio Museum has presented his work in To Carry Me Home: Artists-in-Residence 1995–1996 (1996) and Passages: Contemporary Art in Transition (1999).