The following are thoughts from lecture notes by Agnes Martin, reproduced in Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances by Arne Glimcher.

The most important thing is to have a studio and establish and preserve its atmosphere. You must have a studio no matter what kind of artist you are. A musician who must practice in the living room is at a tremendous disadvantage. You must gather yourself together in your studio all of your sensibilities and when they are gathered you must not be disturbed. The murdered inspirations and loss of art work due to interruptions and shattered studio atmosphere are unassessable.

If you are an architect you have to have some place besides the place where the draughtsmen work, no telephone, the door locked — to be disturbed only if the house is burning!

A studio is not a place in which to talk to friends. You will hate your friends if they destroy the atmosphere of your studio. As an artist you will have to try and live with inspiration. You are not like the little boy in the dirt free and open. The whole world which you now know intrudes. It is almost hopeless to expect clarity of mind. It is hopeless if your studio atmosphere cannot be preserved.

An ivory tower is something that I cannot imagine but I can imagine an artist standing on the edge of town looking out while the town roared and boiled behind him and never looking around, always looking out. It simply has to be that way.
…

You must clean and arrange your studio in a way that will forward a quiet state of mind. This cautious care of atmosphere is really needed to show respect for the work. Respect for art work and everything connected with it, one’s own and that of everyone else must be maintained and forwarded. No disrespect, carelessness or ego selfishness must be allowed to interfere if it can be prevented.

Indifference and antagonism are easily detected. You should take such people out immediately. Just turning the paintings to the wall is not enough. You yourself should not go to your studio in an indifferent or fighting mood.

The notes are reproduced in Agnes’ own handwriting, printed on pages that simulate note paper.

The book also contains many faithful reproductions of Agnes’ work, along with additional writings by her and by Arne Glimcher, her friend and dealer. The recollections by Glimcher of his visits to her studio are especially interesting, detailing how she lived in her spare surroundings as well as how she viewed her own work and process.

Also fascinating are the numerous Polaroid photos that remain from the studio visits, with the typical color shifts adding a surreal dimension to our lens on Agnes’ life. (See this Bookforum review.)

Agnes Martin and Arne Glimcher in her new truck in Galisteo, New Mexico, 1979.

The Studio Museum in Harlem – 144 West 125th Street, New York

Samuel Levi Jones – Unbound

Installation view of Unbound, work by Samuel Levi Jones

Samuel Levi Jones (b. 1978) deconstructs and manipulates books such as encyclopedias and textbooks, to critically explore systems of knowledge and power.

In 2013, Jones began collecting the encyclopedias and reference books—often understood as authoritative sources of information, even though they are sometimes biased and inaccurate—that form the foundation of his current project. He tears the covers off these books and stitches the exposed binding surfaces together in grids, which he then mounts on canvas.

In the three wall works, form and materiality are emphasized, while function and value are called into question—the books have been stripped of authoritative identity. These works engage recent criticism of the law and the justice system with respect to human rights and social welfare. (The Studio Museum)

This work inspires feelings of what I admiringly call “jealous rage” – meaning that it is wonderful and complete and just so right. I wish I’d been the one to think of it and do it, but instead I can only gaze upon it in reverence. It carries the evidence of intense and thoughtful process, with a fine balance between utility and delicacy, and the visual effect is stunning. Its meaning is subtle and cannot be understood through a casual glance. And the fact that it’s made from repurposed books is the kicker.

Salon Style

Through an interdisciplinary examination, Salon Style looks at artists that use hair and fingernails as subjects or media in order to explore the complexities of identity and issues such as gender, politics and consumerism.

White Noise, 2014, by Mark Bradford

In White Noise, Bradford appropriates a culturally specific material—the endpapers used in perming hair—to construct a highly evocative, pixelated collage that unites art and the beauty industry. … The dynamic arrangement evokes the spontaneous fluctuations and growth of urban communities, a theme common to the artist’s work.

White Noise, detail

Who Can Say No to a Gorgeous Brunette? 2007, by Hank Willis Thomas

Black pride came with accessories: the Afros, dashikis, bubba, gels, Afro picks and other signifiers of a truly enlightened and politicized black person. The commercial arena was quick to appropriate these objects, of course, and soon major department stores were selling all of these items to eager black consumers anxious to remake themselves in a more enlightened fashion. This made the question of black pride difficult to locate with any kind of visual authenticity. How could that pride be after all if one of its signifiers—in the form of an Afro wig, for example—could be purchased at a mainstream white department store?

…

[T]his ambiguity is only heightened by the passage of time. If there was once any deep meaning to an image of a black woman looking into the camera with a head full of “natural” hair, that meaning is now diffused, haunted by a nostalgia of sorts. That black women with big Afros are not traditionally referred to as “gorgeous brunettes” only makes a reading of this picture even more problematic. By removing this seemingly iconic image from its original context, and re-presenting it in the contemporary moment, Thomas points to both the enduring challenge of fixing photographic meaning and the loaded social and cultural baggage, as well as presumptions, that still cling to the black subject.

—Dawoud Bey, excerpted from Re:Collection: Selected works from the Studio Museum in Harlem

Selections from “BLAXIDERMY Beauty Supply Nail Sconces,” 2010, by Pamela Council

There were was quite a lot more on display; too numerous to show. Here are just a couple more:

The Picnic, 1940, by Beaufort Delaney

Beauford Delaney’s The Picnic deftly recalls Édouard Manet’s Le déjeuner dur l’herbe (1862). … Delaney consciously inserts black bodies into this leisurely scene, echoing an image well recognized in international art history. For its time, it must have been an unusual image. In our time, it remains a beautifully insistent and powerful one.

Rat (from the “C-Stunner” series), 2010, by Cyrus Kabiru.

Rat is part of the exhibition Concealed: Selections from the Permanent Collection which includes works by modern and contemporary artists that address masking as art and performance.