Oji Haynes

Scriptures, 2024 is an amalgam of found and sourced ephemera that works to encapsulate the singular intimacy of the Black domestic. Woven into the stuffing of a floral patterned couch meant to evoke the nostalgia of ones grandmother’s furniture choices are Barack Obama campaign pins, old CD’s, beauty supply materials, newspaper clippings, condom wrappers, chicken bones, and further tchotchkes. Made during Haynes residency at Abrons Art Center, this work marked a stylistic and experimental pivot in his practice. While drawing upon the tactics of Raymond Saunders, Robert Rauschenberg, and David Hammons during his time at Abrons, Haynes describes this piece “as a patient work, I wanted to ignite all of the senses – touch, scent, sound, and so I had to find a way to make it breathe.” The lights that constellate across Scriptures were the first objects that were added. Set on a timer they pulsate in rhythm to the celestial inhale and exhale of the night sky. In this work, Haynes ruptures the distance between the cosmos and the everyday items of Black life.

Currently installed in the Long Gallery storefront window, Scriptures works to reharmonize Harlem and pay homage to the legacies of Black artists working across the city. Typically installed vertically Haynes chose to display the work horizontally so that passersby can walk alongside and with the piece.

To further the mission of the Long Gallery as a Harlem based institution where contemporary and experimental Black art and discourse can be platformed, curator and writer, Diallo Simon-Ponte has curated a curatorial exhibition series in the LG storefront window display running from the Spring to the Fall 2025. Five curators working in New York will be chosen by Simon-Ponte to each select an artist they would like to feature in the Long Gallery storefront window for one month at a time. This collaboration works to reinvigorate Harlem as a bustling center of Black artistic thought as the city prepares to welcome the Studio Museum’s reopening later this year. Following Oji Haynes x Diallo Simon-Ponte will be curators Usen Esiet and Alyssa Mattocks.

Curator Statement

I am deeply interested in exploring the accumulation of knowledge through the visual and sonic architecture of a city block in Harlem. When I used to stay on my aunt's couch on 142nd and Riverside after first moving to New York I would always say that Harlem is a place that teaches you what you want to be listening to but naturally it is also more than that. I recently heard a story from Najha Zigbi-Johnson that celebrated Malcolm X for his photography practice and his belief in an artistic aesthetic; both things often unspoken about. Throughout the 1950-60's as Malcolm would walk down the street of his Harlem home he was exposed to teenagers adorned in the latest fashion, poets preaching on street corners, radical literature and text streaming from Lewis's Michaux's bookstore where all of this culminated into a singular visual language. I want this window display exhibition series to celebrate the fact that uniquely in Harlem you can accumulate the world just by traversing a city block.

– Diallo Simon-Ponte