Christopher Myers: Harlem Is a Myth

The Education Workshop are the first spaces dedicated to the Studio Museum in Harlem’s education programs, where audiences of all ages engage with art in creative, collaborative, and dynamic ways. In honor of the Museum's commitment to such purpose-driven art education, artist Christopher Myers presents the site-specific installation, Harlem Is a Myth. Harlem Is a Myth depicts an intergenerational community of mythic beings, including figures from iconic moments in Harlem. Myers transforms a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar into a basketball-carrying centaur, jazz legends Thelonious Monk and Count Basie sprout butterfly and angel wings, and two girls strike poses with antlers and a tail. Harlem Is a Myth was also inspired by an encounter Myers experienced in Harlem nearly fifteen years ago while walking along 125th Street. A woman, unknown to the artist, approached him to say, “I can tell you are an angel even though you don’t know you have wings.” She described her ability to see what others cannot, and she insisted that people need to be loved despite “the little bit of monster on the inside.” Reflecting on this exchange, Myers says, “All of us have deep, inner stories to tell, and I was inspired to see what she saw, the whimsy and magic in all of us.” Harlem Is a Myth invites all who enter the Education Workshop to consider what inner stories can be shared through art. How might these stories come to life when making art in community within the Museum and beyond? How can we use materials to explore and imagine worlds beyond our own?

Christopher Myers (b. 1974, New York City; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) earned his BA in art-semiotics and American civilization with a focus on race and culture from Brown University in 1995 and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Studio Program in 1996. His recent solo exhibition, Each year this blood shall change and blossom: Christopher Myers on Myth and Migration, was on view at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, MI, from February 8 through April 27, 2025. Myers was featured in the 24th Sydney Biennale in 2024. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally at venues including MoMA PS1, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico; Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; Contrast Gallery, Shanghai; Goethe-Institut, Accra, Ghana; Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, Rwanda; San Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Myers is currently working on a site-specific commission for the Percent for Art Commission at the Brooklyn Brownsville Public Library, expected to be completed in 2025. His work is included in the permanent collections of institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Lucas Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA; Nasher Museum at Duke University, Durham, NC, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Myers won a Caldecott Honor in 1998 for his illustrations in the book Harlem and a Coretta Scott King Award in 2016 for illustrating Firebird with Misty Copeland. Myers currently lives and works in Brooklyn.