When the gallerist Linda Goode Bryant worked as director of education at the Studio Museum in Harlem in the early 1970s, artists gathered in her work space for conversation. Their discussions often came to the same place. The art establishment denied artists of color- Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latine/x- exhibition opportunities. Goode Bryant’s response to this exclusion was simple, “Fuck it. Let’s just do it ourselves.” That’s how Just Above Midtown Gallery (JAM), the first Black owned contemporary art gallery in New York City, came into being.

In Art 21’s “Friends & Strangers,” Goode Bryant and fellow artists Randy Williams, Janet Olivia Henry, and Maren Hassinger discuss the transformational effect of JAM. For Hassinger, “It was a wild and crazy seat of your pants conceptual idea that somebody made visible.” The gallery was a place where a diversity of artistic expression could be experienced. JAM was always more than a business for Goode Bryant: The primary objective was not selling the work. The primary objective was artists making the most amazing work they could make.” JAM closed in 1986 after an innovative 12 year run. 

Almost 48 years after the founding of JAM, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) invited Linda Goode Bryant to curate a show of artists and works previously featured at the gallery. Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces was shown at MOMA October 2022-February 2023. 

 “Art is evidence of life. The art is the life that you live. You could be an artist and never make work.”

-Randy Williams, artist.