Steffani Jemison

Steffani Jemison (1981, Berkeley, California, USA) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is a research-driven artist focused on African American culture and the intersections and tensions among the private, social, and political spheres. Through her multidisciplinary work, which spans video, performance, and sculpture, Jemison frequently questions linear storytelling and traditional narrative forms. Her practice uses movement and language as tools of material and spiritual research, tracing non-linear currents between past and present through histories of insurrection, revelation, and embodied knowledge.

Jemison studied at Columbia University, New York (BA, magna cum laude, 2003), attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008), and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009). 

Solo exhibitions include way in the middle of the air, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2024); Toss, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2023); End over End, Joan Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); End over End, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2022); ArtGenève, Geneva, CAC Geneva (2021); Steffani Jemison, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2021); Steffani Jemison, Kai Matsumiya, New York (2021); Steffani Jemison: New Videos, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2020); Decoders / Recorders: Steffani Jemison and Samson Young, De Appel, Amsterdam (2019); Revelation, Iceberg Projects, Chicago (2018); Sensus Plenior, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2017); Sensus Plenior, CAPC Bordeaux, Bordeaux (2017); Steffani Jemison: Plant You Now, Dig You Later, MASS MoCA, North Adams (2016); Steffani Jemison: Personal, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn (2015); Steffani Jemison: Escaped Lunatic, MoMA.org, New York (2015).

Group exhibitions include Mythic Worlds: Works from the Distant Past through the Present, The Drawing Center, New York (2023); THIS TOO, IS A MAP, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art (2023); Greater New York, MoMA PS1, New York (2021); Closer, Kunstverein fur die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf (2021); A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Baltimore Museum of Art (2021); In-Between Days: Video from the Guggenheim Collection, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2020); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum, New York (2019); Scrivere disegnando: quand la langue cherche son autre, Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneve, Geneva (2018); 100 Drawings from Now, Drawing Center, New York (2018); Direct Message, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2017); and Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016).

Her work is held in public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, the Kadist Foundation, and the Stedelijk Museum.