In Conversation: The Legacy of Ed Clark with Adam Weinberg, Melanca Clark & Quincy Troupe

About Ed Clark
Born in New Orleans in 1926 and raised in Chicago, Clark emerged in the 1950s as a pioneer of the New York School. Over the course of seven decades, his experimentations with pure color, abstract form, and the seductive materiality of paint have yielded an oeuvre of remarkable originality, extending the language of American abstraction. Clark’s breakthroughs have an important place in the story of modern and contemporary art: in the late 1950s he was the first American artist credited with exhibiting a shaped canvas, an innovation that continues to reverberate today. His search for a means to breach the limitations of the conventional paintbrush led him to use a push broom to apply pigment to canvas laid out on the floor. Defying the discreet categories of gestural and hard-edged abstraction, Clark has masterfully interwoven these approaches into a unique form of expressionism.

About Adam Weinberg
Adam D. Weinberg has served as the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art since 2003. During his tenure, the Whitney has presented dozens of critically-acclaimed exhibitions on diverse emerging, mid-career and senior artists, created award-winning educational programs, experienced exponential growth of its permanent collection and dramatically expanded its performance program. Under his leadership, the Museum opened its new building—designed by Renzo Piano—in New York’s Meatpacking District in 2015, realized Day’s End, a permanent, public sculpture by artist David Hammons on the Hudson River waterfront in 2021, and just this month, completed the renovation of the former home and studio of artist Roy Lichtenstein for the site of the Whitney’s renowned Independent Study Program. Weinberg has curated exhibitions on dozens of 20th and 21st century artists, has authored numerous catalogues and lectured widely. He has been a juror for international and national prizes and exhibitions and also serves on the boards of numerous arts organizations from the Terra Foundation for American Art, and Storm King Art Center to the American Academy in Rome.

About Melanca Clark
Melanca Clark is a non-profit leader and has served as President and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation from 2016 to 2023. Under Clark’s leadership, the Foundation contributed more than $40 million to nonprofit organizations moving the city of Detroit forward. She previously served in several senior positions in the Obama Administration, including Chief of Staff of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice and senior policy advisor with the White House Domestic Policy Council. Prior to her government service, Melanca held several positions as an advocate including at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and as a Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at the Gibbons law firm. Today she is dedicating significant time to honoring her father, abstract painter, Ed Clark’s legacy.

About Quincy Troupe
Poet Quincy Troupe is the award-winning author of 21 books, including 12 volumes of poetry and three children’s books. Co-author of the definitive autobiography of Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography, Troupe also conducted the last interview with James Baldwin, reprinted as James Baldwin: The Last Interview (Melville House, New York 2014). His writings have been translated into over 30 languages. Among his many distinguished achievements are the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, the Milt Kessler Poetry Award, three American Book Awards, the 2014 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, a 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from Furious Flower, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History Award, January 25, 2018, in Detroit Michigan.

The newest collection of Quincy Troupe's poetry is entitled Duende Poems, 1966 – Now (Seven Stories Press, New York 2022).