Clifford Owens facts for kids

Clifford Owens is an amazing artist from America. He creates art using many different materials and methods. He is especially known for his performance art. This is a type of art where the artist performs actions or events, often in front of an audience.

Clifford Owens was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1971. He spent his younger years there. His art often explores ideas about the human body. He also likes to include the audience in his artwork. This makes his art very interactive and exciting!

Learning and Teaching Art

Clifford Owens went to several great art schools. First, he attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Then, he moved to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He earned his first art degree there in 1998.

Later, he got his master's degree in art from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2000. He also joined a special program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2001. In 2004, he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He was also an artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem from 2005 to 2006. This means he lived and worked there as an artist.

Clifford Owens has also taught art to many students. He has taught at famous places like The Cooper Union and NYU. He also taught at his old schools, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 2011, he was a lecturer at Yale University's School of Art.

Clifford Owens' Art Projects

Clifford Owens creates art that often involves people and unexpected moments. He likes to explore how art and photography connect.

Photographs with an Audience

At his first solo show in Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Clifford Owens presented a piece called Photographs with an Audience. He wanted to show how performance art and photography are linked. During this artwork, he would ask questions to the audience. If people answered the same way, he would take their picture together. It was a fun way to involve everyone!

Anthology

Another important project was his solo exhibition called Anthology. This show was at MoMA PS1, a famous art museum. For this project, Clifford Owens invited other Black artists to write "instructional scores." These are like instructions or ideas for a performance.

Clifford then performed these instructions himself. One of the scores was written by artist Kara Walker. Even though she later decided to remove it from the show, Clifford still performed it three times at MoMA PS1. This project showed how artists can work together and share ideas.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Clifford Owens' art has been shown in many places. He has had both solo shows (just his art) and group shows (his art with other artists).

Solo Exhibitions

• On Stellar Rays Gallery in New York (2008)
• “Perspectives 173: Clifford Owens” at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2011)
• “Anthology: Clifford Owens” at Museum of Modern Art PS1 (2011-2012)
• "Better The Rebel You Know" in Cornerhouse, Manchester, England (2014)

Group Exhibitions

• "Distillation" in Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden (2003)
• "One Minute More" at The Kitchen, New York, NY (2009)
• "Collected. Reflections on the Permanent Collection" at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2010)
• "100 Years" at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2010)
• "GNY: 5Year Review" at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY (2010)
• "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art" (a traveling show) at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2012), Grey Art Gallery (NYU), Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Walker Art Center (2012)
• "This Kiss" at Danspace Project, St. Marks Church. With Legacy Russell and Clifford Owens (2013)
• "Remains" at Fergus McCaffrey (2017)
• "Clifford Owens: Five Anthology Scores" at Baltimore Museum of Art (2019)
• "Breathing Room: Bound and Loose" at Baltimore Museum of Art (2020)

Art in Collections

Clifford Owens' artworks are part of important art collections. This means museums have bought his art to keep and show to the public.

• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• The Studio Museum in Harlem