LaMar Gayles's research centers on the work of artist Berry Horton (1917-1987)—who worked for the entirety of his career in the city of Chicago—and builds on his work with Black queer arts communities in his recent exhibition Emergence: At the Center. Combining multiple research methodologies, the project will cultivate a holistic understanding of this under-studied artist's work, practice, and community.
LaMar Gayles (a native son of the South Side of Chicago) is an archaeologist, independent curator, material culture scholar, and technical art historian. He is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Preservation Studies and Art Conservation at the University of Delaware. Gayles completed a MA in Museum and Exhibition Studies from University of Illinois at Chicago’s MUSE program while holding two separate positions: Archive and Collections Manager at the South Side Community Art Center and Executive Director at the Union Street Gallery. Gayles earned a Cum Laude BA with a triple major (art history, archaeology, and ethnic studies) from St. Olaf College. He has researched and curated exhibitions on Black American jewelry and its historical progressions from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, including the 2021 exhibition Divine Legacies in Black Jewelry and Metals at the National Museum of Ornamental Metals. He recently co-curated Emergence: At the Center, which explores the intersections between Chicago’s South Side Community Art Center and the diverse Black queer communities in the city. Gayles’s research methodology combines archaeometry, arts-based research, conservation science, scientific instrumentation, art historical analysis, art-centered ethnography, historical reproduction, technical studies, and qualitative research to explore material and visual culture.
This Curatorial Research Fellowship is made possible in part by the support of ICI's Board of Trustees and Leadership Council.
