Romi Crawford

Romi Crawford
Born
Romi N. Crawford
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationPhD
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
OccupationsEducator; writer; professor of visual and critical studies
EmployerSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago
Known forNew Art School Modality

Romi Crawford, is an American educator, writer, curator and professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).[1] Her scholarship explores knowledge production that emerges from art-making, collaborative artistic practices, and the intersections of race, culture, and visual representation.[2][3][4]

Early life and education

Crawford received both her MA and PhD degrees in English literature, theory, and criticism from the University of Chicago.[1][5]

Career

Scholarship

Crawford is a historian and professor of Visual and Critical Studies at SAIC, where her research focuses on how artistic methods function as forms of knowledge creation, often examining the relationship between art-making, race, ethnicity, American visual and pop culture.[3][1][5]

She is the initiator of two pedagogical platforms: the Black Arts Movement School Modality and the New Art School Modality, free and roving frameworks designed to foreground collaborative, intergenerational learning and alternative values in arts education.[3][1]

New Art School Modality (NASM)

Launched in 2023, the New Art School Modality proposes an alternative, non-degree model for art and art-historical study, grounded in practices of collaboration, experimentation, and improvisation associated with the Black Arts Movement.[6] Early programming received support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.[3]

Documenta 16

In August 2025, Artistic Director Naomi Beckwith announced an all-female artistic team for documenta 16, naming Crawford alongside Carla Acevedo‑Yates, Xiaoyu Weng, and Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro to collaborate on the exhibition, publications, and programming for the 2027 edition.[2]

Selected Projects

Publications

  • Crawford, Romi, ed. (2021). Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect. Chicago: Green Lantern Press; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780997416596
  • The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago (co‑editor, with Abdul Alkalimat and Rebecca Zorach). Northwestern University Press, 2017. ISBN 9780810135932[7]

Exhibitions

  • Citing Black Geographies, Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago and New York, 2022.
  • So Be It! Asé!: Photographic Echoes of FESTAC ’77, Richard Gray Gallery, New York, 2023.
  • Radical Relations!: Memory, Objects and the Generation of the Political, University of Chicago Center for Gender Studies.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Romi N. Crawford – Faculty Profile". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  2. ^ a b "documenta 16". documenta. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c d "New Art School Modality: A Conversation with Romi Crawford". Terra Foundation for American Art. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  4. ^ "Romi Crawford – Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago". Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  5. ^ a b "Leaning Into the City: The Photographs of Bob Crawford, 1966–1976". Graham Foundation. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  6. ^ Mwaura, Denny (March 20, 2024). "The roving and fugitive New Art School Modality". e-flux. e-flux Publishing. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  7. ^ "The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
  8. ^ "Romi Crawford". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Retrieved February 21, 2026.
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