On Wednesday January 14, Naima J. Keith gave a gallery-based talk in conjunction with “Chris Ofili: Night and Day.”

Outside the Box features gallery-based talks given by guest speakers over the course of a season. In this program, lecturers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and affinities address the New Museum’s current exhibition(s) in forty-five- to sixty-minute presentations taking place exclusively in the Museum’s galleries. As a way to emphasize the Museum’s strong commitment to new art and new ideas, Outside the Box lecturers speak about the exhibitions or themes emergent in artists’ works from the various positions they occupy, be they academic, personal, political, etc., and engage in rich investigations that illuminate and probe the Museum’s current exhibition program.

Naima J. Keith is Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Since joining the Studio Museum in 2011, she has organized numerous exhibitions, including “Kianja Strobert: Of This Day in Tim”e (2014), “Titus Kaphar: The Jerome Project” (2014), “Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974–1989” (2014), “Glenn Kaino: 19.83” (2014), “The Shadows Took Shape” (co-curated with Zoe Whitley, 2013), “Robert Pruitt: Women” (2013), “Fore” (co-curated with Lauren Haynes and Thomas J. Lax, 2012), “Caribbean: Crossroads of the World” (Institutional Curator, 2012), “Collected. Ritual” (2011) and “John Outterbridge: The Rag Factory II” (2011). Keith received a BA from Spelman College and an MA in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has lectured widely, including at the Zoma Contemporary Art Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the Sterling And Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Her essays have been featured in publications for the Studio Museum in Harlem, Hammer Museum, LAXART, MoMA P.S.1, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and the University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara. Keith has also taught at Loyola Marymount University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Barbara; and University of Missouri