To Be a Place

A visit to the re-opened Studio Museum in Harlem. 

By Aliyyah Hamid

Illustration by Julie Shi

A fluorescent light sculpture forms the following couplet: “Me/We.” The “We” sits below “Me,” as if reflecting it. The original poet was none other than Muhammad Ali, who was asked to “give us a poem!” during a speech at the Harvard commencement in 1975. Give us a Poem is the title of the neon light sculpture by Glenn Ligon that sits yards above its audience, mounted in the lobby of the Studio Museum in Harlem. As I entered the Museum, “Me/We” looked upon me. I began my ascent to the top floor.

The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded in 1968 as a home for African-American art. In November 2025, the Museum reopened after seven years of reconstruction. With double the exhibition space, a new, seven-story ebony-black structure replaced the old bank building that was previously “the Museum.” The serene, modern entrance is not a dramatic shift in environment from the hum and shopping bustle of the street, but instead a concentration of the artistry of Harlem. The space welcomes you in; the large, ground-level window is intended to “[dissolve] the barrier between the busy urban street life and the internal world of the cultural institution.”

Contrast this entrance with the climb to enter the Met. The Met’s elevation is imposing, while the Studio Museum is eye-to-eye with the street. This architectural move reflects their 1966 manifesto: “To be a place where art happens.” The proclamation sounded revolutionary—“To Be a Place” was even the title of the top floor exhibit. But what does it mean?

The answer came up the elevator. Two people emerged, seemingly a grandmother and her grandson. I was a few feet away when I overheard the grandmother connect the abstract art to what her grandson had been learning in school. This sweet interaction showed me that the Studio Museum is supposed to be a place that hosts intimate questions and allows for the understanding of one’s placement within the art scene. Seeing the grandmother and grandson, I longed to be a child again. I longed for when museums were places filled with wonder and the newness of art, and not spaces abstracted-away-from-society where spectators try to pretentiously interpret art. 

I headed towards the Museum’s Artists in Residence collection, engulfed by the contemplative sculptural sound installation Untitled (heliotrope). Floating from piece to piece, I found myself gravitating toward the text that introduced the art, as I have never quite known how to ‘read’ art. I am even unsure if that term—to ‘read’—does justice to this involved process. I wondered if the term was even warranted, or if it stemmed from that impulse to intellectualize—instead of allowing to feel—embedded into my Barnumbia education. I thought about the process of reading art in a place like Harlem, and how so many of my peers and the University itself seem to misread our neighbors. Before visiting the Studio Museum, I was that Columbia student who only ventured into Harlem to shop at Trader Joe’s. Though I was cognizant of Columbia’s gentrifying Manifest Destiny, I felt more comfortable within the Columbia bubble. I knew that the Studio Museum was supposed To Be a Place, but I felt out-of-place, and did not know how to engage with both the art and the neighborhood alike.

Among the array of paintings, photographs, and sculptures, there was one piece that I could read and yet, reading did not seem to grant me any sort of understanding or clarity. Cameron Granger’s A Movement for a Residence takes the form of a crossword puzzle, and looks as if it had been drawn and written in by a child. The legend, and the filled-in answers, are as follows:

Across: 

(1) ‘Do you remember the day she left?’ (a crossed out) nay

(3) ‘this is what holds things together. What a mighty unfair burden.’ glue

(5) ‘Brings separation. Papa taught you how to use one.’ axe

Down: 

(4) ‘they climbed the walls in her kitchen.’ a [unintelligible] s [unintelligible][ ][ ]

As I took in the piece, I felt a sense of grief, echoing through me like the scribbled out spaces. The crossword provoked myriad questions within me, questions I could not find the answers to. All I knew was that the piece seemed to capture an unintelligible, redacted childhood; it simulated a game, but held a dark expressive power.

I ended my visit nearly where I started, at the lower-level cafe right in front of the porch-style stairs, where light filtered through the window and I could view the passersby. I sat in silence, eating a chocolate-covered strawberry. As I exited the Museum, I met with Give us a Poem once more. Perhaps “to be a place where art happens” is where “Me” can cleanly reflect and interact with “We.” Harlem and the Studio Museum provide their own interpretation, if only we allow ourselves to read it.