One among Amarie Gipson’s many presents is an unyielding want to ask questions. Having labored at establishments like The Modern Austin, the Artwork Institute of Chicago, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Gipson has cultivated a apply of inspecting constructions and pushing past their limitations. Her inquiries are incisive and rooted in a profound respect for folks of all backgrounds, with a central purpose of increasing artwork’s potential past museum partitions.
A real polymath, Gipson is a author, curator, DJ, and founding father of The Studying Room, an impartial reference library with greater than 700 books dedicated to Black artwork, tradition, politics, and historical past. Titles just like the century-spanning African Artists sit alongside Toni Morrison’s novel Sula and Angela Davis’ provocative Freedom is a Fixed Battle, which connects oppression and state violence all over the world. The simultaneous breadth of genres and the gathering’s concentrate on Black life enable Gipson and different patrons to very actually exist alongside those that’ve impressed the library.
One afternoon in late April 2025, I spoke with Gipson by way of video about her love for the South, her dedication to assembly folks the place they’re at, and her hopes for The Studying Room.
This dialog has been edited and condensed for readability.
Grace: I’d like to start out firstly. Why begin a venture of this nature in Houston?
Amarie: I’m a pupil of so many unimaginable Black girls writers, artists, curators, thinkers, and theorists, and I actually take critically the recommendation that I’ve gotten by means of studying their work. If one thing doesn’t exist, you need to begin it. I’ve moved and migrated by means of these nice United States for a while, and once I moved again to Houston seven and a half years in the past, The Studying Room didn’t exist. I wanted it to occur. I wished to expertise my books someplace outdoors of my residence, and I additionally wished to create a vacation spot for people once they got here to city, in order that my buddies know that they’ve a cool place to land. These are the 2 principal causes: it didn’t exist, and I wished someplace to go.
Grace: There’s a factor that occurs in Chicago on a regular basis–I feel it occurs anyplace that’s not New York or Los Angeles–and the methods artists take into consideration their careers and what it takes to achieve success. There’s usually this notion that to succeed in a sure stage, they should go to a kind of two cities. And I might think about Houston has an identical feeling.
Amarie: Completely. I feel it’s vital that everybody leaves dwelling sooner or later. However don’t depart since you don’t suppose that something exists right here. Go away since you need to see what else there’s and convey it again. Come again dwelling and create the issues that you just need to see right here.
I don’t suppose I might have The Studying Room in New York. I don’t suppose I might have The Studying Room in Chicago. It’s not my dwelling. I really feel extra empowered right here. I really feel safer to have created one thing like this, particularly in a state that’s so extraordinarily suppressed, politically, socially. However culturally, we stand agency, particularly in Houston. So, it felt pure.
Grace: What space of Houston are you presently in?
What extra can we do to hook up with the folks? How can we bridge the hole between the parents who care about Black artwork and people who care about Black folks and the issues that have an effect on us?
Amarie Gipson
Amarie: The Studying Room is presently positioned in north downtown, proper throughout the way in which from the College of Houston’s downtown campus. Downtown just isn’t essentially the most thrilling place within the metropolis, however it’s a assembly level for all various kinds of cultures. The Studying Room lives inside a hybrid artwork studio known as Sanman Studios. There are two models. They operate as an occasion area and manufacturing studio. There’s an artwork gallery, an artist residency work area, and The Studying Room. That is Houston’s artistic hotspot.
Grace: I’m questioning how your institutional coaching has influenced The Studying Room. How have these experiences pushed you to make one thing that’s decidedly not institutional?
Amarie: I used to be simply fascinated about this every week in the past. I got here into the curatorial area round 2016, and that was on the top of philanthropic establishments in search of methods to diversify. One of many options was to introduce youthful, undergraduate-aged college students from underrepresented communities to the sphere. I did the Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship on the Museum of Superb Arts, Houston. I used to be a junior in school on the time, and this program actually gave me a crash course on what museums are like; how the exhibitions are produced, the place the artwork is saved, and the way curators work with different departments. I spent two years on the MFAH within the Prints and Drawings division, and I used to be at all times in search of Black artists. I spotted rapidly that if nobody’s right here to advocate for this work to return out of storage, nobody’s ever going to see it. I used to be making an attempt to sift by means of the gathering, discover, find, and make these works extra seen.
I additionally acknowledged early in my profession that persons are actually vital to me. I began asking questions: What are the features and obligations of artwork establishments? What are we actually speculated to be doing? I do know what we now have finished, however what’s the function? I ultimately took these inquiries to Chicago and New York, and I moved round to completely different museums to attempt to discover the reply.
A turning level was once I bought employed on the Studio Museum in Harlem, which, for any younger Black particular person within the artwork world, is the head. It’s the place. It’s the place a variety of careers begin. Many people’ first job within the artwork world is on the Studio Museum, and so they’re being formed and molded to proceed within the area. Nonetheless, shortly after arriving, I spotted the Studio Museum was not the place.
In 2020, I appeared round in any respect the completely different establishments throughout New York sharing statements of solidarity and pledging institutional and systemic adjustments. I wished the Studio Museum to do greater than say, “We’ve been doing this. We’ve been committed.” As a result of what are we doing and does that dedication to care solely profit Black artists, or does it present up in our consideration for all Black folks? There are actual Black people who find themselves being focused and locked up for protesting the truth that police are murdering us. What extra can we do to hook up with the folks? How can we bridge the hole between the parents who care about Black artwork and people who care about Black folks and the issues that have an effect on us? What concerning the folks working in and for the museum? What are we doing to help the battle outdoors of working our lofty little museum jobs? The response that I bought is that the establishment goes to maintain doing what it’s been doing. And that simply wasn’t sufficient for me. I labored in my complete profession to get there, however I spotted that it was not the place I believed it was or hoped it might be.
And so I left that job and located a method to join my beliefs with my actions. I’ve taken all the expertise that I’ve discovered—how one can construct relationships, how one can hear, how one can analyze and set up issues, document retaining, knowledge administration, object administration, storytelling—and do one thing completely completely different, one thing that prioritizes on a regular basis Black folks in a means that reinforces our mental, cultural, and artistic capability. If it’s elevated entry to literature, if it’s elevated entry to tradition, if it’s only a place that has air con, a spot the place folks can come and hang around, so be it. It’s making area for all of it in a means that hopefully destroys the out-of-touch, elitist hierarchy that surrounds “the work.”
Grace: That’s one of many issues that I feel is so highly effective about The Studying Room and the work that you just’re doing. Artwork books are notoriously costly, and aside from sporadic free days, museums usually are usually not low-cost both. You actually do steadiness such a powerful aesthetic perspective and a crucial rigor sometimes related to establishments with the accessibility of one thing like a public library meant for really everybody. I’m wondering, on a tangible stage, what goes into making an area like that?
If it’s elevated entry to literature, if it’s elevated entry to tradition, if it’s only a place that has air con, a spot the place folks can come and hang around, so be it. It’s making area for all of it in a means that hopefully destroys the out-of-touch, elitist hierarchy that surrounds “the work.”
Amarie Gipson
Amarie: I didn’t have a bodily area when the concept first got here to life. I began engaged on the idea in the summertime of 2021. I handed by an outdated American Attire storefront on this neighborhood in Houston known as Montrose. I bear in mind going to that American Attire as a teen. I by no means might afford something, however I used to be at all times entering into there to attempt stuff on. I appeared inside, and I used to be like, what would I do if I had the area? On the time, I didn’t actually know the way anyone might afford something outdoors of paying their hire. Individuals who had small retailers, espresso retailers, small companies, kitschy little shops, I used to be like, what do you should do to be able to make this occur? I ultimately discovered my method to Sanman. I met Seth Rogers, the proprietor. I used to be working for {a magazine}, so I began asking him questions.
I used to be additionally DJing on the time. I had been DJing for 4 or 5 years previous to shifting to Houston, however my DJ profession blew up once I moved again as a result of the tradition right here is so wealthy. Nightlife is a big a part of town. I began saving my cash from my day job, gigs, and partnerships. I might be on the occasions that I might play, and I’d be yelling to folks over the audio system, “I’m building a library. I’m building a library!”
I misplaced my job on the journal within the fall of 2022, and I had stumble upon sufficient cash to focus absolutely on The Studying Room. I constructed the web site to anchor the idea. I scanned the back and front covers of 325 of the books that had been within the assortment on the time. I constructed a powerful relationship with Sanman and hosted a two-day, in-person expertise after I launched the positioning. There have been about 130 individuals who got here that weekend simply to hang around. Somebody approached me and stated, “I didn’t even know this many books on Black art existed.” That was the second all the things made sense, once I realized I’m on the correct path.
As a result of it is a reference library, the place the gathering doesn’t flow into, we’ve bought to do applications. Each single program that we do is impressed by or related to a e book that’s within the assortment. That’s bringing folks in, and it’s leaving them with a studying listing in order that they’ll hold coming again. That’s been the system up to now. My ambition is to garner sufficient help and group response in order that once I get away of a shared area, the visitors is regular and the influence deepens.
Grace: After we take into consideration assembly folks the place they’re at, a lot of it’s about creating a number of entry factors into the work that you just’re doing. When somebody is available in, what does that course of appear to be? How do you interact with them?
Amarie: It relies upon. Most folk are identical to, oh my god, I like this area. Another of us might be like, I’m engaged on a venture about Black hair. Do you could have any books about hair? And I’ll go and pull books about hair. I’ll clarify the relationships between the books on the primary show and level out how I’ve chosen and positioned issues, then give a crash course on the place yow will discover what.
So even when they don’t know what they’re in search of, pointing them in a route, they’ll have the ability to wayfind. It’s a vacation spot for discovery. You are available in, and also you fall down a rabbit gap.
Grace: I consider curation primarily as a means of offering context. I’m questioning how the vastness of your assortment—in that there’s historical past, politics, and tradition, and also you’re not targeted on solely having visible artwork or pictures—manifests as a part of your dedication to accessibility. What you’re doing in making these bigger connections and offering context so that folks don’t have to learn an art work or picture by means of a conventional artwork historic, canonical perspective, however reasonably can method it by means of music or politics or a cultural second, looks like an accessibility transfer to me.
Amarie: You stated it so fantastically. Critically, that’s it. The books that persons are aware of are what’s going to attract them in, after which they’ll see that the majority of the gathering is about visible artwork. Hopefully, what they know is a gateway to what they don’t know and what I need to share. For those who open up Arthur Jafa’s monograph, MAGNUMB, I need you to know Hortense Spillers and Saidiya Hartman. You gotta know all these folks. Their books reside right here as a result of they’re in dialog with each other. The artist’s monograph lives alongside the anthologies or the novels that impressed the creation of the work. The gathering focuses closely on visible artwork, simply because that’s what I collected. I’m fascinated about visible tradition at giant, but additionally historical past. How can we situate these objects inside a bigger continuum? We reside inside that continuum, so it’s vital to see all the things in live performance with each other.
To your level about accessibility, it begins to faucet into that extra tangible impact, tangible influence, proper? We will have conversations about politics in right here, and it doesn’t essentially need to be by means of the lens of an artist, however as a result of the e book lives within the assortment, we will sit and discuss something, proper? We will discuss democracy or the shortage thereof. We will speak concerning the American flag. We will discuss something as a result of there’s one thing right here that’s going to assist us situate it. We will hearken to the music. There are such a lot of intersections, and having assortment classes that increase past artwork and design permits for that.
Grace: I used to be studying an older interview with Martine Syms lately about her publishing apply. She talked about publishing as a method to make concepts public—after which to make use of that to create a public round an thought as a result of you could have shared reference factors. That feels similar to what you’re doing. The Studying Room, by bringing folks collectively and permitting these conversations, is definitely creating this collective thought and a possibility to have this shared mind-set about one thing.
Amarie: For certain. I take into consideration that lots. Artwork books, not solely due to the worth, are largely inaccessible to the general public, however are additionally inaccessible to artists who deserve them. It’s important to go a great distance in your profession earlier than any person looks like they care sufficient to make a e book for you. You often have to attend for a significant retrospective or survey exhibition. Or if you happen to’re actually younger and scorching and also you’ve bought gallery illustration, they could make you a e book.
I’m additionally fascinated about how The Studying Room generally is a supply, a bridge, or a doula that finds methods to amplify artists who’re being neglected or have been working for a extremely very long time and nonetheless don’t have books, how their work can land within the palms of the general public in a means that’s accessible. I’m hoping to start out a publishing department of The Studying Room within the subsequent couple of years. I’m going to start out with zines this 12 months and see what occurs.
I’m additionally fascinated about the legacy of impartial Black publishers throughout historical past, popping out of various cities, and what it means proper now within the age of misinformation, to create a platform for reality. Yeah, it will likely be making artwork books. However we’ll even be making political pamphlets, recirculating concepts from the previous. How many individuals know what the Black Panther Occasion’s 10-point platform actually was? What if we made posters? How can we apply these issues at this time? I’m all in favour of all of that. I need to do each single factor that I couldn’t do in these museums, that’s too taboo or too controversial to do in a museum.
I really feel far more current and clairvoyant than ever earlier than. I spotted that for the primary 12 months of operating The Studying Room, I used to be like, I’m not studying sufficient. I used to be targeted extra on the construction of this factor, filling in gaps within the assortment, all of that. Final summer time, I made a summer time studying listing for myself, and I learn ten books. It felt so good to only cease and skim. I really feel more healthy, calmer, and stronger. I’ve been reworked. I need that feeling for everyone.
The Studying Room is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday at 1109 Windfall St., Houston. Discover the gathering in the web archive, and comply with the newest on Instagram.
