TOM LLOYD, “Moussakoo,” circa 1968 (aluminum, light bulbs, and plastic laminate, each approximately 35 × 33 × 15 inches; Overall dimensions variable). | Studio Museum in Harlem, Gift of The Lloyd Family and Jamilah Wilson 1996.11. Photo: John Berens
FOR THE LONG-AWAITED DEBUT of its first purpose-built space last fall, the Studio Museum in Harlem went back to its roots. The grand reopening of the new museum building was anchored by a solo exhibition of New York artist Tom Lloyd (1929–1996), whose pioneering practice employed electric light as an artistic medium. Lloyd’s work was also the subject of the Studio Museum’s inaugural exhibition, “Electronic Refractions II,” when the insittution was established more than half a century ago in 1968.
Based on new scholarship, “Tom Lloyd” brings together for the first time electronically programmed light sculptures, assemblages, and works on paper with archival materials that document the diverse contributions of the artist. The presentation considers two decades of Lloyd’s career, including his artistic innovations working in collaboration with an engineer at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the 1960s; activism with the Art Workers’ Coalition; and founding the Store Front Museum in 1971, the first art museum in Queens, New York.
Following the Studio Museum presentation, the exhibition traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Wash., where it is currently on view through Sept. 20, 2026.
Shortly before the Studio Museum reopened, I attended a press preview and got a chance to see Lloyd’s exhibition and spend some time in the gallery experiencing his dynamic and illuminating light works. A couple of weeks later, I followed up with Studio Museum Curator Connie H. Choi by phone to learn more about Lloyd and how the show came together. Choi curated the exhibition and edited the exhibition catalog. She explained why the museum turned to Lloyd and his light works at two pivotal moments in the institution’s history.
“Tom Lloyd, I think really embodied what (the board) wanted the wider community and the wider art world to understand about why the museum was founded and why an art institution in Harlem was important,” Choi said. “Tom Lloyd was an artist who was working in kind of the most radical way in the 1960s, combining art and technology and light in a way that not many other artists were and certainly not many Black artists were.”
After a nearly a decade at the Studio Museum, Choi was recently named vice president for art and education and chief curator for The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Pa., where she starts in September.
In our conversation, Choi spoke about the contemporary quality of Lloyd’s work, the intersection of Blackness and abstraction, the extensive conservation project that preserved his work with evolving technologies top of mind, and how three decades after his death, Lloyd’s family helped shed light on the artist, his work, and commitment to his community:
Tom Lloyd standing in front of “Puncheono,” 1968. | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem, Photographer unknown
CULTURE TYPE: When did you first encounter Tom Lloyd’s work?
CONNIE CHOI: I was first introduced to Lloyd’s work at a 2006 exhibition at the Studio Museum, which was called “Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction.” I think the years were 1964 to 1980. It was an exhibition that Kellie Jones organized for the museum looking at the artists who were working in abstraction at the time. Both of the works that were in our collection, at that time, we’re included in that show: “Narokan,” which is the smaller of the works, made in 1965, and “Moussakoo,” which is the largest, in (circa) 1968. Seeing the works in that exhibition in the context of other Black artists working on abstraction was my introduction to Lloyd. It was also my introduction to the Studio Museum, because that was the first exhibition that I went to at the Studio Museum.
That’s really interesting. Sounds fortuitous. What happened next?
Fast-forward a few years later and I’m working with both Terry Carbone, who was formerly the curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum, and Kellie Jones, again, on an exhibition called “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties” and we brought Lloyd into that show as well. “Narokon,” the 1965 work, was exhibited there in the context of activism and civil rights. Having those two distinct experiences of how Lloyd’s work resonated was really important to me and impactful.
Then, when I started at the Studio Museum in February 2017, as the associate curator of the collection, I was going through all of the upcoming loans that we had agreed to and saw Lloyd again, but this time in the context of lending to another institution. That institution happened to be the Tate Modern (in London) for the 2017 exhibition of “Soul of a Nation.” My immediate thought, being familiar with Lloyd’s work, was how are you going to lend the work to an international venue because the electricity, the voltage is different. That’s when the project really started. It really began as a conservation question of how to best preserve and protect Lloyd’s work. For the immediate need of an international venue, but also for the future.
You mentioned these large group shows, “Art and Civil Rights” (2014) and “Soul of a Nation,” an international traveling exhibition, in which Lloyd was featured and he still seemed to fall under the radar despite the innovation of his work and as other artists in those shows, his peers, received renewed or overdue attention. Do you have any sense of why that is?
I think, partially, it’s because there aren’t that many works that are living out in the world, that we know of. When we started this as a research project, we were lucky enough to have a resume that Lloyd provided to the museum in the ‘90s. We went through and basically tried to reach out to every single person he had listed. In many cases, we were successful in terms of being able to contact a name or the descendent of a person who is listed and either understanding whether or not the work still existed, and they still had it, or if it somehow, if something had happened to the work. In other cases, there are a lot of very common names, particularly in New York City, and we weren’t successful in locating all of the previous owners. I’m hopeful that this exhibition and people coming to see the show will bring out more works by Lloyd. As you saw when you came, we only were able to locate eight additional works, aside from the two that we already had.
Installation view of “Tom Lloyd,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y. (Nov. 15, 2025-March 22, 2026). | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: Kris Graves
You said resume. Do you mean a list of collectors who had purchased his work?
Yeah, so Lloyd reached out to us in the ‘90s when he offered to gift us work and that’s when “Moussakoo,” which is the work he made in ‘68, entered our collection. He offered it to us in 1995. He passed away in ‘96 and then we ended up bringing it into the collection after he passed. But in the process of him being in touch with the museum, and given his importance to this institution, being the first artist who exhibited, we have various, different types of records from his life. The resume or CV that we received in the ‘90s includes an exhibition history, the collectors, the work, his experience as an educator, his work at Sarah Lawrence College (teaching for three years starting in 1968), etcetera. We had a good grounding in terms of having a base to start a larger research project.
How did Lloyd become the first artist to participate in the studio program? Why was he selected?
He exhibited pretty widely from 1965 until 1968 with these light sculptures. It’s actually pretty remarkable how quickly he became recognized. Amel Gallery showed him several times, showed his work several times. Howard Wise Gallery—which was a gallery devoted to the work of artists working in experimental, primarily time-based media practices—also exhibited his work multiple times. But then, in addition to that, he was in multiple museum group exhibitions. He showed with artists like Dan Flavin and Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Irwin from ‘65 to ‘68 with these light works. His name was known and he was selected by the founders because of the way in which he embodied what our founders wanted people to understand about the Studio Museum in Harlem. We were founded as an institution that was going to support the work of living artists
There were, as you know, many museum institutions in New York City, most of them founded in the 19th century or the early 20th century. While they showed work by living artists, they weren’t necessarily devoted to contemporary artists who are living, who are working in an experimental manner. The Studio Museum recognized the need for institutional support for artists, living artists in particular, creating new work, creating work that was dynamic and experimental and kind of pushing the boundaries of artistic practice.
Tom Lloyd, I think really embodied what they wanted the wider community and the wider art world to understand about why the museum was founded and why an art institution in Harlem was important. Tom Lloyd was an artist who was working in kind of the most radical way in the 1960s, combining art and technology and light in a way that not many other artists were and certainly not many Black artists were.
“Tom Lloyd was an artist who was working in kind of the most radical way in the 1960s, combining art and technology and light in a way that not many other artists were and certainly not many Black artists were.”
TOM LLOYD, “Narokan,” 1965 (aluminum, light bulbs, and plastic laminate, 11 1/2 × 18 1/2 × 5 inches). | Studio Museum in Harlem, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Darwin K. Davidson 1988.3. Photo: John Berens
FORM, SHAPE, AND COLOR
Let’s talk about the light works themselves. Maybe we could talk in the context of two that the Studio Museum owns—“Narokan” and “Moussakoo.” One is sort of smaller and made in 1965 and the other is larger made circa ‘68. I want to understand how they function. They flash on and off. They flash in different colors and they’re in certain shapes and sizes. Are the lighting patterns programmed or random? Were you able to ascertain any kind of meaning or strategy behind how they function, whether Lloyd explicitly noted it himself, or you found some insights in the research and documentation?
Again, because we don’t have that many documents that he personally left us, at least as far as I have seen, most of what I understand about his work was told to us by Alan Sussman, the RCA engineer, or I’ve gleaned from our own board documents. We have board minutes from the ‘60s, 1967 and 1968, that really provide an understanding of what Lloyd hoped for in terms of this Inaugural exhibition, “Electronic Refractions II.”
In terms of what Alan Sussman has told us, he has said that he and Tom Lloyd struck up a friendship after meeting at this outdoor art fair because Sussman also made kind of these assemblages using found materials or leftover discarded materials from RCA. He was attracted to the work that Lloyd was making at that time—of which we have these three early examples. Based on that shared affinity, once Lloyd found out that Alan Sussman was an engineer, he expressed to Sussman, his own interest in making work with light, but kind of not knowing how to proceed. He didn’t have the background in technology, but he was really interested in light and technology.
We believe that the earliest work is a work called “Nubile.” It was gifted to us by Martha Cotter, who is the widow of Alan Sussman. She discovered this work in their basement in the home that they had shared for nearly 60 years. The reason why we believe it’s either the earliest, or one of the earliest works, is because all of the other works in the cans, which are covered by these Buick back-up light lenses, there are four lightbulbs in blue, green, orange and red. That’s where you’re getting these vibrant color combinations because each of these cans have these four colors. In “Nubile,” there’s only three in each can. All of the cans have blue and green, but then they rotate between red and orange. We think that this initial work only had three possibly because of color television utilizing red, blue, and green and Alan Sussman’s work at RCA on developing color television.
So these are all conversations with Alan Sussman, not assumptions, but speculations, speculations based on the extant works that we have access to and also what we can surmise based off of what was happening at the time in terms of developing technology and things like that.
“Tom Lloyd,” Edited by Connie Choi, Foreword by Thelma Golden, Contributions by Glenn Ligon, Reinhard Bek, Nikita Gale, Krista Thompson, Paul Stephen Benjamin, Habiba Hopson (Gregory Millers, 168 pages). | Published October 2025
What insights can be gleaned from the various shapes of the light works?
We know Tom Lloyd talked about his work in relation to the urban environment, creating works that would speak to his community of Jamaica, Queens, speak to a larger Black community that lived in the city because he talked about the theater marquees, traffic lights, automobiles, the vibrancy and the cacophony of the city experience. And for me, the reason why he was utilizing the shapes that he did was because they were familiar or at least recognizable.
We have “Mantara,” which is essentially an X. It’s the letter X, but it also is reminiscent of a railroad crossing sign. There’s another work in our (exhibition), “Rodogon,” which is also a shape that recalls a road sign to me.
I think, later on as he and Alan Sussman understood better and better how to make these works, and the technology was rapidly progressing, becoming more complex, the years went on and he became more ambitious in the size and scale of the works. You see works like “Moussakoo,” which is in our collection, which is comprised of four hexagonal shapes and “Veleuro,” which is in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection, which is four “V”s, essentially like these carrots, those become modular.
My belief is that he wanted them to be modular because he wanted them to be experiential. He wanted people to be able to interact with the work. You can install “Moussakoo” in any way you want, as long as one side of each component is touching another side. The way we have it installed in our exhibition is in a diamond shape, but it can be in a diagonal line. It can be in a straight line and I’ve seen it installed in like a check form.
There are all these ways it creates a dynamic installation and allows the work to take on different forms. But, he really saw them as being, he said, being part of a community. He wanted people to feel like they were accessible and part of that meant, I think, that he then made them modular.
I was going to ask about that because I saw with “Moussakoo” that it was installed in different ways in different exhibitions and in the catalog you illustrate that variety. I thought they were fixed. They’re not magnetically attached or anything? They’re just modular, individual?
Yes, exactly. Both “Moussakoo” and “Veleuro” are comprised of four components like four sculptural forms that can be installed differently.
The titles of Lloyd’s works are unusual. What is the origin of the names?
They’re all named after racehorses. That was a fun research project, a deep dive into newspaper records from the 1960s.
What was his connection with horse racing?
He just loved it.
He watched on TV or went to the horseraces…
I think he went. I think he went to the races. I think he liked it. I think it was, again, something that he felt was accessible. It was something that people did. They went to the races. The names might not be familiar now, but the names maybe were familiar to his friends or the community of people that he engaged with at the races.
Lloyd was interested in bringing art to the community and engaging Black people and regular people in the Black community. As you mentioned, he talked about the light works as being inspired by traffic lights and theater marquees, things that everyday people would see in their regular lives. He bridged abstraction and Blackness. How did his work bring these two concepts together?
I believe that Lloyd understood abstraction as being potentially the most accessible art form because people didn’t necessarily need to know anything in order to bring an experience or an understanding to the work. Thinking about abstraction and geometric abstraction, in particular, in the forms that he was utilizing, shapes that would be recognizable or would at least help people recall memories that they’ve had in terms of seeing those shapes was something that he was committed to, in terms of bringing art to communities, making art as accessible as possible. It’s similarly his use of materials, utilizing incandescent Christmas lightbulbs, utilizing Buick back-up light lenses, things that people would recognize as being part of the daily fabric of their lives and would also recognize, hopefully, as being things that they themselves could access.
I think that idea of abstraction and Blackness is one that he couldn’t necessarily articulate at the time because the idea was somewhat radical. I think now we understand the correlation between abstraction, Blackness, and activism in a much more nuanced and also more robust way than perhaps the general public did in the 1960s. What he was trying to articulate was something that he ended up realizing in physical form via the Art Workers’ Coalition (a group formed in January 1969 that pressured New York museums, the Museum of Modern Art, in particular, to modify their economic and political policies and expand exhibition policies to be more inclusive in terms of women artists and artists of color), and the Store Front Museum.
“I believe that Lloyd understood abstraction as being potentially the most accessible art form because people didn’t necessarily need to know anything in order to bring an experience or an understanding to the work.”
Tom Lloyd and apprentices in the artist’s studio in Jamaica, Queens, circa 1968. | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: Reginald McGhee
IN THE STUDIO
Lloyd and Alan Sussman (1935-2023) connected through their shared interest in technology and then began to work together. After Lloyd sketched out his ideas, how were they fabricated? How did the collaboration work?
He sketched out the ideas. He sourced materials from RCA at cost. A lot of the structures of the sculptures themselves were utilizing RCA materials that he purchased. And then he worked with Alan Sussman off hours. When we talked to Alan Sussman, he talked about how they were so groggy by the end of the night because it was past midnight. He and Alan Sussman worked out of Lloyd’s studio in Jamaica, Queens, on programming and doing the final wiring. We know this because Alan has told us, but also because we have a couple of photos that document that.
The plastic covers over the lights, are they really from Buick back-up lights? Did Lloyd source those directly from Buick or how did he get them?
Yes, but we do not know. I have not come across any kind of paper records of where he was sourcing the materials. The photographs that we do have in our archives were taken when he had both Alan Sussman in his studio, and then also a young apprentice, what were termed young apprentices, as part of the Studio Museum’s studio program.
He was the first artist in the museum’s studio program and these young apprentices who were teenagers from Harlem and from the neighborhood and from New York City, generally, were in his studio helping him build the sculptures. At least two of these young apprentices were his own children, his sons Omar and Jaleel.
His children were working with him and familiar with his practice from a young age?
Jaleel recounted remembering having to screw in so many different (bulbs), actually working to build the sculptures. Photo documentation shows that Lloyd had big boxes of the different kinds of screws that he needed. It’s unclear where he might’ve sourced it, but he definitely had them in his studio.
How long did the studio program go on for? Were there many more artists that participated or was it short-lived?
It was somewhat short-lived. It’s rather unclear. As you can imagine, a fledgling institution that is trying to establish itself might not necessarily keep all of the necessary… We don’t have a robust documentation of the first few years of our institutional life and that is not, I don’t think, unusual in terms of a new institution.
The studio program kind of existed side-by-side with the artist-in-residence program. We were founded with three initiatives. The studio program and the film unit were the first two to launch. The studio program being the first, when they started working with Lloyd and then the film unit launched in the summer of ’68. Then in 1969 is when the artist-in-residence program started because we were able to secure studio space for the artists.
The studio program and the artist-in-residence program kind of existed side-by-side, and it became unclear, at least in the records that I have seen, which artists were designated for the studio program versus the artist-in-residence program.
“We know Tom Lloyd talked about his work in relation to the urban environment, creating works that would speak to his community of Jamaica, Queens, speak to a larger Black community that lived in the city because he talked about the theater marquees, traffic lights, automobiles, the vibrancy and the cacophony of the city experience.”
Exterior View, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y., 2025. “Tom Lloyd” was the anchor exhibition for the grand reopening of the Studio Museum last November. Closed for seven years since 2018, the museum’s first purposed-built space is 82,000 square feet across six stories and a rooftop terrace and includes more twice the exhibition and artist-in-residence space than its previous structure on the same 125th Street site. The building was designed by Adjaye Associates with executive architect Cooper Robertson. | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: © Albert Vecerka/Esto
GREAT NIGHT IN HARLEM
I read another interview where you mentioned the atmosphere on the night Lloyd’s 1968 exhibition opened at the Studio Museum. You said there was a lot going on in Harlem at the time. What was happening?
Yeah, I mean 1968. It was a watershed year in U.S. history and we know that the night of the opening of “Electronic Reflections II” was proceeded by a meeting about the future of the Schomburg Library because Romare Bearden has talked about it. How he went from this meeting about the Schomburg Library directly to our exhibition, opening 10 blocks south. There’s a lot happening that night. I think the institution announcing itself inspired a lot of excitement, and also curiosity, about what this museum was, what the institution was, what is the Studio Museum in Harlem. From what I can tell, based off of the exhibition opening photographs that I have seen, it was a really dynamic and diverse crowd of people that were at the museum. His works included, we know, based on the photography, “Moussakoo,” “Veleuro,” and “Moskee,” which is in the collection of the Gray Art Museum at (New York University). There are also other works that were in that exhibition that I have not been able to locate, at least three other works.
Why was the exhibition called “Electronic Refractions II”? Was it an encore presentation or had he shown the works before?
He did an exhibition at a gallery in 1965 that was called “Electronic Refractions.” (The exhibition at Amel Gallery in New York was Lloyd’s first-ever solo show.)
I asked you earlier about how Lloyd’s exhibition came to be the opening exhibition in 1968. How did the museum decide that Lloyd’s retrospective would be the focus exhibition again nearly 60 years later for the opening of the new building?
I think we just knew. I mean, I think it just makes a lot of sense in terms of who we are as an institution, celebrating our history, but also opening up the possibilities for the future. Lloyd was so radical for the time. He’s an artist who was so forward thinking. His work now in that space, it looks, people have told me that it looks futuristic. It still looks so radical.
“Romare Bearden has talked about it. How he went from this meeting about the Schomburg Library directly to our exhibition, opening 10 blocks south. There’s a lot happening that night. I think the institution announcing itself inspired a lot of excitement, and also curiosity, about what…is the Studio Museum in Harlem.”
Installation view of “Tom Lloyd,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y. (Nov. 15, 2025-March 22, 2026). | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: Kris Graves
It does look and feel very contemporary.
I think the idea of that setting the stage for who we are as an institution was one that we just immediately understood. I think for us as an institution, we also wanted an exhibition that would really celebrate the architecture of our building. We wanted an exhibition that could really draw attention to that beautiful gallery that we have which has a 29-foot-high vaulted ceiling. Knowing that Lloyd’s work could be installed up high on the upper register of these two walls and for me also constantly having in the back of my mind all of the quotes and tidbits from various readings that I’ve done on Lloyd. There was an arts writer in the ‘60s who was talking about light work and said that the work that was being made in light was the stained glass of the electronic age.
When I walk into that gallery space you have a sense of sanctuary. It evokes a very contemplative space of solace. Having these two works installed up high, they become rose windows, as you can imagine, in these different sanctuary spaces. Understanding how Lloyd’s work could both celebrate the architecture and how the architecture could also highlight how radical Lloyd’s work was at the time, and continues to be, was one that we recognized pretty early on in the process.
You mentioned the way the work is installed up high. There’s a portrait of Lloyd where he’s standing in front of one of the light works that MOMA now owns, “Veleuro,” and it seems much larger than it appears in the current exhibition. In the photograph, you see the work, perspective wise, in context with Lloyd’s size and height and because it is at eye level you can more directly see the material details of its components versus when you install it high, the scale feels reduced, but it does create a different kind of emotional or spiritual experience. Was that an intentional decision or based on the space you were working with?
We know that Lloyd wanted his works to be part of an environment because our early board records talk about how his original proposal for the exhibition was to create what he himself termed an environment and that meant that the works were activated with dance and music and he named specifically jazz and electronic music. He wanted these dancers in costumes created by a Black designer with flashing lights to activate the space to music. He really saw his works as being part of an environment that activated your senses. Not only do you have the flashing lights, the visual experience, but I’m sure you heard when you were in the gallery that there’s this clicking noise
Yes. I did.
That is part of the original control boxes. The way that they were built, was with a cylinder, and the program itself is indicated or determined by the strips of tape that Lloyd would lay on the cylinder. The cylinder would rotate and the tape would determine when the lights turned on and off. The rotation of the cylinder created this clicking noise. We converted all of the original analog control boxes to digital control boxes so that there’s no risk to the original programming We’re not wearing out the tape or the cylinder by constantly running the original control box, but some of the collectors wanted to replicate the clicking sound because it was something that they remember. They had a very visceral memory of the sonic quality of Lloyd’s work clicking.
We have the visual with the flashing lights, the sonic with the clicking, and then to also incorporate those two elements again with dance and music. That space that we have, that gallery that we have, I think really celebrates those possibilities. The fact that it is a space that is quite intimate, it brings people together in a way you can sit and be in that space for a very long time, just taking in the work and also the quality of the work. But we can also program that space so that it becomes this dynamic environment that Lloyd had envisioned for the work.
Do you plan on having music or dance in there at some point?
Yes, we do. We will begin programming our exhibitions soon and that is one of the programs that we plan on having.
“Understanding how Lloyd’s work could both celebrate the architecture and how the architecture could also highlight how radical Lloyd’s work was at the time, and continues to be, was one that we recognized pretty early on in the process.”
Studio Museum Curator Connie H. Choi and conservator Reinhard Bek discuss Tom Lloyd’s electronically programmed light works, the mechanisms that power them, and the process of restoring the works for the long term. | Video by Studio Museum in Harlem
ART, TECHNOLOGY, AND CONSERVATION
Let’s talk some more about the conservation project, which you broached explaining how the clicking noise was retained. Can you give an overview of the work that Reinhard Bek did. I read a conversation where he spoke about the high heat of the original bulbs. How were the works originally wired and what new technology is being used?
The conservation focused on three main components. The first was general upkeep. Reinhard (of the art conservation studio Bek & Frohnert made sure that every wire was safe, that they were all connected to the things that they were meant to be connected to, that they were all soldered correctly, and all of that. He actually also mapped the wiring, as well, to understand how each component was connected together, which is a huge task because for some of the larger works, in particular, there are, it’s a lot of wires on the verse that aren’t visible. That was one of the main projects, the mapping of the wiring, making sure that everything was okay, cleaning everything. That was kind of like step one.
Step two was the conversion of the analog control box to the digital control box and that is done via logic analyzer, I think that’s what it’s called. Running the program, running the original control box. It’s analyzed by this device and then it shows up on the computer screen, and from there, you can make the digital control box. That was the second main component.
Then the third one was the lightbulb study. Obviously, the original bulbs were incandescent bulbs. They generate a lot of heat that maybe is not so much an issue for a smaller work that only has 36 bulbs, but it becomes a huge issue for “Moussakoo,” which has 960. I have a very, very distinct memory of standing in front of “Moussakoo” in 2006 in the exhibition “Energy/Experimentation” that Kellie Jones organized and feeling the heat coming off of the work. There was this really palpable sense of heat and so it was important that we converted all of the bulbs to LEDs, because obviously, it’s a fire hazard. It’s a risk to the work itself. The Buick back-up light lenses are acrylic or plastic and with a lot of heat that can soften and deform overtime, so we knew that was going be a big component of the conservation process.
In 2017, if you can imagine, LED bulbs didn’t exist like that as Christmas lightbulbs in the quality that we wanted, the color hue, the intensity, all of that. Reinhard actually made bulbs for us, utilizing an LED filament and then cutting off the incandescent bulb cap. He had to put little filters into the incandescent bulbs because LEDs are much brighter, to block out some of the light. Then he had to attach the incandescent cap onto the LED filament, if that makes sense. He could do that when we only had 36 lightbulbs to do for “Narokan,” when we sent that work to Tate Modern for the “Soul of a Nation” exhibition. But that obviously wasn’t going to be possible for “Moussakoo.” He was not going to do that for 960 bulbs.
Step two of this process was to actually commission a lightbulb manufacturer to make LED bulbs in the color and hue that we wanted. We got those back and they were good, not perfect. They were adequate, but not perfect. We used those lightbulbs when “Moussakoo” was on view in our own traveling collection exhibition, which is called “Black Refractions.”
Then step three, low and behold, eight-and-a-half years after we started this process you can buy LED bulbs that match the original incandescent bulbs actually off the shelf. That, I think, is indicative of the advancements in technology. Even now, going from 2017 to now, how much lightbulb technology, LED technology, has advanced. But also, the fact that we had to do this lightbulb study in three stages, demonstrates not only why conservation is important for time-based media work, but also that technology itself is still rapidly changing.
We need to ensure that we have the materials that we need so that this work can be shown in perpetuity, which means that we’re often buying in bulk. We found the perfect lightbulbs, the perfect LED bulbs for this work, so we are buying hundreds and hundreds of lightbulbs so that in case lightbulb technology changes again we have the bulbs that we need.
TOM LLOYD, “Clavero,’ 1968 (aluminum, light bulbs, plastic laminate, 34 x 43 x 5 inches). | Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro, Gift of Howard Wise. Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem
Based on what you’ve said, it makes me think about the thought process or protocol in terms of when you have an electronic work and technology changes so much? If you have to update it you are sort of changing the work itself, so what is the…
It’s a philosophical question and it’s also, what is the word that I’m thinking of? It’s not just philosophical—I’m not going think of the word right now—but a question about artist intent. We, to the best of our ability, as a museum, try to conserve works always keeping in mind what the artist’s original intent was. We’re not going to necessarily change in terms of paintings, if there are cracks in the painting that are part of the artist’s process. We’re not going cover those up because that happens during the lifetime of the artist, and the artist was presumably aware of that as either part of the drying process or part of the materials that they were utilizing.
For time-based media, it’s thinking about in these cases… we did our best to not change the actual materials that were being used, unless it was for the safekeeping of the work. The original control boxes still exist and can still be used if one wants. It’s just that the more you use it the more you run the risk of losing the program, which is obviously not what we want from a conservation point of view. That’s why we converted all the programs to digital control boxes. We’re not necessarily changing the artwork itself because the original control box still exists. We’re just making it possible for the artwork to be on view without risking the work itself, the wires and things like that. We kept all of that. We didn’t change out all of the internal mechanicals. We kept all the original wiring as much as possible, unless something was missing. We were just ensuring that the wires were safe, that they hadn’t corroded to the point of not being usable. Or that they were connected and ensuring that they were connected in the proper way, but we didn’t gut the work.
The only thing that really changed is the lightbulbs and again it’s for the safety of the work overall. Incandescent bulbs, because of the heat generated and the amount of electricity consumed, it just wasn’t safe to display that work for an extended period of time with the incandescent bulbs. It’s a philosophical question and it’s also just one that we have to constantly be thinking about in terms of what the artist intended for the work, and if the overall work itself or what the visitor, what the viewer experiences of the artwork is the same. The lightbulbs have changed, but the color is the same. The digital control box has changed, but the program is the same. That’s how we made our decisions.
“The original bulbs were incandescent bulbs. They generate a lot of heat that maybe is not so much an issue for a smaller work that only has 36 bulbs, but it becomes a huge issue for ‘Moussakoo,’ which has 960…so it was important that we converted all of the bulbs to LEDs.”
Installation view “Tom Lloyd,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y. (Nov. 15, 2025-March 22, 2026). Shown, TOM LLOYD, Untitled, circa 1965 (metal, light bulbs, and plastic, 18 1/2 x 19 x 7 inches). Studio Museum in Harlem, Gift of Martha A. Cotter in honor of Alan Sussman, 2023.45.3. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine
EARLY WORKS: BEFORE 1965
What kind of work was Lloyd doing before he started making the light works featured in the exhibition, for which he is best known?
We have (three) examples of his early work in our collection. They were wall mounted assemblies, which he made utilizing found material, again this interest in using materials that could be sourced from your daily life, wires and the insides of different electronic material like mechanisms, things like that. He created the assemblies and most of them had some type of kinetic quality. The gears that were combined together could be moved if one were so inclined. They were these really compact, sculptural, wall-based works. You see a lot of resonances with that work that he was making when he actually met Alan Sussman, the RCA engineer, and embarked on the light works.
I’m looking at the catalog and I see the three works, three untitled works. They look like mechanical machinery, like you said, and they’re dated “before 1965.” He must’ve been about 39 years old when he started the studio program at the Studio Museum (in 1968). What was he doing before ‘65?
We don’t actually know what year those works were made. We say that they’re “before 1965.” We know the first electronically programmed light works were made in ‘65. It’s unclear when he became friends with Alan Sussman. When we spoke to Alan Sussman, he couldn’t remember the exact year, given that it was 60 years ago. But the first light works were made in ‘65 and so these assemblies, we believe, were made some time in the early ‘60s. But we don’t have an exact date range for them.
One of the most incredible things about working on this project and announcing the show is that we’ve had three works come to light that we didn’t know about previously. Two of them we were able to incorporate into the show because we found out about them early enough in order to do that.
One of our members came to the museum, to our member’s preview, and handed me a photograph of an early work that she has by Lloyd. She knew him when she was an art student. He was a teacher at her college. That work is similar and yet very different than the three early works that we have in the show. Similar in that he is still making kind of a frame. The untitled early work that is kind of the gray monochromatically painted one that’s in this wooden frame, this early work as well is in kind of a wooden frame, but the actual components, the innards, the inside of the frame, is comprised of a plaster collage of heads. I’m trying to describe it better, but he was working, we believe, in like a figurative manner at some point.
Earlier in his career, he studied painting with Adolph Gottlieb, which we know because we confirmed student records at Pratt. The shift from painting to this work that is figurative and sculptural, at the same time, I’m beginning to see how he was thinking and how he was moving from the painting to the electronic works.
I wanted to revisit something you mentioned previously about “Nubile,” the early work that was found in the basement by Sussman’s wife. How did you know the title? Was it documented somehow?
Tom Lloyd was very good about documenting the work, on the work itself. The verse of the works, almost always, I think all of them actually, have like a metal plate or other type of documentation—a sticker from a gallery or sticker from Howard Wise that says the title and the date.
“One of the most incredible things about working on this project and announcing the show is that we’ve had three works come to light that we didn’t know about previously. Two of them we were able to incorporate into the show because we found out about them early enough in order to do that.”
Installation view of “Tom Lloyd,” Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Wash. (May 16–September 20, 2026). | Photo: Jueqian Fang
‘CONTEMPORARY BLACK ARTISTS’
Before and after the 1968 show at the Studio Museum, Lloyd’s light sculptures were exhibited at several other venues. Photographs in the catalog show his work at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, UCLA Art Galleries, and then in the well-known “Contemporary Black Artists in America” exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 1971, which was very controversial. (Organized in response to demands from the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, about one-third of the artists ultimately rejected the show because a Black curator wasn’t hired to work directly on the exhibition with Robert Doty, a white curator at the museum.) Some of the artists withdrew their work, but Lloyd’s is shown on the wall. Can you talk about his participation in that show, thoughts about the show, and activist reaction to what that show ended up being?
I can’t speak to it directly, because I don’t know for sure. I don’t have records that indicate how he felt, in particular. But I think we can surmise that he participated in the show and then he also was the co-founder of the Art Workers’ Coalition. He was both of those things. Lloyd remains so interesting to me because he really was in so many different worlds at the same time. That revealed the complexity of what he was, what he was doing, and how he was thinking about himself as an artist and how he was thinking about himself as an activist.
He participated in the “Contemporary Black Artists in America” show in ‘71 and that same year he founds the Store Front Museum in Jamaica, Queens. He is participating at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which is an incredible institution devoted to the work of U.S. artists, but also one that had historically been white and those conversations are the reason why this exhibition ended up happening. At the same time, he was deeply committed to his predominantly Black neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens, founding an institution and running it for 16 years, providing free art classes alongside a whole slew of other free programming for his community.
I think he was, as a lot of people are, he was an incredibly complicated individual who didn’t necessarily think those things were exclusive of one another. He saw them as being in dialogue, in terms of advancing access to the arts. It was about really expanding the conversations on what art can and should be. It was about expanding conversations on who had access to the arts.
And too, we know he was the editor and contributed to “Black Art Notes,” which was a rebuttal to the catalog for “Contemporary Black Artists in America.” He participated in the show, but also he was critiquing the show via another avenue. Again, I think that reveals his understanding of what it meant to expand those conversations. He didn’t have to back out of the show in order to critique it.
Tom Lloyd “participated in (‘Contemporary Black Artists in America’), but also he was critiquing the show via another avenue. Again, I think that reveals his understanding of what it meant to expand those conversations. He didn’t have to back out of the show in order to critique it.”
FIRST ART MUSEUM IN QUEENS
When I thought about Lloyd being at the Studio Museum and then establishing the Store Front Museum in Jamaica, Queens, I thought it was interesting because at the time the Studio Museum was in its infancy, sort of doing the same thing in Harlem that he wanted to do in Queens. I wondered did he ever collaborate with the Studio Museum or maybe want to participate in growing that museum. Then I heard a 1968 interview with Lloyd and two Studio Museum leaders on WNYC. Lloyd said something like “I don’t think we should assume the Studio Museum is going to satisfy the appetite of all of the people in the Black Community. I think there needs to be many more Studio Museums all over.” Are you familiar with this quote?
Yes, Yes.
Do you have any thoughts about what he said? What was his relationship with the Studio Museum? What did he think about its mission? He thought there should be multiple Black museums everywhere. What are your thoughts about his vision and how that may or may not have contrasted with the Studio Museum’s?
From what I understand, in speaking with two of his children, is that he was very deliberate about siting the Store Front Museum in Jamaica, Queens (in an old Goodyear Dealership threatened with demolition). That’s his neighborhood. It’s the neighborhood where he raised family. It’s the neighborhood that he wanted to support. I imagine, having lived in New York for however long I’ve lived in New York, you become familiar in your most immediate neighborhood and there are people who don’t necessarily venture out of it. Having an institution devoted to the work of Black artists in Harlem didn’t necessarily mean that his immediate community of Jamaica, Queens, was going come up to Harlem.
By creating a space in Queens, where the neighborhood kids could go every day after school and spend their weekends, where they could take classes after school, where weekends in the summer were always celebrated with the African festival and different types of performances and things like that. That is a very different way of understanding what accessibility means, than saying that only one institution in the city can exist devoted to the work of Black artists.
I don’t think he necessarily had an issue with the Studio Museum, it was more knowing what the needs of his immediate community in Jamaica, Queens, were and trying to create an institution that both celebrated art—he mounted incredible exhibitions with Romeo Bearden, Richard Mayhew, Candace Hill-Montgomery, any number of artists exhibited at the Store Front museum—while also creating a space for the community to gather. I don’t think it was either/or for him. It was more/and. The possibility of both/and was more important.
Like Lorraine O’Grady would say…
Exactly.
Tom Lloyd “was very deliberate about siting the Store Front Museum in Jamaica, Queens…Having an institution devoted to the work of Black artists in Harlem didn’t necessarily mean that his immediate community of Jamaica, Queens, was going come up to Harlem.”
Tom Lloyd working on “Veleuro” in 1968. The large light work is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem
BACKGROUND CHECK
I’m curious to learn more about his background. I know Lloyd was born in Detroit, moved to New York as an infant, and then went to school in New York. Do you know how he was first exposed to art and the roots of his activism?
I do not know that. We know that he went to Pratt and we know that he took classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. I don’t know what initiated his interest in art aside from the fact that his children have recounted that he was always interested in art. What they were told was that as a child he was always doodling and drawing and making things. It was something that he always was interested in.
What we learned from his children is that he was someone who understood and was deeply committed to a sense of community and that’s how he raised them. His kids talk about how on the weekends they’d have to go into Manhattan to demonstrate. And as kids, they didn’t necessarily want to go to Manhattan and demonstrate, but he would tell them that they had to. Those were those protests as part of the Art Workers’ Coalition. They came to understand the importance of what demonstrating, what activism could accomplish. They also saw an aspect of their father that shaped not just their understanding of who he was, but also helped shape who they ended up becoming, too, in terms of understanding the importance of community and understanding the importance of building community.
Speaking of community, we talked about the light works referencing everyday things like the three-way traffic signal or stop light, which was invented by Garrett Morgan. Another Black inventor, Lewis Latimer, helped improve and mass produce incandescent light bulbs, key elements in Lloyd’s original light works. What is the story about the artist helping to preserve or move Lewis Latimer’s house?
He found out that Lewis Latimer’s home was going to be under threat for development, that the location of the house was under threat for development by the city and so he and some other people founded the Committee to Save the Lewis Latimer House. And they were successful in moving it to a safer location. For me, that speaks to his deep commitment to community, ensuring that in Queens itself, that this historic home would be saved. It also speaks to his interest in technology and a celebration of Black history right here.
Lewis Latimer was an incredible Black inventor who still, I think, remains largely under-recognized. But Lloyd, understanding what it would mean to a community to preserve history, particularly since there weren’t, and there continue to not be, that many examples of a living history (Black history) via a historic home. This happened after he lost the Store Front Museum. One of the reasons why I am I’m still so impressed by his commitment is because he came back up again (stood up again), in order to once again, serve his community, in this way by ensuring that this house would be saved.
“I don’t know what initiated (Lloyd’s) interest in art aside from the fact that his children have recounted that he was always interested in art. What they were told was that as a child he was always doodling and drawing and making things.”
Installation view of “Tom Lloyd,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, N.Y. (Nov. 15, 2025-March 22, 2026). | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: Kris Graves
A COMPLETE PERSON
I love that story. Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about that you think is essential to mention?
What I hope that this exhibition does is provide visitors with a better understanding of Lloyd as a complete person, not just as an artist who made these electronically programed light works, but as an artist who was so deeply rooted in the sense of a Black community that impacted everything he did throughout his career, not just the light works that he made.
Is there any new information you learned about since you brought this project and exhibition to light. You mentioned the additional three works. Was there anything else that has come about that is key. You and Thelma Golden and have talked in interviews about the idea that this is just the beginning and hopefully more people will do other things on Lloyd. I know there’s another book coming out.
Yes, Krista Thompson’s book. You know the book (exhibition catalog) and the checklist was put together a long time ago. We were able to add two of these works in at relatively the last minute. The book went to print months ago, and there are definitely things that I wish I could put into the book now in terms of having had more conversations with two of his children.
We had initial conversations, but the more conversations you have the more they remember. They’re telling different stories and so we’ve learned so much more about who Lloyd was as a person, as a human, as a father, but also his children’s recollections of the Store Front Museum, of the Art Workers’ Coalition. They’ve created such a more robust context of those aspects of his life. Not that they’re not well documented, but aside from some archival document, having that picture that his children have created has informed, better informed, my understanding of him more holistically as a person.
What kinds of things have they shared with you?
His son Jaleel gave us videocassettes of recordings from Lloyd’s life and from the Store Front Museum. That’s what we incorporated into the video that is at the outside of the gallery. It’s just such an incredible document of Lloyd’s work and being able to see him talk about his own contributions to the art world, in video form, in recorded form, how impactful the Store Front Museum was, all of the programming they did.
We see that there were constantly dancers in the space and different classes and sickle cell anemia awareness workshops. All of that. It’s one thing to read about it in the document, but it’s another thing to see it visually, to understand that he wasn’t creating an institution for himself, he was creating an institution for Queens. He was creating an institution for his community. Having all of that documentation is one thing that I didn’t expect to ever be able to find. The fact that Jaleel gave it to us so generously and allowed us to make this exhibition video completely changed how I understand the impact of what Lloyd did.
“What I hope that this exhibition does is provide visitors with a better understanding of Lloyd as a complete person, not just as an artist who made these electronically programed light works, but as an artist who was so deeply rooted in the sense of a Black community that impacted everything he did throughout his career, not just the light works that he made.”
Tom Lloyd and apprentices, including his son Omar, in the artist’s studio in Jamaica, Queens, circa 1968. | Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem. Photo: Reginald McGhee
It’s so important for artist’s families to be engaged with their work because their knowledge is so valuable once the artist is no longer with us.
Yes, exactly. They have such distinct memory of who he was as a person and I can just, after speaking with them so many times, understand how much he contributed, not just as an externally facing artist or museum director, but as a human, as a father, as a member of the neighborhood, as a member of the community. I hope that is reflected in the exhibition and the overall materials that we produced. But that is my big takeaway in terms of you know when you embark on a project on an artist who has been deceased for a couple decades, you don’t always get to understand him as a person.
What did Lloyd’s children think when they saw the exhibition?
It was incredible. They had never seen that many works together at the same time. One of his grandsons also came. Lloyd had passed away when he was a young child. He grew up knowing who his grandfather was, but not having any visual kind of sense of exactly everything that Lloyd had done. It was quite an emotional experience to be in that room, which is already such a beautiful room, but to see all of those works for the first time. In many cases, some of the works hadn’t been on view for decades. It was quite emotional. CT
“Tom Lloyd” was on view at the Studio Museum in Harlem, from Nov. 16, 2025-March 22, 2026. The exhibition traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Wash., where it is currently on view (May 16-Sept. 20, 2026)
Curators, the family of Tom Lloyd, and the artist himself reflect on his pioneering light works and legacy in the art world and his community. | Video by Studio Museum in Harlem
BOOKSHELF
“Tom Lloyd” is edited by Connie Choi and documents the landmark exhibition organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem. Also consider the exhibition catalogs “Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction” and “Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties,” which document the shows where Choi first saw Tom Lloyd’s work. “Black Art Notes” is a facsimile edition of the publication edited by Lloyd and first published 1971.
