Kellie Jones

Kellie Jones (born 1959) is an American art historian and curator. She is a professor in art history and archaeology at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, Columbia University. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Biography Jones is the daughter of poets Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka. Jones graduated from Amherst College in 1981. She later earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1999.

Her research interests include African Diaspora and African American artists, Latin American and Latino/a artists, and problems in contemporary art and museum theory. Jones has been published in journals such as NKA, Artforum, Flash Art, Atlantica, and Third Text. Jones has a half-sister, Dominique di Prima, from Baraka's relationship with Beat poet Diane di Prima, and a half-brother, Newark, New Jersey mayor Ras Baraka.

Awards and honors 2005: David C. Driskell Prize. 2012: Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation 2013: Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. 2013: Terra Foundation Fellow. 2016: MacArthur Fellows Program award. 2019: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow.

Curated exhibits Curated and co-curated exhibits:

Basquiat. New York: Brooklyn Museum, March 11, 2005 through June 5, 2005. Co-curators include Marc Mayer, Fred Hoffman, Kellie Jones, and Franklin Sirmans. Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, October 2, 2011 – January 8, 2012; MOMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York, from October 21, 2012 – March 11, 2013; and at the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA, from July 20-December 1, 2013. Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties. New York: Brooklyn Museum, March 7–July 13, 2014. Co-curated by Teresa A. Carbone and Kellie Jones.

Books Jones, Kellie (2002). Lorna Simpson. London: Phaidon Press. Jones, Kellie (2011). EyeMinded: Living And Writing Contemporary Art. Durham: Duke University Press. Jones, Kellie (2011). Now Dig This!: Art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum. Jones, Kellie (2017). South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Durham: Duke University Press.