Jessica Lynne
Jessica Lynne is a writer, art critic, podcaster, editor, and co-founder of ARTS.BLACK, a journal of art criticism that centers Black perspectives while engaging the contemporary art world. She is a winner of a 2025 Rabkin Prize. You can read her full bio here. We invited Jessica to have a conversation about her work. The interview is accompanied by a newly commissioned portrait of Jessica in her studio during a residency at ALMA | LEWIS, an art platform for critical thinking, constructive dialogue, and creative expression dedicated to Black cultures in Pittsburgh. Please note: Jessica is no longer at Momus, a change that occurred after our podcast was produced. The interview has been gently edited for length and clarity.
Mentioned in this episode:
Art on My Mind by bell hooks (The New Press, 1995)
”Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” by Barbara Smith (Center for Critical Education Inc., 1978)
Negrolandby Margo Jefferson (Pantheon, 2015)
Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon, 2022)
Bisi Silva, founder and curator ofContemporary Art CCA, Lagos, Nigeria
The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Propertyby Eunsong Kim (Duke University Press, 2024)
This episode of the Rabkin Interviews was produced by the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, an artist-endowed foundation based in Portland, Maine. The interview was conducted by Mary Louise Schumacher, a journalist and the executive director of the Rabkin Foundation. The portraits were made by artist-photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki. The production team for the Rabkin Interviews also includes Cindy Eggert Johnson, producer; Johnathon Olsen, editor; with research and copyediting by Katie Avila Loughmiller and Karen Samelson. Music is by Flint, HaHaHa, Ori Kaplan, and Jimit. The Rabkin Prize is awarded through a nomination process, and an independent jury selects the winners.