Ayrika Hall

Art Historian, Curator

Ayrika Hall is a Chicago based art historian and scholar specializing in African American modern and contemporary art and museum studies. Hall's scholarship centers re-evaluating the interpretative frameworks applied to African American art, employing a multidisciplinary methodology that examines the intersections of art, culture, and philosophy. Her research and curatorial projects leverage the museum as a site for interrogating the complexities and dynamics of broader socio-political systems, investigating the historical trajectories of curatorial challenges and their implications for future representations of Black art. With a strong objective to preserve and historicize the rich micro-histories within contemporary black counter-publics, Hall's research engages with the historiography of Black art and its interaction with contemporary realities. Hall critically assesses established methodologies to foreground the multifaceted connections between Black art, society, and politics.

Hall has held curatorial, research, and programming roles at the Smart Museum of Art, Anthony Gallery, The Floating Museum, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Evoke Chicago, Gallery 400, blackpuffiin, and Black Artists Network. Hall received her Master’s degree in Art History with a curatorial distinction from the University of Chicago in 2021, and her BA in History of Art and Architecture, Studio Art, and Museum Studies from DePaul University in 2020.

Writing and Publications

Curatorial Projects

Exhibitions

and Projects

"A work of art does not need revolution as its subject in order to be revolutionary. It will not create authentic social change, but it can provoke thought and prepare us for change, even helping in its achievement.

For art can tell us what we do not see consciously, what we may not realize, and that there are other ways of seeing things."

Elizabeth Catlett