In Conversation with Phillip Michael Collins, Good Black Art.

Join us for a conversation with artist and designer Jon Key in celebration of the Philadelphia launch of his book Black, Queer, and Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers. Inspired by Key’s formative upbringing in the South and his educational experiences in graphic design, Black, Queer & Untoldinvites us to consider how identity could be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male and pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before. 

The program will begin with a selected reading by Key who will then be joined in conversation by Philadelphia-based graphic designer Nijel Taylor and Rachell Morillo, ICA’s DAJ Director of Public Engagement and Research. A light reception and book signing will follow the conversation.

This program sits in dialogue with Entryways: Nonstikelelo Mutiti (on view through April 6, 2025) at the intersections of art, identity, and design.

Registration

Register to attend this free event here. | Virtual viewing for this program will be available soon. 

Live captioning and ASL interpretation will be provided for this program.

ICA is committed to creating a welcoming environment for all visitors. For more notes on accessibility including accessible parking nearby visit our Accessibility landing page. If you require any accessibility accommodations or have any questions about the program, please contact Brittany Clottey (bclottey@ica.upenn.edu).

About the panelists

Jon(athan) Key is an artist, designer, and writer originally from Seale, Alabama. After receiving his BFA from RISD, Jon began his design career at Grey Advertising in NYC before moving on to work with HBO, Nickelodeon, and The Public Theater. Now he is co-founder of the Brooklyn–based design studio Morcos Key with Wael Morcos. As an educator, Jon has taught at MICA, Parsons, and currently teaches at Cooper Union and SVA. Jon is also a Co-Founder and Design Director of Codify Art, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to creating, producing, supporting, and showcasing work by artists of color, particularly women, queer, and trans artists of color. Jon was selected for Forbes 30 under 30 Art and Style list for 2020 and was the Frank Staton Chair in Graphic Design at Cooper Union 2018-2019. His work has been featured in Jeffery Deitch Gallery NYC, the Armory Show, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Jon holds an MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism from SVA. His writing has been featured in publications such as The Washington Post, The Black Experience in Design and AIGA.

Nijel Taylor has led the transformation of major brands across multiple industries throughout the last decade. As an accomplished creative director, designer and strategic consultant, Nijel understands not only how to quickly generate great ideas, but also how to develop them with rich storytelling and strategic insight. He is adept at setting logo design, color, photo art direction, illustration, typography, and 2D animation. With his can-do attitude and creativity, he loves to develop nothing but the best ideas for clients, from start to finish. As a champion of DEI, he deeply knows the value voices from all backgrounds can contribute to the design process. He believes being collaborative, curious, even-keeled, and efficient makes for positive and timeless work. He passionately sees design as a tool to engage others and create meaningful change. Through his projects, Nijel aims to create work that resonates with a diverse range of audiences and pushes the potential of branding. Partnering and contributing to the work of powerhouse creative agencies such as Lippincott, Trollbäck+Company, Superunion, and Siegel+Gale, Nijel has had the fortune of collaborating to transform and reimagine notable iconic brands such as Taco Bell, MTV International, The NFL Network, and Sesame Workshop. Nijel received his BFA from The University of the Arts, where he graduated as the Valedictorian with honors in Graphic Design. He has taught Motion Design at Kean University and actively mentors industry talent. His work has been recognized by design publications such as GDUSA, Logo Lounge, Graphis and recently Graphic Design Solutions Edition 6, as well as Strategic Creativity – both by creative author, Robin Landa. In 2022 he had the distinct honor of being a design jury member for The One Club for Creativity: Young Guns 20.

Support

Programming at ICA is made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation. Public and Student Engagement at ICA is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, Suzanne Weiss Doft & Jacob W. Doft, Stacey & Robert Goergen Jr., Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan, the Nash Family Foundation, Joline & David Stemerman, and by Dana McDonald Strong & Mark W. Strong.

Join us Thursday, January 16, at 4 p.m. ET

For our first PRINT Book Club of 2025, Jon Key will join Steven Heller and Debbie Millman to discuss his gorgeous and essential new book, Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers.

Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIkdu-qqDsvGdfACXgnRLEcxvqzc2BsxfZr#/registration

Queer Icons & Fearless Expressions: 
A Conversation between Jon Key and Gemma Rolls-Bentley

Join for a conversation with Jon Key, artists, designer and author of Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists and Trailblazers, and Gemma Rolls-Bentley, curator and author of Queer Art: From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between. The authors will discuss their new books that celebrate the vastness of Queer artists and icons across time and the globe.

Books will be available for purchase.
Limited Free copies of THE OG will be available as well.

Friday, December 6, 2024
2:00-4pm Talk begins at 3pm 
Soho House Miami Beach at Ocho (8th floor)
4385 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33140

Come Celebrate the release of Jon Key’s first book: Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists and Trailblazers.

Join us for a short reading by the author, followed by a conversation and book signing.

PT Knitwear Bookstore
180 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002
7-9pm. After party to follow.

This is a ticketed in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating

• Cost of a $5 general admission ticket can be applied towards your purchase of the featured event book or any product in our café the night of an event.

• We encourage all guests to wear masks.

• The talk will be followed by a book signing. Books signed at P&T Knitwear events must be purchased from P&T Knitwear. If you would like a signed copy and cannot attend the event, we're happy to take your pre-order. We ship most places!
  

TUE, OCT 8, 6:30PM

THE EIGHTH MOON

“Beautifully written, The Eighth Moon uses a very light touch to probe the most essential, unresolvable questions of belief, kinship, fidelity, history, and identity.”—Chris Kraus

A rebellion, guns, and murder. When Jennifer Kabat moves to the Catskills, she has no idea it was the site of the Anti-Rent War, an early episode of American rural populism.

As she forges friendships with her new neighbors and explores the countryside on logging roads and rutted lanes—finding meadows dotted with milkweed in bloom, saffron salamanders, a blood moon rising over Munsee, Oneida, and Mohawk land—she slowly learns of the 1840s uprising, when poor tenant farmers fought to redistribute their landlords’ vast estates. In the farmers’ socialist dreams, she discovers connections to her parents’ collectivist values, as well as to our current moment. Threaded with historical documents, the natural world, and the work of writers like Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Hardwick, Kabat weaves a capacious memoir, where the past comes alive in the present.

Rich with unexpected correspondences and discoveries, this visionary and deeply compassionate debut gives us a new way of seeing and being in place—one in which everything is intertwined and all at once.

JENNIFER KABAT

Jennifer Kabat’s The Eighth Moon on a 1840s socialist uprising in her town will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2024. Half of a diptych, the second volume Nightshining will come out in 2025. Her work has been supported by numerous grants including a Silvers Foundation Grant and a Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her criticism. Her essays have appeared in BOMB, Granta, Frieze, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, LARB, New York Review, 4 Columns and the White Review and been anthologized in Best American Essays. She often collaborates with artists and contributes to museum catalogues. An apprentice herbalist, she lives in rural upstate New York and serves on her volunteer fire department.

BLACK, QUEER, & UNTOLD

Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a creative Black Queer kid, Jon Key imagined himself as a professional artist and designer. But in lecture halls and critiques in art school, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity — the stories and artifacts that reflected him.

Jon started asking himself questions: What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer? A Queer graphic designer? Someone from the South? Could his identity be communicated through a poster or a book? How could identity be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male?

In Black, Queer, & Untold, acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key delves into these questions and manifests a book he (and so many others) needed when they were coming up. Black, Queer & Untold pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before. Jon offers these stories an enduring, reverential stage – and in doing so, gifts us a book that immediately takes its place among the creative arts canon.

JON KEY

Jon(athan) Key is an artist, designer, and writer originally from Seale, Alabama. After receiving his BFA from RISD, Jon began his design career at Grey Advertising in NYC before moving on to work with HBO, Nickelodeon, and The Public Theater. Now he is co-founder of the Brooklyn–based design studio Morcos Key with Wael Morcos. As an educator, Jon has taught at MICA, Parsons, and currently teaches at Cooper Union and SVA. Jon is also a Co-Founder and Design Director of Codify Art, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to creating, producing, supporting, and showcasing work by artists of color, particularly women, queer, and trans artists of color. Jon was selected for Forbes 30 under 30 Art and Style list for 2020 and was the Frank Staton Chair in Graphic Design at Cooper Union 2018-2019. His work has been featured in Jeffery Deitch Gallery NYC, the Armory Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic.

He holds an MA in Design Research, Writing and Criticism from SVA (Class of 2021). He co-teaches Approaches to Design History, Part II with Alicia Ajayi in the Fall Semester.