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The NewCrits PodcastSubstack for NewCrits.studio, a global platform for Virtual Art Mentorship and more Author: with Ajay Kurian
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The Terms Of Autonomy: NewCrits Talk with Ebony L. Haynes
Friday, 9 January, 2026
When David Zwirner approached Ebony L. Haynes, the conversation didn’t begin with vision statements or prestige. It began with reality: exhaustion, uncertainty, and the question of whether staying in the art world was even possible. What followed was recalibration. If she was going to continue, it had to be on terms that reflected how she actually works—through care, risk, and sustained presence. That recalibration became 52 Walker.Drawing from her time at Martos Gallery and its project space Shoot the Lobster, Haynes speaks candidly about what it means to build exhibitions from the ground up: buying furniture on credit cards, drilling into gallery floors, maintaining impossible works by hand, and staying late because the work deserves it. For her, autonomy is not branding or independence for its own sake. It is the ability to stay present with artists, to hold risk without spectacle, and to let rigor coexist with joy.Rather than framing curatorial work as management or authorship, Haynes describes it as a practice shaped by trust, repetition, and care—one that resists burnout not by slowing ambition, but by rooting it in pleasure, responsibility, and belief.She explains:* How Foxy Production taught her to do every job herself, and why learning the whole system changed how she values labor.* Why belief in the work often comes before money, and what it costs to act on that belief anyway.* How maintenance, repetition, and care are not secondary tasks but central to exhibition-making.* What quarantine, racial reckoning, and institutional fatigue revealed about her limits—and her resolve.* How 52 Walker emerged not from a master plan, but from presence, honesty, and the willingness to say, “I have this idea.”(0:00) First Encounter and the Permission to Care(4:00) Foxy Production and Learning by Doing(7:00) Installation as Commitment(16:00) Belief, Debt, and the Couch(18:00) Maintenance, Repetition, and Joy(21:00) Quarantine, Burnout, and Almost Leaving(25:00) Martos Gallery and the Small Fish Problem(27:00) Shoot the Lobster and Experimental Freedom(32:00) 52 Walker and Building a Program(41:00) Artists, Power, and Staying in the WorkFollow Ebony:Instagram: @ebotronFollow 52 Walker:Web: https://www.52walker.com/Instagram: @52walker Full TranscriptAjay Kurian: What does it feel like to watch this right now?Ebony L. Haynes: You know, I haven’t watched this in a while. It stands so clear in my mind. The first time I experienced this artwork of perfection…Ajay Kurian: This was what I read and gathered was the first art experience where you were really rocked to your core.Ebony L. Haynes: There was a small space run by this formidable woman, Ydessa Hendeles in Toronto, who at the time I knew nothing about. I stumbled into this space based on some kind of art map. I was emotional, I remember crying the first time. I went back at least a half dozen times and it made me feel like pursuing something in the art world could really mean something.It was the very first artwork I ever remember feeling like this shit hits and there are so many layers to it. The first time I walked in, I didn’t know who Shirin Neshat was, you know? And it’ll be one of my opuses. I already had one. I thought Gordon Mata Clark and Pope.L is a show I did, and I’m like, oh, I can’t top it.But working closely with this artist and something around this work would be the next major emotional insurmountable moment for me. You have to visualize this two-channel video, before I knew what two-channel really meant. You know, I don’t wanna pretend like I was encountering this work and I knew all of the ways to talk about it.I walked into the room, and there were two screens. This window was a screen and the wall facing each other. So these performers are essentially facing each other and you’re sitting in the center. It was a purple carpet, very well installed. I come from a music background, so immediately I was like, the sound design was impeccable. Somebody really thought about six channels of sound and knew how to put the subwoofers in the right place to make me feel it when it hits that note. I was like crying for this woman. And also feeling a little bit for the man and I mean, it was…Ajay Kurian: There’s layers.Ebony L. Haynes: There’s layers. It’ll be a chapter. Yeah, it was huge for me.Ajay Kurian: It’s also such a different experience. Because I was watching this on my laptop and I was like, this is crazy. Then hearing it here, the hair on the back of my neck went…Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah when you see it, it was floor to ceiling, so it was larger than life bodies belting in front of me. I almost felt like I could feel the air out of the speakers. I mean, I was also there alone every time I went.Ajay Kurian: Wow. So this clocks as one of the formative experiences a hundred percent. In your sort of art upbringing, I’m gonna fast forward a little bit to when you actually make it to New York. Is your first job in the art world interning at Foxy?Ebony L. Haynes: Intern at Foxy Production, yep. Whenever I’m about to talk about Michael and John, Michael, Gillespie, John Thompson. I make it sound like we are really good friends and I hope we are, but we don’t text and call each other.But they know how important they were and are to my story. Foxy production was one I wrote to because of their program. I felt somebody, who at the moment when I applied, had worked in music mostly and that was my only full-time experience and writing about music. They were really kind of schmutzy and unmastered is what I remember saying to John in my letter. It was like this underground basement, party of a gallery where they were doing a lot of new media before many galleries. Maybe not. You know, I don’t know, but from my perspective.Ajay Kurian: They have that reputation, yeah.Ebony L. Haynes: So I just wrote them a letter and I was like, do you want me, I’d love to come and work for you for free. And they were like, cool, come on down. I did, and it was life-changing. I really expected it to be an internship where I go back and get a job in Toronto and it turned into a job for them.Ajay Kurian: And that’s when we met.Ebony L. Haynes: That’s when we met, so many years ago. That was 2012, I think. Something like that.Ajay Kurian: With people that are in the gallery world or in the commercial art world — my gallerist for instance, Oliver, he worked for Alexander and Bonin. And he really credits them as being the ones who really gave him his grounding and his understanding of what it meant to be a gallerist. Do you feel similarly? You worked at Foxy, then you worked at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, then you worked at Martos. Of those three experiences, what has felt like the one that’s grounded you the most?Ebony L. Haynes: Grounded me, probably Martos. You know, Martos and Shoot The Lobster. I have to say both because I was tasked to program three galleries bicoastally at the same time with a staff of one.Ajay Kurian: That’s insane.Ebony L. Haynes: Sometimes an intern or assistant, eventually it grew, but it took years. Foxy though, made me really appreciate what it means to learn everything about my job. They taught me how to make an invoice, what a performer was for shipping, what the difference between national and international crates are, and how to hang an art fair booth. Registrars and production art handling are my complete IV lifeblood. If my registrar and my art handlers are not happy… I’m the queen of Donuts install morning or let’s get some pizza. When it was Martos time, I’d do some beer after hours, but not at David Zwirner. Because. I remember one story, this show at Martos, Invisible Man. Pope.L created a new work for me and it was a fountain that hung upside down. I’d hired an art handling and production company to help me build that plinth and figure out how to hang it safely and successfully from the beam. No shade, in case anybody is associated with that experience, and much love to the crew. But they bailed before it was hung. They claimed, and to their credit I think it was hard, but they just were not gonna be responsible for it.So I had to figure out how to rent scaffolding and enlist somebody, who I’m thankful is now a partner in all things in my life and at the time was just my art handler and production manager, and another friend who I knew was art handling for another gallery. One night I slept there. Just so many late nights for this show right before we opened.I have so much love and appreciation for people who say they come into 52 Walker and it feels like an installation and it’s always new. I have to be involved. I would never ask anybody installing a show for me to do it without my involvement. I’m really respectful and admire people who are willing to troubleshoot with me, and especially those who feel excited by it and not burdened by challenges because some people do.Some people have an attitude of, it’s not my job, this is not what I signed up for. But those who really get excited by problem solving and we’re in it together — I will vacuum up the floor while you are mopping. We have to do it ‘cause then it just looks so good.Ajay Kurian: I think also sometimes there’s a fear that the curator will get in the way and when you can actually fully collaborate that is a beautiful thing and it’s something that I think artists would want more if they could trust it. I’m wondering when you felt like artists started to trust you? Was this Martos? Was this Foxy? I think you always had artists on your side. You were always friends with artists. You were always in the mix of things. But when did you feel like, oh, I’ve earned this trust now?Ebony L. Haynes: I would say it happened early, but you know, there’s different levels of trust. I remember one time at Foxy production, this wonderful artist who I now call a friend, Sascha Braunig, had her second exhibition there. First of all, the gallery needed to be painted.Ajay Kurian: You painted the gallery?Ebony L. Haynes: With Sasha.Ajay Kurian: You’re kidding.Ebony L. Haynes: We texted in the morning and was like, can you bring an extra shirt, like painting clothes?I have to preface what we continue with our conversation to say I’ve never advocated for a kind of paradigm shift with 52 Walker. Of course, my practice is my own. Everybody is afforded the right to their own practice and opinions. But if you didn’t make art, and a lot of curators did. But I didn’t make art in the studio, I studied photography. I only worked primarily as a commercial photographer. So to really understand how the artist is working. I can’t imagine asking someone to move a painting one inch on blocks on the floor for me.Ajay Kurian: Really?Ebony L. Haynes: I hate it. I actually save a lot of money with art handlers because I don’t book anything until it’s really time to hang. I move the blocks, unless they’re really big and I need help, of course. But I feel weird and they’re always so generous. Art handlers are the blood of the industry. They don’t feel weird hanging back and waiting for me to take 10 minutes to look at a wall, but I feel intrusive and disrespectful of their time, just having them be around. So I do a lot of my installing after hours. I do a lot of facsimile printouts, even just 8 by 10 and tape them together to move things that are not worth $10,000 or a million dollars, and just move the paper. There’s something about feeling like I’m connecting with what I’m hanging that feels important.Ajay Kurian: Oh yeah. When I am hanging a show, I’ll move something and then I’ll walk out the gallery and I’ll walk in and then I’ll move something again and I’ll walk out of the gallery and I’ll walk in.Ebony L. Haynes: Me too.Ajay Kurian: And I just keep doing that over and over again because what is the choreography of this emotional experience? Testing it as many times as you can to see does it hold and does it do the things that I thought in my head? And trying to separate yourself from what was happening in the studio or what was happening in a different moment in time to what’s happening in this space right now.You’ve had so much experience putting together shows. This signaled to me what Ebony was gonna be about. This is the artist Peter Williams. I think we both agree, maybe an underappreciated artistEbony L. Haynes: A hundred percent.Ajay Kurian: I didn’t know that many people talking about Peter Williams. I don’t remember if you were the one who told me about him, or there was some moment when I was looking at this work and I was like, holy shit, this guy is incredible.Here you were doing a show of the work and making sure that he was taken care of. He had his share of health issues and required some real care. It felt like this was a moment where you really gotta showcase an artist and show people a world that they hadn’t seen before, which I think we’ll start to see more and more. And then 52 Walker happens.Ebony L. Haynes: The show is heartwarming for me on so many levels. This is just gonna be an ode to Foxy production. Michael and John, to their credit, it was an artist who had been presented to them and in front of me. I was very privileged to be the only employee. The owners of the gallery really heard me. They really listened to my opinions about the work. We had engaging conversations about the work, and they said, why don’t you go to Delaware and meet with Peter? This was one year out of grad school. I mean, I’m sure there are many good bosses out there.Ajay Kurian: No, that’s special.Ebony L. Haynes: For these gentlemen to put me on a train, not a plane, but put me on the train. It was more than just a studio visit. It was an invitation to, not just a show, but representation. There were no titles at Foxy production. By any measure, I was a gallery assistant, but I was also their registrar, art handler, and did the fairs with them. This was my real first experience with an artist bringing in an archive that was on slides in binders and really bonding with Peter and helping with his New York show.Ajay Kurian: I feel like Martos was when you planted a couple of flags. Invisible Man being the first where you could start to make a stake curatorially. How do you create a relationship with a gallerist, specifically a white gallerist, where you’re like, this is what I want to do, these are the shows that I want to do, and get the support that you need? Because I’ve proposed shows that didn’t happen because there wasn’t the support that I needed, but you pulled these things off and made it work.Ebony L. Haynes: For better or worse. I was unaware of what anyone else thought. I probably should have taken note a little more and I try to learn from that now. I knew that this show had to happen. Many questions were put to me as to its financial viability, production, and installation.I didn’t have answers, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t all peachy, you know? I got in trouble a lot, not just with Jose. I mean, not in trouble, but I had to have many private conversations with people I worked with and for — here’s an example. In this picture, this couch, Kayode Ojo. I was such a believer in this complete installation that I bought this couch myself on two credit cards. It was only $600, which makes you understand what my credit card situation was like. I had to resell it on Craigslist at the end. For Kayode and I, the belief in this work and the conversation in the show was so much more important than me to think 10 steps ahead. I just thought two steps ahead. And so the blindness of that was rewarding for me as a curator. You know, how are we gonna get those Jessica Vaughn’s up? Let’s figure out how to do this large format printing for the seats. And you know, there was no Patreon then, but I did some sort of crowdfunding.Ajay Kurian: How did you maintain this steadiness and not just burn out after doing a show like this? How do you not just crash and be like, fuck it, I’m never doing a show like that again.Ebony L. Haynes: I mean, it’s so fun. Look at it. Look at this floor for context. I went to Red Hook a year before the show even opened to look at flooring that is reclaimed oak. It was pretty expensive. And the first show I do, I tell my boss, I love this floor. I am gonna drill a hole through it that will leave a mark for the life of the gallery and it’s still there. If you go in, you see I kept the piece, but the line marks this hole.Ajay Kurian: Oh, this is like your own little Gordon Matta-Clark.Ebony L. Haynes: It is. I mean art is so fun, you know, even the challenges. I think when I stop having fun in the challenges of each show, maybe my career will change. But I love working with artists. I love the conversations. I really have a good time. I’m not begrudgingly approaching an install because I have to stay till midnight. For me it’s more what’s for dinner at the gallery? Let’s go guys. Maybe when that changes, it’ll feel different.For this, I didn’t know what people would think. I didn’t know if it would be successful. I didn’t even know what that meant. I was excited for people to come in and see it. This Fountain, Pope.L was like fuck you, you’re gonna have to get on a ladder twice a day. First fill it with newly filtered water, and at the end of the day, drain it. Every single day, reset the timer. This was for eight weeks. That’s a lot of draining and filling. I would just laugh every time and send him texts and be like, you motherfucker, fuck you. I love you, but this is crazy. You know, it’s fun. That’s the answer.Ajay Kurian: There’s joy.Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah, there’s joy for sure.Ajay Kurian: I feel like there’s a moment in museums and art culture at large, after George Floyd, where everybody’s scrambling to figure out how they can address, what to them seems like this explosion of a crisis. Where it’s just been there all the time and no one’s been looking at it. So I think a lot of black creatives, a lot of black artists, a lot of anybody in the field, was trying to figure out how to not fucking quit and how to keep moving forward. That was right when you left Martos. It was the in between period, right?Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah, it was in between, by default because we were quarantined. I mean, I can say a lot. Like many non-white bodies in the art world, I felt very angry. I felt sort of like this new moment of realization sociopolitically, where, oh, my neighbor’s racist. We knew that, you know, all these things were just bubbling to the top.And then having to deal with what I’ve always felt and then what became more apparent to others and making them feel comfortable. I reached a tipping point with this online programming — for those who remember the quarantine of online viewing rooms, experience in 3D, QR code this, and here’s a talk virtually.That was my first and only time so far where I was really literally almost out the door of the art world. I was really ready to go for my seventh life. I was like, this is it for me. I can’t do it anymore.Ajay Kurian: Is that before David?Ebony L. Haynes: It was really concurrent. Here comes my shout out to a friend in the room who gets a chapter in my memoir. You know, it’s about the people who are there at the right time. I had a conversation with a friend of mine, Mark, while we were quarantined. I remember just spewing my guts of frustration of just I just wanna do cool shit and make somebody realize that it’s cool and pay me to do it. I know it’s gonna be good. Don’t question me with your budget meetings and your bullshit and just just wanna fucking do it.Ajay Kurian: You sound like an artist.Ebony L. Haynes: Maybe I feel like an artist sometimes. It’s your practice. It does feel like I wanna create. I’m a little more like I wanna produce for my artists. And Mark said, what does that look like to you? In this moment, I don’t know, fucking I advising for Kanye. It was mostly really this moment of one person, not just Mark, but a few people very close to me hearing me spew this confession. I have imposter syndrome but maybe a little less in this moment when all these idiots around me are doing some bullshit posturing and I really wanna do something that means something and can we just get someone to pay for it? Then a few people encouraged it, whether they had the answer or not.Ajay Kurian: They didn’t slam the door.Ebony L. Haynes: No, they didn’t slam the door. And it was concurrent with David Zwirner, because before COVID is when I was approached by the gallery. But I was approached to work for them in a much more traditional way as a director which is what happens in the gallery world.There’s this kind of unspoken rule of three to four year life at any gallery and then you get poached, which is a problematic word, but I use it anyway. Or you have conversations about lifting or expanding your career. And at the time when I had my first conversation with somebody from Zwirner Gallery, I thought I couldn’t do any of this. I felt like a small fish and was kind of afraid to be honest about working with big fish. So I had the conversation to attempt to be professional and leverage myself as a business woman to go back to Martos and be like, make me a partner and big fish want me. I don’t know what it was. I don’t even know how to say it.Ajay Kurian: You were leveragingEbony L. Haynes: I was trying and I thought I would, but I didn’t have to because of the way things played out. My second interview or what was to be a meeting with Zwirner Minds was the week they announced quarantine. And I got a text from somebody, who is now a colleague who I really appreciate, she’s really and truly the backbone to a lot of how 52 Walker came to be. It was a very casual text like, oh, when COVID and quarantine blows over. Remember there were news casts about clorox and wiping down your groceries. That was the week I was supposed to go in and I was like, yeah, let’s just see how it plays out. Months go by.Ajay Kurian: Wow.Ebony L. Haynes: Silence. I’m spiraling. I wanna buy a container and put it on a small piece of land. I was feeling very fiery in the way that I wanted other people to feel heard and seen. Then it was like, people are actually back at work and doing business. So it was almost like the interview that was meant to happen, in February or the second week of March, was happening six months later.Ajay Kurian: Wow. Did you have a vision of 52 Walker in that second interview, or was it something that was kind of iterated with them?Ebony L. Haynes: I had a vision largely through conversations throughout the pandemic that really solidified what my experience at Martos and Shoot The Lobster had affirmed for me in a way that I loved working. Shoot The lobster, for background, was sort of a project space of Martos. It was for sale, but we didn’t represent artists. I was the art handler, director, curator, programmer for New York and Los Angeles. I would install it after hours, I’d leave Martos and walk over to Shoot The Lobster.Ajay Kurian: It was at that moment, you were a restaurateur that opened their second restaurant and you were just scrambling between boats all the time.Ebony L. Haynes: Just all the time. I wanted to live in Chinatown because I spent every moment there. But there was something that happened for me as a curator where I could see the benefits of both worlds in that relationship where Shoot The Lobster felt free for artists. With me, it was like, no one’s paying attention. Let’s cut this ceiling open and break the pipe and nobody cares. Let’s put a video out on the street and it’s like Elger Street and nobody pays attention, but we tried it.We tried it out and it worked most of the time. Then I had Martos where we represented artists, we did art fairs, and a program that was representative of Jose and the history of the gallery with new artists that I was there to bring on. So it was four and a half years and the melding of both of those mines started forming 52 Walker.Ajay Kurian: That makes so much sense.Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah. If I could do Shoot The Lobster bigger. But I had nothing planned going into the interview.Ajay Kurian: When you look at 52 Walker now, it looks very planned. There’s a vision of the catalogs. It seems like they are inspired by many different things from Cy Twombly drawing catalogs to Octavia Butler to magazine culture. I think the magazine culture is actually one of my favorite things about the editorial note, because it reminded me of how I think about introductions. It’s an editor’s note. It’s something that is about changing how we can be hospitable in art spaces and what voice do we use? Is it a voice where we’re looking down like this, or is it a voice where we’re like this and we can talk to each other as if we’re all just horizontal?Ebony L. Haynes: Totally.Ajay Kurian: It feels like there’s an ethic, rigor, but empathy with 52 Walker. Did you know that you wanted catalogs? Did you know that you wanted all of it to look this way? Did you have a sense of the first artist and then kind of importantly, the way that you were thinking about risk and safety? Because this is commercial at a much larger scale and you already said feeling like a little fish next to big fish. This is one of the biggest fucking fishes there is. So how do you make that transformation? How do you meet that and say, all right, let me do my shit.Ebony L. Haynes: I mean, I’m always gonna be honest and transparent. I really don’t know. I don’t encourage anyone to wait until this moment of fight or flight. But I truly felt like I had nothing to lose when I pitched 52 Walker. Which made me probably seem more confident than I am because if everyone said no, I had a container plan. You know, I studied art criticism. It was an art criticism and curatorial practice program. My through line from the beginning was criticism. I wanted to write, I wanted to be critically engaged with practice and the canon and publish. I wasn’t studying exhibition design in a way that maybe I would now. So I kind of was like, this is what I wanna do and if nobody wants to, I don’t know. I’m really good at growing cucumbers. I would hope that I could encourage anybody who feels any sort of inspiration not to wait for this dire moment, you know? Otherwise though, to be honest, I was in front of David Zwirner and I didn’t have my next interview with a partner or director.It was David Zwirner and Ebony Haynes in a room. We talked amicably and professionally about me coming in as a director. I’d never met him before either, full disclosure. I was just riding a vibe. That sounds so unplanned, but sometimes you feel people are listening. Or you could really have a conversation with somebody and it’s reciprocal. And I just sort of said, I have this idea. It’s real, that’s what I said. I have this idea.Ajay Kurian: Wow.Ebony L. Haynes: And the things that you’ve done during COVID and rethinking models and how to offer different kinds of support. Here’s my idea.Ajay Kurian: This is almost like an out-of-body experience. You’re saying things that are very matter of fact and I want to give commentary to the matter of factness. Do I have consent to do that?Ebony L. Haynes: I will share as much as I feel comfortable living online.Ajay Kurian: I think there’s a lot of situations where people walk into a situation and you might have preconceived ideas. You might come in with frustrations, angers, structural inequities, that you’re like, this is my fucking moment to speak truth to power. I am trying to decide whether that’s the angel or the devil on your shoulder. Because I think what Ebony did in that moment is that she met the situation in full presence, staying completely present in that situation, to say the thing that was on her heart and just seeing where it lands.I think that’s when people pick up what you put down because there’s no animosity. It’s simply stated, these are the things that are happening. These are the things that are happening in the world. This is the thing that I want to do. And I think it could change things and it doesn’t put that other person on the defense to say, I need to defend myself in A, B, and C ways, which in so many other contexts, maybe he should. But that’s not the context in which you’re gonna get something done and it’s not the context in which you can grow something that you’ve grown. To me, seeing the zen of that moment, I think is really important and a great lesson because it’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to maintain your presentness in thought and mind and spirit when you’re confronted with somebody that represents a lot of things, more so than just them as the person. When a person gets seen in that way, their defenses go down and you might be able to accomplish something different, which you’ve clearly done.Ebony L. Haynes: That is too generous. I mean, it’s so heartwarming for me to hear. I’m not trying to dismiss what you said, but it really feels generous. So maybe that is how it is landed outside of my experience.Ajay Kurian: I’m just trying to see it because in my head it’s coming from an honest place. I’m not trying to gas you anything.Ebony L. Haynes: No, I believe you. That’s why I’m really taken aback by it. It makes me feel joy to hear.Ajay Kurian: And to flip it, I think it also means that you’re okay in those moments of pushing those other concerns away momentarily. Even if you’re not thinking of it as the long-term vision, even if that’s not the goal in your head. I’m doing this because I want this in this many years. There is a presentness of mine to say, I’m gonna get this done and this is how it can happen. Otherwise it doesn’t happen and I’m just gonna move on and I’ll do something else and I’ll live number seven. But there’s a lot of complications and a lot of interesting things that happen there. I think for people trying to navigate this incredibly treacherous terrain, it’s good to hear shit like this. Because you also have a program that’s not easy either, you know.Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah.Ajay Kurian: From Nikita Gill, who’s up on the screen right now. To Nora Turato, who is after that?Ebony L. Haynes: After Nora was Tiona McClodden. Then it was Tao, then it was Gordon Matta Clark and Pope.L.Ajay Kurian: That run of Nikita, Nora, and Tiona. Those are three shows about ruin, destruction, and failure. About the systems that have not served large swaths of the community, specifically people of color, specifically black people, and that these systems have failed and they’re fucked. They need to be torn down, burn, or they’re already in ruin. How do you find a way to talk to collectors that have benefited and continue to benefit from the maintenance of those systems?Ebony L. Haynes: Yikes. That is for a different talk, my friend. That is a deep talk. I’ll give you a little answer.Ajay Kurian: Give us PG-13.Ebony L. Haynes: PG-13 answer is…Ajay Kurian: Give us 2025 PG-13, which is like R from 1990.Ebony L. Haynes: In your in Ajay’s intro to me, you know, you mentioned eating shit, which is an analogy I personally use all the time. Because I had to early on find power in eating shit. I say early on as early as grad school, you know, I was the only black student in a cohort of 12. There were no black professors. I had to get two external black professors and I was the only one to do an extra semester. I mean, it just felt arduous and systemic in its bureaucracy. Realizing I could come out of that with something like foxy production and opportunity and then more opportunity. There’s always shit. As a non-white man, you have to eat and if you can work your muscle. No disrespect to the white men in the room, by the way. You know I have to say it because they’re near and dear to my heart.Ajay Kurian: I have plenty of white friends, but they can hear this.Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah, they can hear it. Because we’re talking about the general category, right? The general label. If you are not in that group and probably what feels more powerful to me than any space I open or program or show I curate: if you don’t feel like shit when you go home because of the amount of shit you’ve been given, you’re a fucking champ.For real, you’re a champ. And don’t think that you have lowered yourself to anyone’s expectations or lack of expectation. It’s like your petty funny bone. I’ll be like, okay, I see you, collector from eight years ago, who’s come in the gallery, who doesn’t remember what you said to me or how you spoke about me in French, because I’m fluent in French. And we were in Brussels and I had to storm out of the booth out of anger. I see you being respectful is fuel for me. It makes me feel a small amount of authority or power. Power doesn’t come from me in this space or these shows. These shows, for me, are only powerful because of my artists.Some of my staff, who are wonderful, they’ll be like, oh, I went to this bar and I was wearing my T-shirt — I gift them 52W merch every Christmas. And someone was like, oh, you work there? That’s so cool. And I was like, girl, nobody said that shit to you. You are totally clowning. She’s like no, they did. I was like, I was out at Art Basel and get introduced as Ebony of 52 Walker and get, oh, what’s that? I mean, there’s two sides of the coin. That happens to this day, and I don’t care. I embrace it all like that. That is power and it’s just part of the journey of the space. Power is that I’m still here. I am smiling. Shit tastes like cheesecake. I’m telling you, this is the one lesson you should all take away. Nobody can feed you shit unless you feel like it’s shit.You take it, you bring it home. Don’t get depressed ‘cause depression is our crypt like fuck depression. You are just as powerful as anyone else. And if you could just wait 10 to 15 years, you will show them that it tastes like cheesecake. Just give it time. Be kind to yourself. The world was not kind to me. The art world was not kind but I didn’t care.Ajay Kurian: That’s the part that’s so fascinating to me. That you didn’t care.Ebony L. Haynes: I think I’m just too stupid to have acknowledged it, to be honest.Ajay Kurian: If everybody believes that you’re too stupid, that’s not stupid.Ebony L. Haynes: Not stupid but oblivious.Ajay Kurian: Is this ‘cause you’re Canadian?Ebony L. Haynes: Maybe. You know, I won’t listen to this again, not because it’s not wonderful. I have a podcast and I’ve never re-listened to an episode. I don’t reread interviews that I give. It’s sort of like fight or flight always. I let it go and there it goes. You could hate it. You could love it. Both reactions are great. I’m already thinking about September 2027.Ajay Kurian: Exactly.Ebony L. Haynes: It’s all okay. I love criticism of what I do. And accolade, it’s all fine. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Canadian. It’s because I didn’t study art history, that’s why.Ajay Kurian: So I’m gonna end with what the future holds. Because I think in a way, even if you say you’re only planning a couple steps ahead, it somehow seems bigger than that. And you’ve just been appointed as…Ebony L. Haynes: It’s a word. Full is a mouthful.Ajay Kurian: Yeah, global… Oh, you’re gonna make me try to say it.Ebony L. Haynes: GHCP. It’s Global Head of Curatorial Programs.Ajay Kurian: What does that look like? Do you have a sense of what that looks like?Ebony L. Haynes: Yeah, I feel very present and purposeful in what I’ve achieved, but I do have to acknowledge the forces around me. Like Foxy production, like Lucy Mitchell-Innes who taught me all about secondary market, took me to my first auction, allowed me to work with Pope.L. Like Jose Martos, who trusted me. I feel really fortunate to have people in my life who I’ve worked for and with, where I’ve never felt stepped on. My current job is no different. You know, I felt the ability to pitch something to David Zwirner the first time and I felt supported in ideating this new potential of what the role could be.Ajay Kurian: So this is something again that you brought to them.Ebony L. Haynes: To full disclosure, it was definitely co cooked. I think without knowing we were cooking something, it just started, it just felt like I needed a change and I wasn’t sure why or what. David was trying to suggest a change and it was a long time. This wasn’t like one week. I feel lucky to have support and dissonance.You know, if you have somebody who tells you you’re the shit all the time, don’t, it’s your demise. Somebody who questions my intent, my proposal or my show, or makes me try to fight for something and I make them fight for their opinion too. It’s been really generous in my experience. I feel really lucky.Ajay Kurian: Especially when it comes from a place of care. No one’s trying to fuck you.Ebony L. Haynes: And it’s care on both sides really. I wanna figure out what growth means for me and the program. I’m not sure if growth means being in the same space for another five years if I’m being totally honest. And that’s kind of exciting as somebody who loves exhibition design and curating. We have to keep moving. We have to figure out what it means to challenge like an artist. I do think curatorial practice is truly a practice for me. I need to practice a bit more. What does it mean to do a show in Hong Kong? I don’t know, but I could know soon. That’s new, you know. I don’t know what it will bring really, but I’m excited for a new muscle.Ajay Kurian: I think even in the moments when you were like, I don’t know how to answer that, the way that you go about it, I think is so revealing about the state of mind that it took to keep doing these things and how you’re gonna keep doing even more. I’m excited to see it.Ebony L. Haynes: I love you and I wasn’t gonna say this, but Ajay had a show that was as inspiring for me, which I’ve mentioned also in interviews but he didn’t reference. His show at 47 Canal in 2013. I was like, who is this artist who’s making these motherfuckers build walls and put tanks inside with new wiring? I went there six times, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you live here and there’s lots of shows, it’s a lot.Ajay Kurian: That’s a lot. That’s more than I saw my show.Ebony L. Haynes: It was so good. I mean, talking about pushing things, stretching yourself, and what you’re comfortable with.Ajay Kurian: I really appreciate that. Thank you.Ebony L. Haynes: Remember that show. Top 10 New York shows. It’s true. He didn’t pay me to say it.Ajay Kurian: Yeah, I’m gonna, that’s the end of this.Ebony L. Haynes: It’s in print. It was interviewed.Ajay Kurian: No, thank you. Everybody, a round of applause for Ebony Haynes.Ebony L. Haynes: Thank you. Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe
