Asmaa Walton’s Black Art Library Visits Milwaukee

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Asmaa Walton

Asmaa Walton

When I walked into the Lynden Sculpture Garden Gallery in River Hills, Asmaa Walton came up to me, hand extended under a broad smile. I found her instantly charming. Wrapped in a white sweatshirt, Walton is a small woman with a big brain and a personality twice her size. Like many artistic personalities, she talks in tangents, but the tangents are often interesting. Kind of like driving a roundabout and skipping your turn because you are distracted by something compelling.

A Detroit native, Walton had come to Milwaukee to display a portion of her Black Art Library that includes over 900 books. “The Black Art Library is a collection of books and other art history ephemera on Black visual art,” she said. “It acts as an educational resource to share within the Black community and beyond. The library’s mission is to expand the knowledge of Black art from the past and the present through art books.” 

We settled into a conference table, the gallery walls lined with over 100 Black Art Library books displayed on holder shelves, the covers facing out and upright. In entirety, the Black Art Library exhibit is like being surrounded by a single large work of art, ala Claude Monet’s famous Water Lilies mural in the oval panorama.

As Walton talked, now and then, I slipped in a question.

I understand you are a native of Detroit. Tell me about your neighborhood, your parents, schools you went to and also about your education beyond high school.

Our family lived in a loft above a pizza place in the downtown Detroit area. It was close to the small elementary school I attended. I went to Cass Tech High School, enrollment of over 2,000 students. I really enjoyed my school experience. My mom worked at the Detroit Institute of Art, but I wasn’t much interested in art. I preferred Dance. My major in high school was Human Services. 

Where did you end up going to college?

I wanted to be a chef and went to culinary school at Robert Morris University in downtown Chicago. I hated it because of all the rigid details, the exacting measurements. I came back to Detroit and enrolled at Michigan State in East Lansing. I ended up majoring in Art Education in the Art Department. My mom is a fashion designer. I enjoyed art education. I took classes in painting, photography, sculpture, art history, and ceramics. I focused on ceramics, and I ended up with a bachelor’s degree in art education.

I believe you earned your master’s degree at New York University, right?

I did, and I received a one-year full ride scholarship. My master’s is in art policy & art politics. After nine months in New York, I moved back to Detroit. Then, I went to work as an intern at the Toledo Museum of Art.

In 2018, you were appointed the Toledo Museum of Art’s 

first KeyBank Fellow in Diversity Leadership. This led you to opportunities for diversity and equity programming across cultural institutions. What was that work like?

When I was appointed as the KeyBank Fellow, the goal of the fellowship was to train a fellow for leaderships positions. But I created my own fellowship by helping people in the education department. I worked with 15 Black students at the Toledo School of the Arts. I had the idea of having the students study the museum’s artworks by Black artists, but there weren’t many on display. I asked the museum to display more Black art, and the curator wasn’t happy with me, but eventually they put up some works on paper by Elizabeth Catlett. This experience opened my eyes on teaching people about Black art.

In February 2020, you established the Black Art Library—a collection of publications, exhibition catalogues and theoretical texts about Black art and visual culture. Why did you create the Black Art Library, and how did you go about finding the 900 publications that now make up the library?

Through all my years of education, I did not feel I was exposed enough to Black art. I wanted to make it easier for other people to learn about Black art. I thought art books would be a good way to teach people about Black art. A good art book is like an art exhibition within a book. Art books are always printed beautifully. Publishers spend a lot of money producing them. I tell people if you cannot attend an exhibit, then buy a book on art. You can look at art on your computer screen, but it is not that same experience as seeing art in a book where the colors are vibrant. Books are like mini works of art. 

How did you accumulate the books?  Donations? Gifts? From your own collection?

I started the Black Art Library from my personal collection or gift books I received. I bought more books with my own money, mostly used books, especially my children’s books.

As your book collection increased, were you getting donations from various sources? 

In the spring of 2020, I was at the St Louis Art Museum on a fellowship, but that was during the pandemic, and the museum shut down. One of my Instagram followers asked if I accepted book donations. People started sending me books. Someone from New York sent me art books including first editions from the Studio Museum in Harlem. I am finding that people are willing to let go of their books if their collections are going somewhere worthwhile.

When did you come up with the idea that the Black Art Library could be an exhibition? I believe your goal was for the collection to become a public archive in a permanent space in Detroit. How did that work out?

When I moved back to Detroit from St Louis in August of 2020, the Black artist, Tony Rave, told me he had a house he hoped to turn into an artist space. We thought we could do a popup exhibit of my books in this space. We did the exhibit for one weekend, and that gave me the idea of a traveling exhibit. One of my mentors introduced me to Jova Lynne, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. I ended up with a beautifully creative exhibit of 300 books at the museum in February2021, and it ran for a couple months.

The Black Art Library subsequently served as a traveling exhibition to different communities including Spaces in Cleveland, and later in San Antonio, Houston, London, and now Milwaukee. What cities will be next?

I am working on opening a permanent Black Art Library space in Detroit, but I will be doing traveling exhibitions in the future. 

You are making a special effort to support Black-owned bookstores. How is that working out?

There is an online store called Bookshop.org, which kind of brokers for independent bookstores and book collectors across the country. Bookshop.org works to connect readers with these independent booksellers, and you can buy directly from the sellers. This led me to collaborate with the Black-owned Salt Eaters Bookshop in Los Angeles. They had me curate a list of books to place on their website. In Detroit, I’ve worked with Source Booksellers who create little libraries for children. I curated the list of children’s books, and we showed the books at a Detroit elementary school. Since I’ve been in Milwaukee, schools have brought children to the Lynden Sculpture Garden on field trips. It’s great talking with children about books. 

How do you see the Black art world changing in the future?

In 2020, Black art got kind of popular because after George Floyd, people were supporting Black artists, but that interest has been slacking off. So I don’t know what Black art will look like in ten years.

On Instagram, you call yourself “Head Librarian in Charge.” What does that mean?

Technically, I don’t have a degree in library science, but librarians tell me I am doing the work of librarians. I am getting a graduate certificate in archival administration. I’ve had to figure out a system for cataloging and storing my Black art library. So I guess I can be the head librarian-in-charge.   

The Black Art Library will be in residence in the Lynden Sculpture Garden gallery through February 28, 2025. Free Admission. For more information visit lyndensculpturegarden.org/exhibitions/asmaa-walton-and-black-art-library.