Melvin Edwards, David Max Horowitz, & Fred Moten in Conversation

Pace Live

Melvin Edwards, Fred Moten & David Max Horowitz in Conversation

Moderated by Oliver Shultz

Wednesday, Mar 18, 2026
6 – 7 PM
510 West 25th Street
New York

EVENT DETAILS

Wednesday, Mar 18, 2026
6 – 7 PM
Doors: 5:30 PM
510 West 25th Street
New York

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Pace Live is pleased to present a conversation between Fred Moten, Melvin Edwards, and David Max Horowitz on the occasion of Sam Gilliam: STITCHED, on view at Pace’s 510 West 25th Street gallery in New York through April 25.

Moten, one of the foremost thinkers of our time, wrote eloquently on Gilliam’s late works in the catalogue for Existed Existing (2022), the artist’s last exhibition with Pace during his lifetime. Edwards was both an artistic counterpart and a friend of Gilliam’s from the late 1960s onward. The two artists have often exhibited together, including at Pace in 2023. Moten and Edwards will be joined by Horowitz, who specializes in histories of postwar abstraction at the Guggenheim. Together, they will discuss the power and poetry of Gilliam’s radical and innovative approach to painting over 60 years.

The conversation will take place inside the exhibition Sam Gilliam: STITCHED, which brings together dynamic fabric works from the 1990s that have never before been exhibited in the United States. The talk will explore how these works defy categorization as either painting or sculpture, while suggesting a “missing link” between Gilliam’s radical innovations of the 1960s and his late practice.

The conversation between Moten, Edwards, and Horowitz will be moderated by Pace’s Chief Curator, Oliver Shultz.

Melvin Edwards

Melvin Edwards is a pioneer in the history of contemporary African American art and sculpture. Born in Houston, Texas, he began his artistic career at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA, where he met and was mentored by the Hungarian painter Francis de Erdely. In 1965, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA organized his first solo exhibition, which launched his professional career. Edwards moved to New York City in 1967. Shortly after his arrival, his work was exhibited at The Studio Museum in Harlem and in 1970, he became the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Fred Moten

Fred Moten teaches performance studies at New York University. He has written several books of poetry and criticism, the latest of which are consent not to be a single being (Duke University Press, 2017, 2018) and Perennial Fashion Presence Falling (Wave Books, 2023). He and Stefano Harney are co-authors of three books, including most recently All Incomplete (Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2021). He also frequently accompanies bassist/composer Brandon López. Their last album is Revision (Tao Forms Records, 2025). Moten works on all of this with his comrade, scholar Laura Harris, and their children, Julian and Lorenzo.

David Max Horowitz

David Max Horowitz joined the curatorial staff at the Guggenheim in 2015 and specializes in postwar art and the histories and legacies of abstraction. He was the curator of Jean Dubuffet: Ardent Celebration (Guggenheim Bilbao, 2022) and Marking Time: Process in Minimal Abstraction (2019–21), as well as the cocurator of R. H. Quaytman + ×, Chapter 34 (2018–19). He served on the curatorial teams for Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (2018–19), Guggenheim Collection: Brancusi (2017–21), Agnes Martin (2016–17), and Guggenheim Collection: Early Modernism (2016–17).

Horowitz’s writing has been featured in the catalogues Kandinsky’s Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century (2025), Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930 (2024), Hilma af Klint (2024), Alex Katz: Gathering (2022), Joan Mitchell (2021), and Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (2018), as well as in the revised edition of Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z (2019). He works closely on the stewardship of the collection and is one of the organizing curators for the Young Collectors Council. He holds a BA in English language and literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an interdisciplinary MLA from Johns Hopkins University.