SoVA Anderson Lecturer

Jefferson Pinder

Headshot of SoVA Anderson Lecturer 26-27 Jefferson Pinder

Anderson Lecture – October 20

Jefferson Pinder’s work provokes commentary about race and struggle. Focusing primarily on neon, found objects, and video, Pinder investigates identity through the most dynamic circumstances and materials. From uncanny video portraits associated with popular music to durational work that puts the Black body in motion, his work examines physical conditioning that reveals an emotional response. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows, including exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem; the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut; Showroom Mama in Rotterdam, Netherlands; and The Phillips Collection and National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Pinder’s work was featured in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale and at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. He was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship Award in the field of performance in 2016 and a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017. In 2022, Pinder was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow and a MacDowell Fellow. Most recently he was awarded the 2025–26 Rome Prize Fellowship, during which he created performances about Nigerian migrant street sweeping in Italy.

Two people carrying large handmade brooms while walking through an outdoor urban space with graffiti-covered walls and stairways.
Three people standing beside electric bicycles in a studio space, with a mirrored wall and artwork visible in the background.
Person riding an electric bicycle across a studio floor, with reflections visible in a large wall mirror.
Video projection showing a person in a boxing stance, displayed on a gallery wall with a mirrored reflection of the projected image.
Black-and-white portrait of a person wearing glasses and a suit jacket, with a bundle of arrows carried over one shoulder.

Artist's Statement

Navigating media, Pinder creates interventions, videos, and objects that transport audiences to a speculative space where history and truth is negotiated.

The body becomes a vessel for excavating the brutality and enduring traumas of the past, through performances, historic reenactments, and stylized music videos. Conjuring with neon, rust, and glitter, Pinder harnesses the latent power in everyday objects to unearth unspoken truths about a racialized past.

Pinder is connected to a fierce American tradition of art-making and education, emerging from a lineage rooted in his mentor David C. Driskell and James Porter before him.