Sasha Freeman grew up around Black artists. “My mother was a painter in DC, my father was a trumpet player,” Freeman tells me over tea in her Bed-Stuy brownstone. She’s lived in New York for almost 20 years and is the newly appointed curator of the Museum for Black Art, opening this fall in Fort Greene.
“I used to feel like Eve Babitz,” she laughs, explaining her family’s extravagant parties during her childhood. “Miles Davis came by once, and so did Betye Saar.” Amina Baraka is her godmother. Her first boyfriend was Stephen Ellison, or Flying Lotus. “I thought everywhere I went there would be a space for Black artists. Where we were free and honored each other and celebrated our history. My father would quiz us on jazz musicians all the time. I used to hate it then, but I can tell you a lot about Charlie Parker.” she laughs. I never thought it would be popular, of course, but I thought there’d be more for us.
Freeman attended Howard University in DC for her undergraduate degree, where she brought young artists into the fold of her family’s artistic haven. She met her husband, Dale, there her sophomore year. He practiced trumpet with her father. It wasn’t until she attended Parsons for her MFA did she realize the rarity of her family’s life. “It was surreal to me, to be around so many artists and none of them knew Alma Thomas or Jacob Lawrence, or maybe they knew about John Coltrane but they wanted to school me on it, like I didn’t have dinner with Alice a few times. I went through a pretty bad depression that year, knowing there weren't a lot of spaces for Black artists in the world.”
Freeman, a painter, herself, became entrenched in art advocacy and education in the 2000s. “After the recession, I learned some schools were cutting art programs. I got involved in some after school programs for kids, taught in the CUNY system for a bit, and eventually found my way to the Studio Museum where I worked as an assistant curator for several years.”
Freeman founded the Young Artist’s Salon in collaboration with the museum, a membership club for Black artists to study and discuss Black art. The group held parties, filed trips, and hosted panels. YAS hosted notable artists like Malcolm Peacock, Jewel Ham, and Monica Hernandez amongst others. “That was probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever made.” The group moved online during the pandemic and Freeman passed the reins to her close friend and collaborator Natasha L. Logan. Freeman returned to painting.
“I needed to process all that had happened in the last ten years. My father passed away suddenly, and my mother's mental health collapsed. My brother moved in with my mom and I was traveling to see her every week. I needed a space to process,” During her time away from the art world, America’s politics took a sharp turn right. Progress Freeman assumed would continue seemed to halt.
As her mother’s health improved, she knew she needed to get back to the art world. And then she got a phone call. An old friend of her father’s, an art collector from Ghana, was looking to open a new space to house his collection and needed a curator to bring it together. Freeman leapt at the opportunity.
“It was sort of a nightmare at first,” Freeman recalls the early days of the museum. “We didn’t know if it should be a gallery or a museum, a community center, or what. Oh and half of the collection was overseas in Ghana. We needed to get all of it to New York without losing or damaging anything. My husband and daughter had a blast in Ghana, meanwhile I was a nervous wreck.” Freeman smiles over her tea, we’ve moved into her living room, filled with artifacts and a portrait mounted to the ceiling.
“I thought about my father over there a lot. I knew I was lucky to grow up in a house like the one he gave us, but I may have taken for granted how much work goes into making a welcoming space for Black artists. It sort of took me back to my college days, there is still a lot of anger in me, you know? It shouldn’t have to be this hard. I guess that’s why I do the work I do now, so it isn’t as hard for the next generation, for my daughter who is an excellent photographer,”
Freeman then shows me around her apartment, that portrait on the ceiling? An original Thomas Blackshear gifted to her by the artist. An Entire wall of the living room is dedicated to records and CDs, of which there are hundreds, spilling out of the shelves. Another bookshelf is entirely dedicated to Toni Morrison novels. An Alma Thomas hangs in the foyer. Sam Gilliam in the hallway, Titus Kaphar in the dining room. Freeman’s mother lives on the ground floor, where it’s easier for her to get around. Her mother’s artwork is especially pronounced in the kitchen. I can hear, upstairs, what sounds like three or four musicians practicing some jazz ballad. However difficult, it seems Freeman has managed to make her own home into the haven she grew up with.
On opening night of the Museum for Black Art, Freeman is awash in praise. Up and coming painters surround her, and the Museum is packed. Wine flows freely in tiny cups and I have a quick conversation with Naudline Pierre before she, too, is whisked away. Her curatorial voice is strong. A quiet power emanates from both her and the works of the artists. At the entrance to the museum, the first thing patrons see before entering its grand halls, hangs a portrait of Mr. Freeman. The artist? His daughter, Sasha.
Remember My Name How I Said It is on view now through February 1st, 2027 at the Museum of Black Art.
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