June 26–September 13, 2026
Gallery Hours*
Wed-: Sun: noon – 6 pm
Wallach Art Gallery
Columbia University, Lenfest Center for the Arts
615 West 129 Street (west of Broadway) wallach.columbia.edu
Curated by Souleo (Independent Curator)
For the fourth iteration of its Uptown Triennial series, Wallach Art Gallery presents Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem: The Making of Contemporary Artists, an exhibition examining how a community art center emphasized creative freedom, experimentation, and communal bonds through the work of its affiliated artists. The curriculum would vary, morph, and evolve over the more-than-five-decades since its founding, grounded in the belief that working artists can be creative, art can build confidence and a strong sense of identity, and that community can bind people together through pedagogy and care. Often working between figuration and abstraction, the featured Carnival artists employ a wide spectrum of artistic practices such as painting, printmaking, and photography; legacy techniques such as quiltmaking and ceramics; as well as the incorporation of found objects, assemblage, and wearable art.
Learn more: Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem: The Making of Contemporary Artists
Related Events
Everybody Has Something to Say: Perspectives on the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem
MoMA, Mezzanine, Theater 3: The Celeste Bartos Theater. 4 W 54th Street, New York NY, 10019
Press Coverage
Exhibit looks back on Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem
How the Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem Nurtured Generations
Nearly six decades since its founding, the legacy of the beloved program is explored in an exhibition at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery.
Hyperallergic by Jerry Elengical, July 13, 2026