Yaniya Lee is the author of Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art (2024, figure ground/Art Metropole) and Buseje Bailey: Reasons Why We Have to Disappear Every Once in a While, A Black Art History Project (2024, Artexte).
She has published in journals and magazines including Racar: Canadian Art Review, C Magazine, Flash Art, Montez Press, and Asia Art Archive. In 2020 she co-edited a special issue of Canadian Art magazine on black artists and black art histories.
︎ yaniya@yahoo.com
2025
“We Don’t Need Images What It Feels Like Is Good Enough,” catalogue essay for 2025 MOMENTA Biennale d’art contemporain: In Praise of the Missing Image, Montreal, 10 September (forthcoming)
“Three of Dawoud Bey’s Favorite Artworks” for Solo Show in The New York Times Style Magazine
“The Historical Entanglements of Hemel,” exhibition text to accompany Danielle Dean’s film Hemel, presented at Spike Island, Bristol (8 February - 11 May, 2025) and Mercer Union Gallery, Toronto (13 April - 15 June, 2024)
“Some Other Shore,” exhibition text to accompany Racquel Rowe’s exhibition The Centre of the World Was the Beach exhibition at Forest City Gallery, London (11 Jaunuary- March 8)
2024
“Sugar – fragments of a narrative,” text to accompany Burnt Sugar, a group exhibition at Critical Distance Centre for Curators (27 September - 16 November)
“Flood the World — Alvin Ailey,” and interview with curator Adrienne Edwards in JustSmile Magazine Issue 5
“Lyrical Theorising,” a profile of Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun author Jackie Wang in Like a Fever for Asia Art Archive
“Methylene Blue,” text to accompany “New Paintings,” exhibition by Systems Research Group and Romain Löser at Guts Annexe, Berlin
“A Modern, Tragic Portrait of the Sea,” interview with Wardell Milan for On View in The New York Times Style Magazine
“What Does the Land Know?” curated video programme at Videographe, Montreal
Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art, a collection of essay published by Art Metropole and figure ground
Buseje Bailey: Reasons Why We Have to Disappear Every Once in a While, A Black Art History Project, published by Artexte
“The Black Artist,” reading at Bobshop, Berlin
Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art
LAUNCHES
MONTREAL | TORONTO | VANCOUVER
Selected Writing on Black Canadian Art is a collection of essays, reviews, and interviews published by Yaniya Lee between 2017-2021. It brings together the testimonies and achievements of African diasporic artists and curators from across Canada and beyond.
Foreword by Nasrin Himada, published by figure ground, graphic design by House9, distributed by Art Metropole, 209 p., 25$
Yaniya Lee is the author of Buseje Bailey: Reasons Why We Have to Disappear Every Once in a While, A Black Art History Project (2024). Her writing and research track Black creative practice and narratives of liberation across the nation. She has written about art for museums and galleries across Canada, as well as for Canadian Art, C Magazine, Flash Art, and British Vogue.
MONTREAL
Eli Kerr Gallery, 4647 St Laurent Blvd.
Thursday, August 29, 2024, 5pm-8pm
Thursday, August 29, 2024, 5pm-8pm
TORONTO
-joint launch with Katherine McKittrick, Twenty Dreams Art Metropole, 896 College StreetFriday, August 30, 2024, 5pm-8pm
VANCOUVER
-conversation with Nya Lewis and Elliot RamseyThe Polygon, 101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver
Thursday, September 5, 2024
