In March 1969, at the inaugural Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem, artist, activist, and educator Betty Blayton-Taylor watched as children painted at easels and threaded found objects into hanging sculptures. The event, held in a garage provided by the Harlem School of the Arts, brought artists together to lead workshops for local kids. “Children can just as well use their energy to be creative as destructive,” Blayton-Taylor told the New York Times in a 1969 interview. “They’re having fun and that’s what we want.”
Nearly 60 years later, the legacy Blayton-Taylor built as the carnival’s co-founder and executive director is the subject of an exhibition at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery. Organized by independent curator Souleo, Children’s Art Carnival in Harlem: The Making of Contemporary Artists also serves as the fourth edition of the Uptown Triennial, which highlights artists from Harlem, El Barrio, Washington Heights, and other Upper Manhattan neighborhoods.
The idea for an exhibition centered on the carnival was first proposed to Souleo in 2023 by Blayton-Taylor’s brother, Oscar Blayton. “Betty [Blayton-Taylor] always wanted the art educators and the art students that did well to get recognition,” Blayton said to Hyperallergic.
Souleo said he already knew Blayton-Taylor’s work and had curated a show of her art in 2017, but his understanding of the carnival deepened significantly while researching the project and speaking with artists for the current exhibition. Along with presenting the carnival’s history, he aimed to emphasize its influence on generations of artists who took part as instructors, students, or staff.
The exhibition is built around the belief that art can help cultivate a child’s creativity, while the teaching artist can also gain something by engaging with that imagination. Speaking on opening night, Donna M. Jones, co-chair of the carnival’s board of trustees, said that children who attended were “met with love, they were provided with snacks, and they were told that ‘you matter.’”
