RAY GRIST

Click to enlarge  AVAILABLE WORKS

Ray Grist has served as Editor of The Weekly Reader, the newsletter of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Developments, Inc., (ANHD) a membership Association, and The ANHD Reader, ANHD INC.. In this position Ray has facilitated the production of special publications including the New York City Election 2001 preview, WHERE THEY STAND.

Along with Edson "Cafe" Da Silva, Grist collaborated in the production of the video/movie, Ancestors. The video is an exploration of the music of the trio of Brazilian musicians, Folia de Reis.

Grist has also been Editor in Chief, Publisher and Art Director of, JUMP - A Forum for New World Culture. Grist was responsible for the overall design and formatting of this publication. The television magazine program JUMP TV was an outgrowth of this magazine. This video program presented contemporary artists, painters, printmakers, poets, musicians, photographers, and examples of their works. Events and exhibitions which are concerned with contemporary cultural issues were explored. JUMP and JUMP TV offered descriptions of the contemporary New World reality, in the words of those who are actively committed to this cultural development. JUMP TV was broadcast, on a regular basis, via Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), and Brooklyn Community Access Television, (BCAT). This TV program was wholly produced and created by Mr. Grist.

Ray served as Project Director/Editor, for the publication of the book, Roosevelt Island: An American Idyll. In his Introduction, he gives a lively and definitive description of Roosevelt Island, NY, its past, present and future. This dynamic, model New York community is presented as a unique international enclave which offers vital examples of productive urban living. This project was funded by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York.

He was Director, Writer Narrator and Producer for the video program, The Moors - An Introduction to the Liberian Empire of the Moors, -1492 AD, a co production with Grist and the Board of Education, New York City. This 1992 production represents an overview of the 800-year reign of the Moorish empire in southern Europe.

During 1980, he initiated the Department of the Arts, Malcolm/King Harlem College Extension, New York, and was Chairperson. His responsibilities included fund raising, curriculum planning and teaching a course in basic drawing. Grist has also taught painting, drawing, printmaking and teaching a course in basic drawing. Grist has also taught painting, drawing, printmaking (intaglio etching, block printing) at BOCES of Southern Westchester, New Mews, NY, Grant Day Care Center, NY, Artist in the School, NYC Board of Education, Thompson Rehabilitation Center, NY, East Harlem Protestant Parish, NY. He has given a lecture series, A Concise History of Modern Art, and The Art of Africa, at the UN International School, NY. Grist has conducted various workshops including What is Art, Pratt Institute, NY.

Mr. Grist produced In Their Own Voices: The east River Houses Research Project. This video presentation documents the significant and unique experience - the East River Houses - during the early years of public housing (1940-1955), in New York City. As a multiracial, multi-cultural amalgamation, East River Houses was historically important in the development of public housing throughout the United States. In Their Own Voices, was funded by the New York Council for the Humanities, The Fund for the City of New York, The New York City Housing Authority, and the New York Community Trust.

Grist's art work is in The Burgess Fine Arts Collection and many collections and cultural institutions worldwide.

Selected Exhibitions

2002 Ray Grist: Bring On The Paint
2000 The Broom Street Gallery, NY
1999 Ray Grist: paintings from the 90's
1989 The Broom Street Gallery, NY
  Kavehaz, NY
1974 The Cellar Gallery, NY
  Ray Grist: Passages (1974-1984)
1970 The Studio Museum in Harlem
  Metropolitan Applied Research Center, NY
  Alaska State Museum, Juneau, Alaska
  The Cinque Gallery, NY

Group Exhibitions

2003 On Common Ground - Millennium Arts, Washington, DC
2001 Atmosphere Gallery, New York
1999 With All Deliberate Speed- Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ
1994 25th Anniversary Exhibition - The Studio Museum in Harlem
1993 25 Years of African-American art - The Studio Museum in Harlem/Paine Weber Art Gallery, NY
  Cadavre Exquise, The Drawing Center, NY
1992 American House- Munich, Germany; Moria Fine Arts Gallery, - Lisbon, Portugal
1991 The Search for Freedom: African American Abstract Painting, 1945-1975, nkelaba Gallery, NY
1988 The Lyman Allan Museum, New Milford, CT
  Snakebones - Gallery 21, NY Art Expo
1985 The Zucker Gallery - NY Art Expo
  Recent acquisitions and Notables from the Permanent Collection; The Fine Art of Collecting - The Studio Museum in Harlem
  14th Annual Black Art Exhibition - Great Neck Public Library, NY
1984 The Cellar Gallery, NY
  The Rockefeller Collection, NY
  Salute to Bob Blackburn - The Schomburg Collection, NY
1983 New American Art - The Festival Group/Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp., NY
1982 An Exhibition of The Artists - Just Above Midtown/Downtown, NY
1980 Impressions/Expressions: 200 Years of Black American Printmakers, The Studio Museum in Harlem, traveling exhibition
1978 The Randall Gallery, NY
1974 Tim Blackburn Gallery, NY
1973 Gallery Chemould, Bombay, India
1970 Restoration House/Genesis II Gallery, NY
1969 African Ameican Extensions/Impact Africa- Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
1967 First Painter's Weeks, International Symposium- Eisenstadt, Austria
  New School for Social Research, New York