MassArt Welcomes Back Acclaimed Artist Steve Locke in Conversation with MASS MoCA Curator Evan Garza
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Monograph Launch and Conversation Celebrating Three Decades of the Artist’s Career
BOSTON – Massachusetts College of Art and Design welcomes back acclaimed artist, MassArt alumnus, and former faculty member Steve Locke BFA ‘97, MFA ‘01, H’22 to celebrate the launch of his first career monograph Steve Locke: I Said What I Said (MASS MoCA/DelMonico Books), edited with text by MASS MoCA curator Evan Garza, who curated Locke’s exhibition Steve Locke: the fire next time at MASS MoCA (Aug. 2024–Nov. 2025).
Locke and Garza will appear on Friday, March 20, 2026 at 6pm at MassArt’s Tower Auditorium at 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, for a conversation about the new book, followed by a book signing in the adjacent West Tower Lobby Gallery. The event will be free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase immediately following the conversation.
Steve Locke, 2025. Photo: Taylor Miller
Steve Locke, “signs 1–6,” 2024. Mixed media, painted on verso. 48 × 96 × 20 in. (121.9 x 243.8 x 50.8 cm) each. Photos: Jon Verney. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York © 2025 Steve Locke / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Steve Locke: I Said What I Said explores three decades of Locke’s career and grew out of his recent exhibition, Steve Locke: the fire next time at MASS MoCA (Aug 2024–Nov 2025), selected among the Top Ten in Artforum’s Best of 2024. The two will discuss Locke’s bodies of work featured in the monograph and the artist’s career-long conceptual exploration of portraiture, perceptions of the male figure, and themes of modernism and racial violence.
Through painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, and public art, Locke brings to light our dark past and present, looking closely at America’s history of racial violence and spectacle. In his interdisciplinary practice, Locke engages issues of identity, desire, race, violence, and memory, revealing as much tenderness and humor as he does brutality. Primarily concerned with how we ascribe meaning to portraiture while exploring the relationships between and among men, in recent years, Locke has introduced a more personal, political, and critical engagement with histories of racism and anti-Blackness, the Western canon of art history, and American society.
Steve Locke, “the harbinger,” 2022. Oil on canvas. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © 2025 Steve Locke / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Steve Locke, “Homage to the Auction Block #127b-a warning,” 2022. Acrylic on panel. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © 2025 Steve Locke / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Steve Locke, “come by night,” 2022. Mixed media. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. © 2025 Steve Locke / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
MassArt welcomes back acclaimed artist, MassArt alumnus, and former faculty member Steve Locke to celebrate the launch of his first career monograph Steve Locke: I Said What I Said, with a conversation with MASS MoCA curator Evan Garza, followed by a book signing with the artist. Guests will also have the opportunity to experience NORMAL, a site-specific installation by Steve Locke that is presented on the facade of the College’s South Building. This piece was created for the 150th Anniversary of MassArt in 2023, to honor the history and legacy of the college as a “normal school” dedicated to educating teachers.
Join us for this free event, open to the public, on Friday, March 20 at 6pm at the MassArt Tower Auditorium, 621 Huntington Ave. Reserve your free tickets today.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Steve Locke (b.1963, Cleveland, OH) lives and works in the Hudson Valley and New York City. He earned his MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where he taught for more than 20 years. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from MassArt in 2022. Locke has been the subject of solo exhibitions at MASS MoCA (2024); Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech (2022); The Gallatin Galleries, New York University (2019); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2018); Boston Public Library (2018); Bard College at Simon’s Rock (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2014); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2013).
Evan Garza is a writer, Fulbrighter, and curator at MASS MoCA. Previously, Garza was one of six fellows in the museum’s Curatorial Exchange Initiative (CEI) program, for which they curated the exhibition Steve Locke: the fire next time (2024). Before arriving at MASS MoCA, Garza was a Fulbright Scholar at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), was Artistic Director of the 2021 Texas Biennial, and served on the Boston Art Commission. Garza edited the forthcoming career monograph, Steve Locke: I Said What I Said, co-published by DelMonico Books and MASS MoCA (March 17, 2026). Garza earned their M.A. from the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art at the Clark Art Institute.
EVENT DETAILS
WHAT: I Said What I Said: Steve Locke and Evan Garza in Conversation, followed by book signing by the artist
WHEN: Friday, March 20 at 6pm
WHERE: MassArt Tower Auditorium, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston MA
TICKETS: Free and open to the public. RSVP via Eventbrite.
MEDIA CONTACT
Temple Gill, Interim Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
tgill@massart.edu
617-879-7068
ABOUT MASSART
The only independent public college of art and design in the country, Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) was founded in 1873 in response to a bold idea: art and design are essential to our daily lives, and key to improving our society and economy. What began as a school to teach drawing is today a bold, comprehensive art and design institution that spans 18 undergraduate and nine graduate programs, certificates, continuing education, and post-baccalaureate study.
