Raél Jero SALLEY is Faculty in the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Founding Creative Director of The Space for Creative Black Imagination, Inc., Executive Producer of Making Art History Now (a collaboration between Yale University and La Biennale di Venezia), and Curator of Looking Rights (Johns Hopkins University, supported by the Mellon Foundation).
An internationally recognized advisor, creative, and scholar, Salley makes conceptual art, teaches martial arts, leads yoga sessions, feeds a spirit called Biko, waters Gloria’s plants, and is Mazie’s grandson.
-
Visual art practice
-
The Space for Creative Black Imagination, Inc.
-
Recent publication: The Visual Dynamics of Art, Black Care, & Ethics in South African Art (2025).
Salley is a contributing editor to The Postcolonialist journal, and their writing has appeared in The Queer Africa Reader; Kerry James Marshall: Who's Afraid of Red, Black, and Green; Third Text Journal; Social Dynamics Journal; African Arts Journal, and other scholarly outlets.
Salley executive produced ‘the names we give' public forum (2011), the ‘Exuberance Project’ (2012), and ‘Africana Art, Culture, Theory, and Society’ (2015), a social justice research initiative, and is the Founding Creative Director of The Space for Creative Black Imagination, Inc., a making and doing community for arts, education, & social justice.
In South Africa, Salley’s artworks are represented by Gallery MOMO (Johannesburg).
Click on the images below to play the videos.
Maryland Institute College of Art FACULTY PROFILE · Mar 10, 2017
The solo exhibition by Rael Jero Salley opened at Gallery Momo in Johannesburg, ZA · SABC News · Jul 11, 2015
Meet the Chair of Art History, Theory, & Criticism at MICA: Raél Jero Salley (2021)
“On Space” MICA Architectural Design Department. 2020.
- - -