Antoine J. Girard
The SEEN series highlights various guests, diving into the ways they have discovered themselves through reading. What stories shaped them? Helped them define their own? These intimate interviews seek to celebrate their discoveries, hear what they’ve learned from their favorite works, and uncover a glimpse of their interior world through the books that have changed them.
Los Angeles born and Texas raised, independent art curator AJ Girard is a true emblem of southern hospitality — he’s warm, kind and generous, all things I’ve learned in just the few months I’ve known him. We first officially met over coffee at Community Goods on Melrose after several friends insisted we meet and we soon understood why. While most of his time is spent with art, and mine with books, we discovered a goal we both shared — the intention to place forward the work of historically excluded voices that we wished we had access to when we were younger. It was then we decided to bring our worlds together to center art and photography books that highlight the works of women, people of color, and queer artists, through two recent book givings at Arcana Books in Culver City.
What was supposed to be a few minutes of shooting him in his West Adams home for this feature, turned into an hour of flowing conversation. There was so much to learn and talk about — his home was filled with a multitude of art, books, and family photographs that effused charm, character and an openness that AJ himself contains.
Below he shares which book laid the foundation to his art career, his “other” favorite bookstore in LA, and why he believes everyone should share their gifts.
How would you describe yourself?
I am a naturally loyal person, I love hard. I have a curiosity about storytelling and it leads me to meeting tons of people in my line of work.
What book has made you feel the most seen and why?
I’m really into photographers, especially those of color who used their time to capture the world around them. Gordon Parks did it with timeless mastery. I’m enamored with his work right now.
What book has allowed you to see and better understand the perspective of another?
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. I love this book because it talks through Asher’s experience of loving his family and wanting to pursue the arts, even if it was against the very judgmental religious environment he was raised in. I saw myself in him – it gave me a voice early.
What books have directly and indirectly influenced your work as an art curator?
Freestyle: The Studio Musuem in Harlem by Thelma Golden. It’s hands down one of the most formative books of my art career. It was gifted to me by a friend who had it sent to him. I told him how rare and important to my work the book was. After hounding him for weeks, he gave in. And it’s informed my practice ever since.
Was there a certain person, or moment in your life, that influenced your relationship with reading?
When I first moved to Texas, I had no friends or peers. My late aunt took me to a bookstore and bought me a book on How to Draw Cartoons for Comic Strips. Unbeknownst to her, it was my only friend for so many seasons. It taught me to trust the arts as a space to express myself.
Is there a quote or excerpt from a book that you find yourself returning to?
“If you don’t know, learn. If you know, teach.”
Reminds me that knowledge should be shared and that people come into it at different points and you have to have grace in sharing your story.
What stories do you think need to be read?
Architecture and the physical spaces we occupy. This leads me artists like Lauren Halsey and what she dreamed up at the Met Museum, Theaster Gates and the Stoney Island Arts Bank, Isamu Noguchi’s playground, or Nikki De Saint Phalle’s public structures. People who know the importance of safe spaces and the ideas of imagining together.
What are your favorite books?
I study exhibition catalogs and artist monographs. Some of my favorites include:
The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes
Young Blood: Noah Davis, Kahlil Joseph, The Underground Museum — I had the pleasure of working there and was really given a community-driven perspective on the art world. Noah Davis is a name anyone interested in art and space making should know. He created a model for institution building.
Project Row Houses at 25 – Rick Lowe is a Houston-based organizer and led Project Row Houses, a fundamental art space in Texas.
Where do you like to read most?
I read on-the-go – in airplanes, at parties when I’m not entertained, at friends' homes… Like it goes down. I like small books so I’m never unprepared.
What’s your ideal way to connect with the people in your life?
I’m a deep talk person. I’ve always been a one-to-one friendship style person. And then I master it and bring those individuals together to watch the community unfold.
Take us through your ideal day in Los Angeles.
I wake up. I run. I go to work – meetings and tours of exhibitions. I meet with artist friends or community members to think ideas out loud. I call my mother. I try to look at as much art as possible then I sleep and repeat.
A must visit in Los Angeles for book lovers?
Arcana and Other Books.
What was the last book you gifted? What was the last book you were given?
When we were at Arcana, I got Jordan, my dear friend and founder of Seen Library, a book she was looking at that was full of black and white photographs of cats called Sasuke by Masahisa Fukase.
I was recently given a “chapter book” by Jordan. The running joke is that I don’t read “chapter books.” It’s Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It still awaits a loving home, haha.
I’d also love to say the last book I received that lifted my spirits was Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm from my friend Jennifer Pauline. It was so on time. Beautiful photos coupled with short poems.
What do you hope other people see in you?
Possibility. That you can take your very niche and specific experiences and offer them back to the world to grow. Don’t hold your gifts in. Share them. An idea I always hold is: The person you may inspire most may not even be born yet. And they deserve access to your full story. Up and downs.
