Join us for an artist talk featuring Demond Melancon on the occasion of Melancon's exhibition As Any Means Are Necessary at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. The talk will take place in the galleries and is free and open to the public!

Demond Melancon (b. 1978) works solely with a needle and thread to sew glass beads onto canvas. He began this practice in 1992 when he first became part of a more than 200-year-old culture known as the Black Masking Culture of New Orleans. Big Chief Demond Melancon is well known for creating massive Suits as a Black Masker. His Suits are sculptural forms based on the size of his body which are composed of intricate, hand-sewn beadwork revealing a collective visual narrative. In 2017, Melancon pioneered an emerging contemporary art practice using the same beading techniques he’s been refining over the past 30 years in the Black Masking Culture.