Thomas J. Lax is a curator and writer who supports artistic process and enjoys working with others. They are currently preparing Artist’s Choice: Arthur Jafa—Less is Morbid (Nov. 2025), an exhibition of artworks selected from MoMA’s collection by the L.A.-based artist. Most recently, they organized Jonathan Berger: Studio Residency (2025), a time-based exhibition that puts the notion of “radical diasporism” into practice. Previously, they organized Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon (2023), a major exhibition about the path-making choreographer, made alongside Connie Butler and Kari Rittenbach at MoMA PS1.
At MoMA, Thomas organized the exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces (2022) about the gallery, founded by Linda Goode Bryant in 1974 where “blackness existed in the presence of black folks rather than in the absence of whiteness.” In 2019, Thomas worked with colleagues across MoMA on a major rehang of its collection, celebrated as an “integrated presence of difference itself”; in 2018, Thomas co-organized the exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done with Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph, historicizing the emergence of postmodern dance in the early 1960s within avant-garde jazz, high camp, and eco-critical improvisations. Thomas’s other collaboratively-organized exhibitions include the Projects Series for emerging artists; Unfinished Conversations, inspired by the cultural theorist Stuart Hall; and the contemporary art survey exhibition at MoMA PS1, Greater New York. Previously, they worked at The Studio Museum in Harlem for seven years organizing When The Stars Begin To Fall: Imagination and the American South and participating in the landmark “f show” contemporary art series.
Thomas is a contributor to publications including Artforum, Frieze October, T Magazine, The Nation, and Vanity Fair, among others. They are on the board of Danspace Project and Wendy’s Subway and have been on the advisory committees of the 2023 São Paulo Art Biennial, Contemporary And, The Laundromat Project, Participant Inc., Prospect.5 New Orleans, and Recess Assembly.
A native New Yorker, Thomas holds degrees in Africana Studies and Art History from Brown and Columbia Universities respectively and is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at NYU where they are working on a project about dependency. They were a 2024 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. In 2020, they received the inaugural Cisneros Research Grant, traveling to Brazil to research contemporary black art. Also in 2020, they received the Noah Davis Prize from The Underground Museum in Los Angeles alongside Candice Hopkins and Jamillah James. In 2015, they were awarded the Menil Collection’s Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement.
At MoMA, Thomas organized the exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces (2022) about the gallery, founded by Linda Goode Bryant in 1974 where “blackness existed in the presence of black folks rather than in the absence of whiteness.” In 2019, Thomas worked with colleagues across MoMA on a major rehang of its collection, celebrated as an “integrated presence of difference itself”; in 2018, Thomas co-organized the exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done with Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph, historicizing the emergence of postmodern dance in the early 1960s within avant-garde jazz, high camp, and eco-critical improvisations. Thomas’s other collaboratively-organized exhibitions include the Projects Series for emerging artists; Unfinished Conversations, inspired by the cultural theorist Stuart Hall; and the contemporary art survey exhibition at MoMA PS1, Greater New York. Previously, they worked at The Studio Museum in Harlem for seven years organizing When The Stars Begin To Fall: Imagination and the American South and participating in the landmark “f show” contemporary art series.
Thomas is a contributor to publications including Artforum, Frieze October, T Magazine, The Nation, and Vanity Fair, among others. They are on the board of Danspace Project and Wendy’s Subway and have been on the advisory committees of the 2023 São Paulo Art Biennial, Contemporary And, The Laundromat Project, Participant Inc., Prospect.5 New Orleans, and Recess Assembly.
A native New Yorker, Thomas holds degrees in Africana Studies and Art History from Brown and Columbia Universities respectively and is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at NYU where they are working on a project about dependency. They were a 2024 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant. In 2020, they received the inaugural Cisneros Research Grant, traveling to Brazil to research contemporary black art. Also in 2020, they received the Noah Davis Prize from The Underground Museum in Los Angeles alongside Candice Hopkins and Jamillah James. In 2015, they were awarded the Menil Collection’s Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement.