Earlier this week, Bravo introduced that every one six solid members of the rebooted Actual Housewives of New York Metropolis would return for his or her second season (the franchise’s fifteenth), as reported by Selection, bringing rumors about whether or not the community would add two new members, together with one with ties to the artwork world.
It’s now rumored that that solid member is likely to be Racquel Chevremont, a collector and curator who can also be the ex-partner of artist Mickalene Thomas. Chevremont can also be a buddy of present solid member Jenna Lyons, the previous artistic director of J. Crew. (Bravo weblog Bravo and Cocktails first posted a blind merchandise in regards to the information on March 19; Artnet Information’s Moist Paint column picked up the story on Friday.)
Chevremont has amassed a modest assortment of round 70 to 80 works by artists similar to Lorna Simpson, Glenn Ligon, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Deborah Roberts, and Toyin Ojih Odutola. She additionally beforehand served as a trustee of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
She not too long ago consulted on the art-filled set ornament for the Netflix movie Go away the World Behind. Past the artwork world, she has modeled, most not too long ago strolling in Batsheva Hay’s New York Style Week present in February.
Previous to their spilt, Thomas and Chevremont based Deux Femmes Noires, which was aimed to lift the profile of artists of coloration. Collectively, they mounted exhibitions, together with one in 2022, titled “Set It Off,” on the Parrish Artwork Museum in Watermill, New York. The 2 additionally co-produced a efficiency by artist Kia LaBeija as a part of the 2019 Performa Biennial in New York.
“As a collector, I accumulate their work; as a curator, I curate them into industrial and institutional reveals, on tv reveals, and in movies,” Chevremont informed Grasp & Dynamic in 2022. “The panorama has modified dramatically and there at the moment are many paths that may be taken as an artist, so I’ll give recommendation based mostly on what their aspirations are, whether or not that be institutional or industrial success.”
Chevremont’s potential look on RHONY is just not Bravo’s first time making an attempt to achieve the artwork world. In 2010, the community aired Work of Artwork: The Subsequent Nice Artist, which ran for 2 seasons. Typically pilloried within the artwork press on the time, the present featured critic Jerry Saltz and seller Invoice Powers as judges, in addition to artists like Nao Bustamante and Amanda Williams.
And, in 2019, former RHONY solid members Bethenny Frankel and Luann de Lesseps took a tour of murals in Miami’s Wynwood district and did a studio go to with artist Romero Britto. That season additionally included a go to to the Brooklyn studio of artist Hunt Slonem by Frankel and solid member Sonja Morgan.
As with every Housewives franchise, there are two tiers of repeatedly featured characters on the present: the principle Housewives, who seem within the intro with a signature one-liner, and “Pals of the Housewives,” who typically recur in a number of episodes per season and are typically promoted to a full Housewife in later seasons.
Given her friendship with Lyons, Chevremont may qualify as both position. In keeping with Selection, “As for reviews on the web about two new girls becoming a member of the group, Bravo isn’t commenting on potential new solid members.”
Previous to the affirmation of the total solid’s return, there was hypothesis as as to whether not some solid members won’t return, particularly after a tense reunion. The brand new solid’s greatest draw was, after all, Lyons (higher identified throughout the present’s universe as Jenna “Fucking” Lyons), who was a fixture of the New York scene for a lot of the 2000s. In an interview with Lyons about coming again, the New York Occasions wrote, “From the beginning, she wasn’t fairly Bravo’s kind: a discerning former trend govt dropped right into a fishbowl of screaming and scheming.”
Lyons, who has been adamant about holding her relationship off-camera, informed the Occasions, “They [Bravo] have been very amenable. I had related points — I’ve a relationship, however I want to not title her. I wish to hold her out of the press. That’s my dedication to her. It’s off the desk. I joined this course of. She didn’t.”