Nina Simone's music is powerful in a way that continues to touch the lives of people who enjoy her art to this day. A piece of her legacy stood a good chance of being lost forever until a group of prominent black artists stepped in to hold on to it.
Filmmaker Ellen Gallagher, painter Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton, and sculptor Rashid Johnson purchased Simone's childhood home. They bought the three bedroom house, in Tryon, North Carolina, back in 2016 for $95,000 when it went up for sale. The property is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and while the group has no immediately specific plans for Simone's former home, they consensus that it will be preserved and dedicated in her honor is one that all parties involved share.
In an interview with the New York Times, Pendleton said, "It took me about five seconds to know what I wanted to do, and I called Rashid and we talked and we knew we wanted to get women artists involved, and it all happened very quickly…We don’t have a blueprint for our ideas yet, but I think sometimes artists are the best people to deal with really tricky questions — like, for instance, how to honor the legacy of someone as vital and complicated as Nina Simone."
Nina Simone, who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award this year, is still impacting a new version of the world every day with the life she lived. And now, with the help of these four artists who feel a connection to her, like many of us, she will continue to do so, in a physical way, for years to come.