Major African American Contemporary Artists are Bringing Their Work to Washington, D.C.
A post shared by Hirshhorn (@hirshhorn) on Oct 14, 2017 at 11:16am PDT Theaster Gates presented “Plantation Lullabies,” a discussion and performance, at the Hirshhorn Museum Oct. 13. THE HIRSHHORN MUSEUM was infused with sacred, soulful music on Friday evening. The museum hosted the second installment of Theaster Gates‘s four-part series Processions. The collaborative...
Artful Wisdom: Kerry James Marshall, Claudia Rankine, Leslie King-Hammond Among Speakers at 2017 Commencements
Artist Kerry James Marshall delivers remarks at Columbia College Chicago commencement on May 14. | Video by Columbia College Chicago MORE THAN 30 YEARS AGO, when Kerry James Marshall left Los Angeles to move to New York, his friend and fellow artist Carrie Mae Weems called Dawoud Bey, who was living in the city....
Culture Type Picks: The 12 Best Black Art Books of 2016
THIS YEAR’S SELECTION of the Best Black Art Books includes 12 volumes that in various ways are reframing art history—from scholarly works shedding light on major cultural moments and volumes of groundbreaking photography, to exhibition catalogs surveying broadly the work of important artists such as Kerry James Marshall and Alma Thomas. Highly recommended among Culture...
Post Election, to Realize Our Future, We Have to ‘Do More and Do Better’
For Freedoms: NARI WARD, “Mass Action,” 2016 (shoelaces). | ©Nari Ward. Courtesy the Artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong ONE WEEK AGO TODAY, AMERICA WOKE UP to a new president-elect. The largely unexpected result has struck fear, anger, disappointment, and disbelief, in a majority of the voting populace. Americans are dismayed...
Kerry James Marshall Retrospective at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Headlines Robust Fall Season of 50+ U.S. and European Exhibitions Featuring Black Artists
Kerry James Marshall’s retrospective, featuring “Untitled (Studio), opens at The Met Breuer Oct. 25. THE VISIONARY AND IMAGINATIVE PAINTINGS of Kerry James Marshall are coming to New York. Presenting 35 years of painting, “Mastry” is the largest retrospective of the artist’s work to date. After debuting at MCA Chicago in April, the exhibition opens...
We the People: This Election Season, Art and the Politics of Social Justice are on View
THIS FALL, NEW EXHIBITIONS featuring work by and about black people are opening in a political season like no other. Social justice issues are at the fore and change is afoot as the presidential election nears. The climate is reflected in the subjects African American artists are addressing in their work and is also paralleled...
Retrospective: The Latest News in Black Art – Camille Ann Brewer Joins GWU Textile Museum, Rosa Parks House Considered Art
RETROSPECTIVE is a review of the latest news and happenings related to visual art by and about people of African descent, with the occasional nod to cultural matters. This week, highlights include the announcement that the Detroit home of Rosa Parks will be repurposed as art; plans for a new museum in Nigeria and assessments...
Where My Girls At?: 28+ Opportunities to See and Support the Work of Black Female Artists and Curators This Fall
Works by Alma Thomas, Simone Leigh, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye IT WAS A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM, a celebration of two important women in art—Alma Thomas (1891-1978) and Thelma Golden. The artist and the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem were both born Sept. 22. Thomas would have been 125. To mark the milestone,...
Black Men Keep Getting Killed by Police, Carrie Mae Weems Offers a Graceful Reflection
A behind-the-scenes look at “Grace Notes: Reflections for Now” by Carrie Mae Weems | Video by Art21 AMID THE TRAGEDY AND VIOLENCE of black lives snuffed out at a Charleston, S.C., church during Bible study and gunned down on the streets of countless cities across the United States at the hands of police, artist...
History Makers: 10 African American Firsts in Modern and Contemporary Art Continue to Resonate Today
THE LIST OF HISTORY-MAKING firsts and groundbreaking achievements made by African American artists, and more recently curators, is endless, spanning probably as early as the 17th century to the present. The following briefly captures 10 milestones and a corresponding “where are they now” look at each of these important figures. ALMA THOMAS with...
Collaborations Among Carrie Mae Weems, Sarah Lewis, and Adrienne Edwards Have Produced Some of the Most Compelling Art Projects of the Year
From left, Adrienne Edwards, Carrie Mae Weems, and Sarah Lewis. ANDERSON RANCH IN SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., presented Carrie Mae Weems with its National Artist Award yesterday. The honor capped a weeklong celebration of the arts center’s 50th anniversary. Over the past few years, Weems has received more than a dozen awards, including a MacArthur...
Culture Talk: Curator Adrienne Edwards on Her New Exhibition ‘Blackness in Abstraction’
PACE GALLERY IS PRESENTING a few of Adrienne Edwards’s “favorite things.” It’s how the curator describes works by black contemporary artists about whom she writes and has a social and intellectual connection, and modern standouts with whom she has been “obsessed” over the course of her academic and professional career. A veteran curator at Performa...
Artists Hank Willis Thomas, Nick Cave, and Rick Lowe are Among the African American Creatives Addressing 2016 Commencments
FROM LOS ANGELES TO BOSTON, it’s graduation season. Joining two of this year’s most popular commencement speakers—President Obama (Howard University, Rutgers University, Air Force Academy) and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (University of Pennsylvania)—Nick Cave, Melvin Edwards, Rick Lowe, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and several other African American artists, are participating in graduation ceremonies....
Carrie Mae Weems Implores School of Visual Arts Graduates to Consider ‘How Do You Measure a Life?’
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Carrie Mae Weems took the stage at Radio City Music Hall delivering more of a performance than a speech. Her address at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) 41st commencement for undergraduate and graduate students was engaging, relevant, thought-provoking and memorable. She asked the audience, “How do you measure life?” And...
Winter Wonders: 44 Exhibitions Feature Exceptional Works by Black Artists
LONG OVERDUE, THE COLORFUL AND EXPRESSIVE abstract works of Alma Thomas (1891-1978), pictured above, are being celebrated with a groundbreaking retrospective at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in upstate New York. This summer, Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition since 2001 will travel to the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is co-organizing the show....
On the Horizon in African American Art: Artists to Watch and Events to Look Forward to in 2016
WITH A NEW YEAR UNDERWAY and a compelling selection of new books, exhibitions and events on the horizon, here is what to look forward to in African American and African diasporic art—the most-anticipated happenings and artists to watch in 2016: After spending January at the historic residence of a Mexican muralist, Henry Taylor will...
ARTnews Publishes Special Report on Women in the Art World, Black Artists Respond
BORN IN PORTLAND, ORE., IN 1953, photographer Carrie Mae Weems has steadily built a critically acclaimed, internationally recognized practice. Weems uses photography and video to test and explore assumptions about race, gender, class and history. She is a trailblazer, who had few examples to turn to, model her career after or use as a...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art 2014
FROM THE DAK’ART BIENNIAL in Senegal, to the 1:54 art fair in London and Prospect.3 in New Orleans, 2014 was brimming with compelling exhibitions, innovative projects and well-deserved honors. Kara Walker’s sugar sphinx installation in Brooklyn was perhaps the most thought-provoking and buzzed about exhibition of the year; Chris Ofili’s “Night and Day” survey at...
Assessing the Fall Contemporary Auctions in New York
ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN YOU and owning works by some of the most highly regarded artists practicing today is the wave of a paddle. Major auction houses are staging their fall contemporary sales this week. Works by El Anatsui, Chris Ofili, Mickalene Thomas and Glenn Ligon are up for consideration. Bidding is underway already with...
For Carrie Mae Weems, Guggenheim Honor Caps Banner Year
SINCE LAST FALL, month after month has been punctuated by encounters with photographer Carrie Mae Weems. Not literally, but at every turn it seems another accomplishment or engagement, another confirmation of the importance of her practice, has come to my attention, which is wonderful. Throughout her more than 30-year career, Weems has been critically...
