In Los Angeles, Landmark Exhibitions are Showcasing the Photography of Gordon Parks, Kwame Braithwaite, and Figures Who Documented Hip Hop
“Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite,” Skirball Cultural Center THREE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITIONS on view at Los Angeles institutions feature the work of Gordon Parks, Kwame Braithwaite, and photographers who have trained their lenses on the legends of hip hop. The Getty Center is presenting Parks’s 1961 images of Flávio da Silva, a...
Truth Teller: Next Month, Henry Taylor is Presenting a Series of New Portraits at Blum & Poe in New York
WHETHER YOU CALL HIM a figurative painter or a portrait painter, labels he is reluctant to embrace, Henry Taylor paints people, almost exclusively. He paints his family, his friends, people in his neighborhood, and people he meets when he travels. He connects with his subjects and has a real curiosity about their lives, which...
Detroit-Based Painter Ed Clark is Now Represented by Hauser & Wirth
PIONEERING PAINTER Ed Clark, 93, has joined Hauser & Wirth. A vital figure in post-war American painting and Abstract Expressionism, Clark has been based in New York and Paris over the course of his seven-decade career. Currently, he lives and works in Detroit. Hauser & Wirth shared news of its worldwide representation of Clark...
Kind of Blue: In Menorca, Stanley Whitney’s Colorful Grid Paintings are in Dialogue with an Iconic Yves Klein Installation
A SUMMER EXHIBITION in Mahon, Menorca, off the coast of Spain, brings together two artists deeply committed to color: Stanley Whitney and Yves Klein (1928-1962). “Stanley Whitney / Yves Klein: This Array of Colors” at Galería Cayón presents six recent paintings by Whitney with Klein’s “Pure Pigment.” A floor installation consisting solely of a...
Latest News in African American Art: Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys Plan Art Center, New Yorker Commissions Toni Morrison Cover by Kara Walker, Smithsonian Acquires Beyonce Portrait by Tyler Mitchell & More
South African Artist David Koloane (1938-2019) The following review presents a snapshot of recent news in African American art and related black culture: South African Artist David Koloane Died at 81 A prominent figure in apartheid-era South Africa artist David Koloane (1938-2019) died June 30. “Apartheid was a politics of space more than...
World Champion Simone Biles and the Elite Competition and Complexities of Women’s Gymnastics Recently Inspired Two Painters
THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. If there was any question Simone Biles is the greatest athlete in the history of gymnastics, she put all doubts to rest over the weekend at the United States Gymnastics Championships in Kansas City, Mo. The world’s top gymnast pushed new boundaries, delivered ambitious routines, and clenched her sixth...
On View: ‘Genevieve Gaignard: I’m Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful’ at Vielmetter Los Angeles
THROUGH THE LENS of self-portraiture and symbolic domestic spaces, Los Angeles-based Genevieve Gaignard explores American constructs of identity, beauty, blackness, and whiteness. She considers racial logic and racial formation. Her latest exhibition, “I’m Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful,” features mixed-media works on panel, photographic portraits, sculpture, furniture installations, and a work...
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art is Showcasing Women Artists, a Group Vastly Underrepresented in its Collection
“Liberal Women Protest March I” (1995) by Nike Davies-Okundaye of Nigeria THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART is celebrating women artists. Over the past five years, the Smithsonian museum has doubled its holdings of art by women. Showcasing some of the recent acquisitions, “I Am… Contemporary Women Artists of Africa,” opened in June. The...
Coming Soon: Derrick Adams is Presenting a Series of Family Portraits for His First Hometown Solo Show in Baltimore
FOR AN EXHIBITION in his hometown of Baltimore Derrick Adams drew on his personal history, sourcing images from a family photo album. Inspired by the decades-old images, he made a series of paintings documenting scenes from his childhood—a pair of bridesmaids in matching turquoise blue dresses, children playing in the yard with a yellow...
In Response to Toni Morrison’s Death, Artists Are Expressing How Her Powerful Black Authorship Moved Them
SHE GOT A LOT DONE. On Monday, Toni Morrison died at the age of 88. The announcement of her death prompted an outpouring of laudatory tributes to the author who wrote with authority and aplomb about the lives of black people, with black women at the center of her narratives. Artists were among those...
Marcus Brutus Paints Portraits of Black Life That Connect Contemporary Narratives to Generations of Culture and History
IN THE HANDS OF Marcus Brutus scenes of contemporary black life are saturated with vibrant color and layered with cultural references. Harper’s Books in East Hampton, N.Y., is presenting the artist’s second solo show. About two-dozen paintings made in 2018 and 2019 are on view. The individual and group portraits and scenes of leisure and...
Mariane Ibrahim is Opening Her New Chicago Gallery in September with a Solo Exhibition Dedicated to Ayana V. Jackson
AFTER SEVEN YEARS in Seattle, Mariane Ibrahim has moved her eponymous gallery to Chicago. The new gallery opens next month with an inaugural exhibition dedicated to Ayana V. Jackson, an American artist whose photography examines the construction of identity. Titled “Take Me to the Water,” the presentation will feature a new series of large-scale...
Stephanie Sparling Williams Joined Mount Holyoke College Art Museum as Associate Curator
MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE Art Museum (MHCAM) has a new associate curator. Stephanie Sparling Williams joined the museum in South Hadley, Mass., in June. She previously served as assistant curator for the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. MHCAM Director Tricia Y. Paik said she was thrilled to welcome Sparling...
On View: ‘Wadsworth Jarrell: Come Saturday Punch’ at Kavi Gupta in Chicago
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions CHARTING THE EVOLUTION of Wadsworth Jarrell‘s practice, “Come Saturday Punch” presents more than two-dozen works spanning 55 years. One of five original co-founders of AfriCOBRA, the collective established in Chicago in 1968, Jarrell has maintained a unique visual voice throughout his career. True to, but unbound...
