Sedrick Huckaby’s New Solo Exhibition at Blanton Museum Features a Portrait of His Student, Former President George W. Bush
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. If you do well you might find yourself in the company of a U.S. President or First Lady. In 2016, Amy Sherald won the competition, becoming the first woman and first Black artist to receive the first place prize. Subsequently, First Lady...
Latest News in Black Art: Jamal Cyrus Joins Patron Gallery, Alexander Harrison Added to Roster at VSF, Philadelphia and Detroit Art Museums Hire Their First Diversity Heads
Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture Artist Jamal Cyrus. | Courtesy Patron Gallery Representation Patron Gallery in Chicago announced its representation of artist Jamal Cyrus. Houston, Texas-based Cyrus works in a variety of mediums. His “conceptual and research driven practice...
On View: ‘Karyn Olivier: At the Intersection of Two Faults’ at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions EMPLOYING ORDINARY MATERIALS, including tar, bricks, rope from lobster traps, and clothing, Karyn Olivier created a series of sculptures and installations that speak to collective memory and intersecting narratives. The conceptual mixed-media works are featured in “At the Intersection of Two Faults” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery...
Andy Warhol Foundation Announces $3.8 Million in Grants to Museums, Funding Supports Major Solo Exhibitions Dedicated to Ming Smith, Fred Eversley, and Sonya Clark
THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION for the Visual Arts announced recipients of its Spring 2021 grants, awarding $3.8 million to 50 organizations across the United States and Canada. The grants are giving a new wave of established artists much deserved attention in the form of solo museum exhibitions. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is organizing...
While Traveling the World Documenting Foodways of African Diaspora, Jessica B. Harris Has Been Collecting Vintage Postcards
TRAVELING THE WORLD for more than 50 years, Jessica B. Harris has been documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora surfacing Black history in the culture and traditions of food and the people who cultivate, sell, and cook it. Along the way, she’s collected recipes and vintage postcards. Turns out, the acclaimed culinary historian...
On View: ‘Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art,’ in Columbus, Ohio
Self portrait of artist and his family, including former wife, photographer Deana Lawson. | © Aaron Gilbert On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions THE COLLECTION of modern paintings assembled by the Columbus Museum of Art is largely the result of the largesse of private collectors who dating back to 1931 have...
Blue Is the Color We See Before We Die: Delita Martin is Latest Artist to Contribute to Ava DuVernay’s Police Accountability Project
THE COLOR BLUE ordinarily symbolizes spirituality in the work of Delita Martin. She creates figurative mixed-media works combining relief printing, painting, drawing, hand-stitching, and collage. Inspired by oral traditions and old family photographs, her representations of Black women seek to correct problematic narratives and instead emphasize their individuality and vital family and community roles....
Latest News in Black Art: Christopher Myers Now Repped by James Cohan Gallery, Nicole Fleetwood Joins NYU, Derrick Adams and Jay-Z Collaborate on NFT, Dallas Museum of Art Acquires Its First Basquiat
Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture Artist Christopher Myers. | Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York Representation Brooklyn-based artist Christopher Myers is now represented by James Cohan Gallery. Myers’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in storytelling. He works...
Legacy Russell Appointed Executive Director and Chief Curator at The Kitchen, an Experimental Interdisciplinary Art Space in New York
FOUNDED 50 YEARS AGO as a venue for video art, The Kitchen has evolved over the years and currently presents creative works across a range of disciplines, including visual art, video, film, performance, dance, music, theater, and literature, in collaboration with both emerging and established artists. One of New York’s oldest nonprofit art spaces, The...
AIGA Selects 50 Best Book and Cover Designs: Winners Include ‘Black Futures’ and Publications From Ming Smith, Duro Olowu, and Tyler Mitchell
KNOWN AS MORCOS KEY, Waël Morcos and Jon Key are the design team behind “Black Futures,” the ambitious collaboration from Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. The authors set out to answer the question “What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?” Their response is an impressive compilation—a cacophony of images, memes,...
Latest News in Black Art: McArthur Binion Joins Xavier Hufkens, ICI Announces 4 Okwui Enwezor Fellows, Basquiat Painting Featured on NYT Magazine Sells at Auction
Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture Artist McArthur Binion, 2017. | Photo by Francesco Galli Representation Chicago-based McArthur Binion joined the roster of Xavier Hufkens in Belgium. His work will be featured in a group exhibition at the gallery this...
Museums Recognize Juneteenth: Newly Established National Holiday is ‘Celebration of Resilience, Freedom Deferred But Found’
FOR BLACK AMERICANS, transformational change has always been on the horizon, just out of reach. Long after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation with an effective date of Jan. 1, 1863, and the Civil War ended two-and-a-half years later in April 1965, it was another two months before Union troops arrived in Galveston,...
A Call for Justice and Healing, Nina Chanel Abney’s First Public Art Installation in Canada Declares ‘Stop,’ ‘Don’t Kill,’ and ‘Love’
A NEW THOUGHT-PROVOKING PROJECT from Yorkville Murals implores the community to choose joy and hope over violence and despair. “Generally Speaking” by Nina Chanel Abney is the artist’s first public art work in Canada. Installed in Toronto’s Yorkville district, the 120-foot street mural (one-third the length of a football field) is replete with the...
Historic Appointment: Geovette Washington Elected Board Chair of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, First Black Person in History of Institutions to Serve in Role
THE NEW CHAIR of the board of trustees for the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is Geovette E. Washington. She is leading the board that oversees four major museums in the city: the Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and Andy Warhol Museum. Washington has been senior vice chancellor...
Harvard Art Museums Appoint Horace D. Ballard Associate Curator of American Art
HARVARD ART MUSEUMS announced the appointment of Horace D. Ballard, who will serve as Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. Associate Curator of American Art. Ballard arrives from the Williams College Museum of Art, where he is curator of American art. His Harvard appointment is effective Sept. 1. “Horace’s scholarship and curatorial vision, combined with his...
Karen Comer Lowe Named Executive Director of Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta Institution Known for Collection of African American Art
AN ATLANTA INSTITUTION with a formidable collection of Black art, Hammonds House Museum announced Karen Comer Lowe is its new executive director and first chief curator. Comer Lowe has a spectrum of experience in the Atlanta arts scene, most recently serving as manager and curator at Chastain Arts Center. She is returning to Hammonds...
Latest News in Black Art: Julie Mehretu Benefit Auction Sets New Record, Vanessa German Joins Kasmin, Gordon Parks Documentary, Jean-Michel Basquiat & More
Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture vanessa german in her exhibition “MATRIX 174/i come to do violence to the lie” (2016), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Conn. | Photo by Allen Phillips/Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Representation Kasmin announced...
Visions of Equity: Jordan Casteel’s Mother and Child Portrait Covers Special Issue of Time Magazine
TO ILLUSTRATE THE COVER of its special issue titled Visions of Equity, Time magazine chose a painting by Jordan Casteel. “God Bless the Child” (2019), captures a tender moment, a young mother cradling the head of her child, presumably a little girl. Both of their faces are obscured. Nonetheless, Casteel takes great care in...
Kymberly Pinder Appointed Dean of the Yale School of Art, First Black Person to Lead School in 150-Year History
ONE OF THE NATION’S most prestigious art schools will be led by Kymberly Pinder. Yale University President Peter Salovey announced Pinder as the next Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale School of Art. An alum of Yale, where she earned her Ph.D., Pinder is the first Black person appointed dean since the school...
Auction Record: Gospel and R&B Icon Mavis Staples Sold Ernie Barnes Painting for $75K at Hindman in Chicago
A FIGURATIVE PAINTER with a singular style, Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) had a reverence for Black women. They were a popular subject for the artist who depicted them possessed with dignity, passion, and joy. Barnes made paintings of Black women playing sports, DJing, dancing, attending church, showing strength in the face of adversity, and socializing...
