Boasting Works by Nina Chanel Abney, Hebru Brantley, William Villalongo, and Richard Prince, Q-Tip’s Art Collection Will Be Exhibited at Bonhams New York
IT’S NO SURPRISE Q-Tip is a serious record collector, given his vocation. When Gail King visited the renowned member of A Tribe Called Quest at his New Jersey home for a CBS This Morning segment, he told her he had about 9,000 records. Footage from the segment indicated Q-Tip has an interest in...
Artist Charles White Was a Devoted Teacher Who Served as a ‘Life Model’ to Countless Students in Los Angeles and Beyond
FOR THE FIRST TIME in more than three decades, “Charles White: A Retrospective” offered a career-spanning overview of Charles White, whose powerful paintings and drawings capture the strength, beauty, and dignity of African Americans. While showcasing White’s artistic practice was the focus of the museum survey, his son, Ian White, realized the traveling exhibition...
In an Interview Coinciding with His First Exhibition at Gagosian, Nathaniel Mary Quinn Tells Anderson Cooper: ‘My Paintings Come to Me as Visions’
EXPLORING THE INTERSECTION of reality, memory, and perception, Nathaniel Mary Quinn paints composite portraits that read as collage. In actuality, they are produced with oil paint, gouache, charcoal, oil stick, and pastels in his own hand. He has said his fragmented and visually layered portraits are based on the faces of people he...
Ernie Barnes Retrospective Brings Renewed Attention to African American Artist Who Found Fame After Playing Pro Football
“The Sugar Shack” (1976) by Ernie Barnes LOS ANGELES—A master storyteller, Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) painted from experience. He captured the brawn of football and the quotidian of life in the segregated South. His representational images depict what he saw growing up in Durham, N.C., where black people gathered for communion and competition on porches and...
Curator Bridget R. Cooks Explains How the Ernie Barnes Retrospective Landed at the California African American Museum
WHEN THE PASADENA MUSEUM of California Art (PMCA) unexpectedly closed last October, after 16 years, there were three final exhibitions on view, including “Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California,” a small survey of Pacific Northwest landscape paintings and commercial lithographs. A pioneer, Grafton Tyler Brown (1841-1918) was the state’s first African American contractor and is...
On View: ‘Tricknology: Ektor Garcia and Allison Janae Hamilton,’ Curated by Sanford Biggers at Marianne Boesky in Aspen, Colo.
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions PROVIDING A PLATFORM for two up-and-coming artists, Sanford Biggers is presenting the work of Allison Janae Hamilton and ektor garcia at Marianne Boesky. (The gallery has represented Biggers since 2016.) Both artists make complex, narrative works. Garcia employs ceramics, crochet, and weaving techniques working with fibrous materials,...
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...
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...
On View: ‘Genevieve Gaignard: I’m Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful’ at Vielmetter Los Angeles
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions 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...
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...
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...
