Elle Magazine: New Photo Project by LaToya Ruby Frazier Reminds Americans that Flint Lives Matter
From left, Shea Cobb with her daughter Zion and mother, Ms. Renee, outside the Social Network banquet hall. | Photo courtesy Elle magazine | © LaToya Ruby Frazier, Photo courtesy Elle magazine THE NEWS MEDIA HAS MOVED ON, but there is still a water crisis in Flint, Mich. In April 2014, the city switched...
Retrospective: A Review of the Latest News in Black Art – New Appointment for Curator Jamillah James
RETROSPECTIVE is a review of the latest news and happenings related to art by and about people of African descent. This week, highlights include a couple of major appointments: curator Jamillah James is joining the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and poet Kevin Young is taking the helm of the Schomburg Center for Research...
Hammer Museum Launches Digital Archive with ‘Now Dig This!’ Exhibition About Black Artists in Los Angeles
THE HAMMER MUSEUM has breathed new life into one of its most dynamic and historically significant exhibitions. “Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980” explored a robust period in the city’s history when a pioneering group of African American artists established an influential creative community and produced important works commenting on the...
First Lady Michelle Obama Visits Kerry James Marshall Exhibition at MCA Chicago
Kerry James Marshall gave First Lady Michelle Obama a tour of his exhibition. | Photo courtesy MCA Chicago LAST FRIDAY, FIRST LADY Michelle Obama viewed “Mastry,” the Kerry James Marshall exhibition at MCA Chicago. Marshall’s powerful paintings chronicle the African American experience. The exhibition documents the artist’s practice over the past three decades and...
Retrospective: A Review of the Latest News in Black Art – Black Art Incubator Encourages Innovative Creative Exchange
RETROSPECTIVE is a review of the latest news and happenings related to art by and about people of African descent. In the last half of July 2016, highlights include the launch of Black Art Incubator, a dynamic New York space for artistic, intellectual and social exchange founded by four young art world influencers; the announcement...
First Woman President?: A Portrait of American History by Simmie Knox
Embed from Getty Images TWENTY YEARS AGO, Hillary Clinton authored “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us.” The 1996 book presented her vision for America’s children and the ways in which society can enable their success. In many ways, it was a blueprint for her life’s work up to that point,...
Coming Soon: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Smithsonian’s African American Museum
From left, architects Phil Freelon and David Adjaye discuss the design for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine WASHINGTON, D.C. — The countdown is officially underway. Two months from today, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will celebrate its grand opening...
Retrospective: A Review of the Latest News in Black Art – Art, Police and Black Lives
RETROSPECTIVE is a review of the latest news and happenings related to art by and about people of African descent. In the first half of July 2016, highlights include responses to police violence through the lens of art by artists including Dread Scott, curator Thomas J. Lax, and writer Taylor Renee Aldridge in the...
Race/Related: Times Reporting Team Gets Backstory on ‘A Man Was Lynched’ Redux
LAST WEEK IN NEW YORK CITY, artist Dread Scott joined protestors in Union Square. The demonstrators were taking a stand against police killing black men after the latest incidents involving the deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Minneapolis. Scott brought a huge black flag, holding it aloft for...
Sonic Spaces: Brothers Peter and David Adjaye Discuss Music for Architecture
Peter and David Adjaye on the Sonic Collaboration. | Video by The Spaces PAIRING A GLOBAL PORTFOLIO of major cultural centers and public institutions with projects that span furniture and textile design, architect David Adjaye‘s latest pursuit is a musical collaboration with his brother. A DJ, musician and sound designer with degrees in mathematics...
For The New Yorker, Kadir Nelson Captures Summer at the Beach
Video by CBS This Morning OVER THE WEEKEND, Kadir Nelson appeared on CBS This Morning. The Sunday television program profiled the illustrator whose work is familiar to many, while he remains relatively unknown. The latest edition of The New Yorker features Nelson’s take on “A Day at the Beach,” a powerful, very American image...
Retrospective: For the Long Weekend, a Review of the Latest News in Black Art
RETROSPECTIVE is a digest of the latest news and happenings related to art by and about people of African descent. In the latter half of June 2016, the highlights include auction news and acquisitions, and numerous appointments and awards. Johnson Publishing sold its flagship magazines. The Smithsonian’s forthcoming African American museum reached its fundraising...
At Art Basel, Significant Sales of Works by African American Artists, including Njideka Akunyili Crosby
MUSEUMS HAVE TAKEN AN INTEREST in Njideka Akunyili Crosby. At Art Basel, Victoria Miro Gallery of London sold “Super Blue Omo” (above), a new, large-scale figurative work by the Los Angeles-based painter to a museum. According to BLOUIN ARTINFO, the painting went to “an unidentified American museum for an otherwise indeterminate five-figure price.” UPDATE:...
Johnson Publishing Sells Ebony and Jet Magazines to Black-Owned Private Equity Firm
EBONY AND JET, the historic magazines that reported on 20th century African American artists and inspired the work of a new generation of contemporary artists, have been sold to Clear View, a black-owned private equity firm. The Austin, Texas-based company purchased the titles from Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) in May for an undisclosed amount. The...
Muhammad Ali Has Died: The Charismatic Boxing Legend was a Photographer’s Dream
CAUGHT IN A QUIET MOMENT, donning a robe while penning a letter. Indulging a young boy in the chance to spar with a champion. Perched on a massage table, wide-eyed with a playful, mock expression of shock. Pictures tell incredible stories. In life and death, much has been said and written about Muhammad Ali;...
Montclair Art Museum Adds Kara Walker Silhouette to List of Contemporary Art Acquisitions by African American Artists
AT THE START OF HER CAREER, Kara Walker was first recognized for her mural-sized narrative silhouettes—cut paper depictions of the imagined indignities and violence experienced by blacks in the antebellum South. The Montclair Art Museum announced it has acquired one of these early works. The delicate precision of “Virginia’s Lynch Mob” belies its challenging subject...
Perez Art Museum Miami Adds More Than 100 New Works to Collection
A NEW EXHIBITION at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) presents “Luanda-Kinshasa,” a 2013 film installation (above) by Canadian artist Stan Douglas. Set in the renowned CBS 30th Street Studio, the six-hour experimentally sequenced film explores “the emergence of a globally minded black consciousness in the 1970s,” and its influence on the New York...
New Season of ART21 Features African American Artists Edgar Arceneaux, Nick Cave, Stan Douglas, and Theaster Gates
Artists Edgar Arceneaux, Nick Cave, Stan Douglas, and Theaster Gates are featured in Season 8 of ART21. THE NEW SEASON OF “ART21: Art in the 21st Century” debuts Sept. 16, 2016. For the first time, the PBS series is focusing on the connection to place and the ways an artist’s practice is influenced and...
Artist Simone Leigh Has Joined Luhring Augustine Gallery
NEWS THAT LUHRING AUGUSTINE GALLERY is now representing Simone Leigh follows a succession of recent exhibitions, honors and engagements recognizing the currency and innovation of the multidisciplinary artist’s practice. Brooklyn-based Leigh, whose work spans sculpture, video, installation and performance, is a 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, 2016 Fellow of A Blade of Grass for...
The Smithsonian is Mounting a Bill Traylor Retrospective, the First Major Exhibition Devoted to an Artist Born Enslaved
THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (SAAM) says it is mounting the first-ever major exhibition devoted to the work of an artist born enslaved. “Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor,” the retrospective of self-taught African American artist Bill Traylor (1854- 1949) will open Sept. 28, 2018. The Washington, D.C., museum made the announcement in...
