The Year in Black Art: May 2015
CULTURE TYPE IS REVIEWING The Year in Black Art 2015 in monthly installments over the coming weeks. The report began with a look at The Newsmakers, seven artists and curators who continue to advance their practices and their projects with fresh approaches and new ideas—efforts that are recognized and often garner significant news coverage. The...
After Tackling America’s Racial History in Her Work, Kara Walker Finds Her Own Roots on PBS
FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, artist Kara Walker has explored the vestiges of slavery and the antebellum South in her critically recognized work. Known for her narrative silhouettes, her practice probes America’s uncomfortable, often violent, history through the lens of race, gender and sexuality. Given this, it is fascinating to watch Walker learn about...
Popular on Culture Type: Top 10 Posts of 2015
THIS YEAR’S MOST POPULAR POSTS, based on number of views, tended to be exhibition roundups and Culture Talk conversations with art world figures. The top Culture Type post by far, however, was a report published in March about the number of black artists slated to participate in the 56th annual Venice Biennale. It garnered...
The Year in Black Art: April 2015
CULTURE TYPE IS REVIEWING The Year in Black Art 2015 in monthly installments over the coming weeks. The report began with a look at The Newsmakers, seven artists and curators who continue to advance their practices and their projects with fresh approaches and new ideas—efforts that are recognized and often garner significant news coverage. The...
The Year in Black Art: March 2015
CULTURE TYPE IS REVIEWING The Year in Black Art 2015 in monthly installments over the coming weeks. The report began with a look at The Newsmakers, seven artists and curators who continue to advance their practices and their projects with fresh approaches and new ideas—efforts that are recognized and often garner significant news coverage. The...
The Year in Black Art: February 2015
CULTURE TYPE IS REVIEWING The Year in Black Art 2015 in monthly installments over the coming weeks. The report began with a look at The Newsmakers, seven artists and curators who continue to advance their practices and their projects with fresh approaches and new ideas—efforts that are recognized and often garner significant news coverage. The...
The Year in Black Art: January 2015
CULTURE TYPE IS REVIEWING The Year in Black Art 2015 in monthly installments over the coming weeks. The report began with a look at The Newsmakers, seven artists and curators who continue to advance their practices and their projects with fresh approaches and new ideas—effort thats are recognized and often garner significant news coverage. The...
The Year in Black Art 2015: The Newsmakers
OVER THE PAST YEAR, a number of black artists and curators have made news on a regular basis, whether for groundbreaking projects and exhibitions, or for earning a significant honor or appointment. These key figures—both established and recently eclipsing emerging status—are not only pushing their own practices and institutions in innovative new directions, they are...
Dawoud Bey and Mark Bradford Participate in Season 4 of Met Museum’s Artist Project
FASCINATED BY HIS BLACK-AND-WHITE IMAGES of a man in a rumpled shirt emerging from the subway seemingly propelled by an angle of light and Billie Holiday captured in soft focus, photographer Dawoud Bey discusses the style and composition of photographer Roy DeCarava (1919-2009). Bey says DeCarava was the first African American artist working in...
Culture Type Awarded 2015 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant
CULTURE TYPE HAS BEEN AWARDED a 2015 Arts Writers Grant. Recipients of this year’s grants from Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation were announced Dec. 1. The annual grant program is “designed to support writing about contemporary art, as well as to create a broader audience for arts writing, the program aims to strengthen...
Honored in February with a Chicago Homecoming, Artist Eldzier Cortor Has Died at Age 99
AFRICAN AMERICAN PAINTER AND PRINTMAKER Eldzier Cortor died on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26. Cortor was recognized for his dignified and graceful images of black women, often depicted in the nude, their lithe bodies referencing the lines of African sculpture. According to the New York Times, he died in Seaford, N.Y., on Long Island, at...
Newark Museum Acquires Norman Lewis Painting Featured in Recently Opened PAFA Retrospective
EIGHT DAYS BEFORE “Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis” opened at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), one of the large-scale canvases featured in the exhibition was acquired by the Newark Museum. The painting is one of the more striking on view in the Norman Lewis retrospective, a 1953 abstract on untreated canvas,...
David Driskell Discusses Major Aaron Douglas Painting Acquired by The Met
HIGHLY REGARDED FOR HIS GRAND MURALS and monumental canvases, artist Aaron Douglas‘s work straddled the visual and literary arts during the Harlem Renaissance. While his depictions of African American history and culture referenced ancient Egyptian motifs and traditional African forms, his graphic style was decidedly modern. Recognized for his silhouetted figures, Douglas’s work was...
Studio Museum Awards 2015 Wein Artist Prize to Njideka Akunyili Crosby
LOS ANGELES-BASED artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby is the recipient of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s 10th Annual Joyce Alexander Wien Artist Prize. Since 2006, the $50,000 prize has honored “the artistic achievements of an African American artist who demonstrates great promise and creativity.” The announcement of the annual prize was celebrated at the museum’s...
African American Artists Factor in New Developments at Hirshhorn Museum
TWO YEARS FROM NOW, in 2017, Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford (above) plans to take full advantage of the unique cylindrical structure of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. The critically recognized artist is installing a suite of site-specific paintings on the third floor of the Smithsonian museum where the work...
Photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier Among 2015 MacArthur Fellows
THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION has announced its class of 2015 fellows and photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier is among the two dozen recognized for groundbreaking work and outstanding accomplishments in their field. “These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world...
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Kalup Linzy Discuss Met Museum Works that Inspire Them
SINCE SHE WAS A TEENAGER, LaToya Ruby Frazier has been using a camera to document her family and community. Growing up in Braddock, Pa., where the steel mill was the chief employer, her photographic endeavor became a serious pursuit when the industry collapsed. The local economy failed and its citizens faced critical health challenges caused...
Mark Bradford’s Art + Practice is on a Mission to Change Lives
ART + PRACTICE IS PRESENTING “The Beautyful Ones,” Njideka Akunyili Crosby‘s first exhibition in Los Angeles. Awarded the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 2014 James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize, Nigerian-born Akunyili Crosby lives and works in Los Angeles. Curated by the Hammer Museum, the exhibition features a new body of work that “explores intimacy and interiority...
Architect David Adjaye, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and 21st Century Design
FOR THE FIRST TIME in its nearly 50-year history, the Studio Museum in Harlem plans to construct a new building designed expressly to meet the needs of its ambitious programming. The news came last month, coupled with the announcement that architect David Adjaye is designing the $122 million public-private project made possible by partial...
Chris Ofili’s ‘Holy Virgin Mary’ Make News Again, This Time Setting Auction Record
AT CHRISTIE’S LONDON, expectations were high for Chris Ofili‘s “The Holy Virgin Mary” and the results didn’t disappoint. The mixed-media painting sold for more than $4.5 million (including fees) at the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Auction last night, setting a record for the British-born Ofili. In a post-sale press release announcing the record, Christie’s called...
