What to Look Forward to in 2024: 30 Exhibitions, Books, and Events Focused on African American Artists
THE YEAR AHEAD is brimming with unprecedented opportunities to explore the work of historic and contemporary artists. Among the most anticipated are landmark surveys of Sargent Claude Johnson, the first Black artist active in California to gain national renown, and Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, the first woman of color to graduate from the Rhode Island School...
Culture Type: The 13 Best Black Art Books of 2023
The Best Black Art Books of 2023 explore the work of Simone Leigh, Benjamin Wigfall, Kerry James Marshall, Hughie Lee-Smith, Dalton Paula, William Edmondson, and more A GLORIOUS TRIBUTE and essential overview, “Simone Leigh” is the first publication to document the singular artist’s practice, which focuses on sculpture and centers Black female subjectivity. The catalogue...
On the Rise: 69 Museum Curators and Arts Leaders Who Took on Notable New Appointments in 2021
FIVE YEARS AGO, Culture Type began reporting on new appointments of Black curators, primarily in museums. The first review in 2016 was prompted by findings published by the Mellon Foundation (2015) that showed American museums employed very few Black people in positions that shape them in terms of their management and intellectual direction as...
What to Look Forward to in 2021: More Than 30 Exhibitions, Books, and Events Focused on African American Art
THE YEAR AHEAD is rife with an expansive and diverse selection of exhibitions, books and other opportunities to engage with the work of African American artists. From Austin, Texas, to Brooklyn and Boston, a notable line up of solo museum exhibitions opening in 2021 is focused on Black female artists, including Emma Amos, Sonya...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art, Key News, Exhibitions, Awards, and More That Defined 2020
Noah Davis at David Zwirner Gallery, NY BLACK ARTISTS WON NUMEROUS AWARDS, joined major art galleries, and published lavishly illustrated books about their work in 2020. Early in the year, Christine Turner’s documentary “Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business” screened at Sundance, an expansive survey of Los Angeles painter Noah Davis opened at...
Culture Type Picks: 15 Best Black Art Books of 2020
WITH MUSEUMS CLOSED and galleries shuttered for months on end in 2020, a succession of new art books focused on Black artists provided much needed solace, insights, and deep dives into the practices of up-and-coming artists and historic figures. When exhibitions dedicated to Kamoinge Workshop, Tyler Mitchell, Jordan Casteel, and Yvette Yiadom-Boakye were temporarily...
On the Rise: 54 Curators and Arts Leaders Who Took on New Appointments in 2020
REGULAR OPERATIONS AT MUSEUMS and cultural institutions were disrupted this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sector faced (and continues to contend with) temporary closures, severe financial losses, widespread layoffs, and racial reckonings. Against this backdrop and despite these challenges, dozens of Black curators were appointed to a variety of new posts this...
The Year Ahead in African American Art: What to See and Do in 2020
THE YEAR IN BLACK ART is off to a fascinating start. In January, Helen Molesworth organized a Noah Davis (1983-2015) exhibition at David Zwirner gallery in New York, a rare look at more than 20 paintings by the late Los Angeles-based artist and founder of the Underground Museum. The Johnson Publishing Company art collection...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art 2019
ONCE RELEGATED TO THE MARGINS, artists of African descent continued to migrate toward the center of the art world in 2019, claiming space on just about every front as the decade came to a close. Black contemporary artists won many of the year’s most prestigious and lucrative international art prizes. They shared their work...
Culture Type Picks: 14 Best Black Art Books of 2019
BLACK ARTISTS spanning generations are receiving more and more critical recognition and opportunities. Some of the most compelling illustrated art books published in 2019 are monographs contributing to the much-deserved and in many cases long-overdue attention of individual artists. New volumes are dedicated to Kwame Braithwaite, Robert Colescott, Lubaina Himid, Suzanne Jackson, and Julie...
On the Rise: 47 Curators and Arts Leaders Who Took on New Appointments in 2019
BLACK CURATORS have risen to significant positions at important institutions in the United States and internationally over the past year. In a field where people of color have historically been underrepresented, this 2019 listing of new curatorial and arts leadership appointments demonstrates the growing influence of people of African descent in the visual arts....
The Year Ahead in African American Art: What to Look Forward to in 2019
THE YEAR AHEAD begins and ends with major traveling exhibitions, each presenting nearly a century of works by African American artists. The January debut of “Black Refractions: Highlights From the Studio Museum in Harlem” at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco kicks off a tour of six venues. Scheduled for seven...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art 2018
IN MANY WAYS, 2018 was a watershed year for black artists. Overdue recognition of art by African American artists and black artists from throughout the world, continued to grow among collectors, curators, critics, scholars, and gallery owners. There were many indicators of the ever-expanding institutional and market interest. European attention on African American artists rose....
Culture Type Picks: 18 Best Black Art Books of 2018
The best illustrated black art books of 2018. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine THE INCREASED INTEREST among some museums in mounting exhibitions featuring the work of African American artists has translated into a growing number of catalogs published to document them, which is wonderful. Many of those catalogs made Culture Type’s 2018 list...
Next: 28 Art Curators to Watch Who Took on New Appointments in 2018
A SELECT GROUP OF BLACK CURATORS is making significant contributions to the museum field—collaborating with artists, organizing important exhibitions, shaping collections and programming, and taking advantage of opportunities to lend their expertise beyond their institutions. Their representation is growing, slowly, but their presence and achievements remain rare. On the American museum front, among curators,...
On the Horizon in African American Art: What to Look Forward to in 2018
THE YEAR AHEAD MARKS KEY HISTORIC MILESTONES. Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. King’s legacy will be honored this year through many programs and events. A new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture examines the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign,...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art 2017
POLITICS PAST AND PRESENT coursed through the art world in 2017. Issues of censorship and debates around who has the right to depict black bodies came to the fore. The biggest news stories, from White House machinations, gun violence, and immigration to the fate of Confederate monuments, racial division, and sexual harassment and assault revelations,...
Representation: 9 Artists to Watch Who Joined New Galleries in 2017
AT ANY STAGE of an artist’s career, partnership with the right gallery can be transformative. New gallery representation offers the opportunity to better communicate the focus of an artist’s practice; expose their work to a broader audience of collectors, curators, and critics; and encourage and support exhibitions, projects, and even a new creative direction. In...
Next: 23 Art Curators to Watch Who Took on New Appointments in 2017
THE ART, EXHIBITIONS, AND PROGRAMMING featured in museums and cultural institutions are largely shaped, guided and decided upon by curators, an elite group lacking racial and ethnic diversity. A recent survey from the Mellon Foundation found that representation for black curators (and conservators, educators and leaders) in the museum sector is dismal—just 4 percent. To...
A Look Back: For 8 Years, President Obama Touted Merits of Art for Change
President Obama sits for first-ever 3D Presidential portrait, which was produced by the Smithsonian Institution, June 9, 2014. | Official White House Photo by Pete Souza This post has been updated with links to the Obama White House archive site. FROM THE MOMENT President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama entered the...
