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An essential resource focused on visual art from a Black perspective, Culture Type explores the intersection of art, history, and culture

Fresh Out of Graduate School, Christine Sun Kim Helped to Greatly Improve Experiences of Deaf Audiences at the Whitney Museum

Fresh Out of Graduate School, Christine Sun Kim Helped to Greatly Improve Experiences of Deaf Audiences at the Whitney Museum

Christine Sun Kim gives a tour of “Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night,” her mid-career survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and first major museum exhibition. After graduate school, Kim worked in the education department at the Whitney Museum where she helped develop a...
American Sign Language Videos Explore Whitney Museum's Collection, Including Works by Simone Leigh, Archibald Motley, Diedrick Brackens, Jacob Lawrence & More

American Sign Language Videos Explore Whitney Museum’s Collection, Including Works by Simone Leigh, Archibald Motley, Diedrick Brackens, Jacob Lawrence & More

MALCOLM BAILEY, “Untitled 1969,” 1969 (acrylic on composition board, 48 × 71 15/16 inches / 121.9 × 182.7 cm). | © artist or artist’s estate, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Larry Aldrich Foundation Fund. 69.77   Reaching diverse audiences at art museums includes...
Recently Published
New Mark Bradford Exhibition Features Tribute to Fellow Abstract Painter Jack Whitten: 'It Was Comforting Because I Could Look at a Lineage'

New Mark Bradford Exhibition Features Tribute to Fellow Abstract Painter Jack Whitten: ‘It Was Comforting Because I Could Look at a Lineage’

MARK BRADFORD, Detail of “Moody Blues for Jack Whitten” (2018).   WHEN JACK WHITTEN JOINED Hauser & Wirth in April 2016, the gallery’s roster claimed two of contemporary art’s most innovative abstract painters—Whitten (1939-2018) and Mark Bradford. A generation apart, while the African American artists have unique approaches to abstraction, both have largely dedicated their...
Moments in Time: Andre D. Wagner Photographs African American Life as it Unfolds on the Streets of New York

Moments in Time: Andre D. Wagner Photographs African American Life as it Unfolds on the Streets of New York

  THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF Andre D. Wagner celebrate everyday excellence and the power of fleeting moments. The New York-based street photographer trains his camera primarily on African Americans throughout the city, documenting the many untold stories found in neighborhoods from Brooklyn and Harlem. His images of blackness have recently been featured in the New York...
Faith Ringgold's First European Exhibition is Open in London, Her Historic Lens on Race and Gender is More Relevant Than Ever

Faith Ringgold’s First European Exhibition is Open in London, Her Historic Lens on Race and Gender is More Relevant Than Ever

FAITH RINGGOLD, “American People Series #15: Hide Little Children,” 1966   THE EXPERIENCES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS and women artists half a century ago, their fight to make any kind of art they wanted and struggles to be recognized and have their work represented in mainstream institutions, has come to the fore in recent books...
Adrienne Edwards Has Been Appointed Curator of Performance at the Whitney Museum

Adrienne Edwards Has Been Appointed Curator of Performance at the Whitney Museum

THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART in New York City is welcoming a new curator of performance. Adrienne Edwards was appointed the museum’s Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance today. She is joining the Whitney in May. Edwards is a curator at Performa and a curator at-large at the Walker Art Center in...
Remembering Peggy Cooper Cafritz, the Passionate Art Collector and Education Advocate Died at 70

Remembering Peggy Cooper Cafritz, the Passionate Art Collector and Education Advocate Died at 70

Arts and Education Advocate Peggy Cooper Caftritz (1947-2018)   FOR THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT equity and access in arts and education, a major ally and important advocate has been lost. Peggy Cooper Cafrtiz (1947-2018), the Washington, D.C., arts patron who co-founded the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, died Feb. 18 at a local hospital....
Painting Power, Capturing Character: Smithsonian Unveils Official Obama Portraits

Painting Power, Capturing Character: Smithsonian Unveils Official Obama Portraits

  WASHINGTON, DC—There are many ways to define and depict power. When President Obama’s portrait was unveiled Monday, it was a reminder that leadership, command, and influence, can be inspiring and reassuring, powerful and black. Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of the former president artfully captures the man and the symbol. The image of the first African...
Art & Agency: New Book by Peggy Cooper Cafritz Explores Her Collections and Undying Support for Artists

Art & Agency: New Book by Peggy Cooper Cafritz Explores Her Collections and Undying Support for Artists

A NUMBER OF ART PATRONS boast impressive collections of African American art. Peggy Cooper Cafritz is probably the loan collector in the category who has assembled two. Over the course of 20-plus years, Cafritz acquired more than 300 works by artists such as Barkley L. Hendricks, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Yinka Shonibare,...
Knoxville Museum of Art Acquires 12 Beauford Delaney Works, Plans Major Exhibition in 2019

Knoxville Museum of Art Acquires 12 Beauford Delaney Works, Plans Major Exhibition in 2019

BEAUFORD DELANEY, “Portrait of James Baldwin,” 1944   FORTY YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, Beauford Delaney’s hometown museum plans a major exhibition dedicated to his work. Since 2014, the Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA) has been amassing a collection works by the artist. On Feb. 1, the museum announced the purchase of 12 paintings, drawings, and...
2018 David C. Driskell Prize is Going to Artist Amy Sherald

2018 David C. Driskell Prize is Going to Artist Amy Sherald

THIS MORNING, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta announced Amy Sherald is the recipient of the 2018 David C. Driskell Prize. Sherald is celebrated for her imaginative portraits of real people and in the past few years has received wide-spread recognition for her distinct work. Recently, she was commissioned to paint First Lady Michelle...
Re-Birth of the Cool: A Second Printing of the Catalog for the Seminal Barkley Hendricks Exhibition Has Been Published

Re-Birth of the Cool: A Second Printing of the Catalog for the Seminal Barkley Hendricks Exhibition Has Been Published

  A DECADE AGO TODAY, “Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” opened at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (Feb. 7-July 13, 2008). The traveling survey brought renewed attention to Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017), the artist and photographer whose powerful portraits dating from the 1960s and 70s masterfully capture the individuality, attitude...
Lines of Influence: Commissioned Works by Barbara Earl Thomas and Derrick Adams Respond to Legacy of Jacob Lawrence

Lines of Influence: Commissioned Works by Barbara Earl Thomas and Derrick Adams Respond to Legacy of Jacob Lawrence

Barbara Earl Thomas discusses her commissioned work “Caught in the Matrix” (2017).   SAVANNAH, GA. — A luminesce installation glows and emits shadows at the far end of the gallery. The floor to the ceiling work is a series of paper-cut panels of Tyvek. Standing 14-feet high, from a distance it appears lantern-like. Up close,...
The Month in African American Art: Here's What Happened in January 2018

The Month in African American Art: Here’s What Happened in January 2018

The art world is mourning artist Jack Whitten (left) and curator Kynaston McShine.   THE WORLD OF ART lost two important figures in January—inventive abstract painter Jack Whitten (1939-2018) and pioneering MoMA curator Kynaston McShine (1935-2018). In “Jack Whitten: Five Decades of Painting,” the catalog published to coincide with Whitten’s career-spanning survey (2014-15), the artist...
Lines of Influence: Centennial Exhibition Explores Jacob Lawrence's Connections with Artists Past and Present

Lines of Influence: Centennial Exhibition Explores Jacob Lawrence’s Connections with Artists Past and Present

Jacob Lawrence, “The Card Game,” 1953   SAVANNAH, GA. — Sixty-five years ago, Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) made a painting about a Harlem card game, depicting four nattily dressed card players in the midst of a hand. Left to the devices of a lesser artist, an image of black people engaged in a game of cards...
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Hires Curator Allison Glenn, Expanding its Contemporary Art Team

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Hires Curator Allison Glenn, Expanding its Contemporary Art Team

  THE CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM of American Art announced the appointment of Allison Glenn as associate curator, contemporary art. She joins the museum’s expanding contemporary art team and will contribute to all aspects of its work, including exhibition development, publications, and long-term planning. Glenn begins work at Crystal Bridges on Feb. 12. Glenn comes to...
Coming Soon: Major Charles White Retrospective to be Presented at Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Coming Soon: Major Charles White Retrospective to be Presented at Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art

  A LARGE-SCALE RETROSPECTIVE of works by Charles White (1918-1979) debuts this summer in Chicago and will travel to New York and Los Angeles, cities where the artist spent key periods of his life. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced the exhibition today. “Charles White: A Retrospective” is organized by MoMA, where it will...
Jack Whitten, the Pioneering and Inventive Abstract Painter, Dies at 78

Jack Whitten, the Pioneering and Inventive Abstract Painter, Dies at 78

  IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT EXPERIMENTATION. For more than half a century, Jack Whitten (1939-2018) pursued the possibilities of paint, material, and technique. While constantly evolving his conceptual practice, he remained proudly political, committed to exploring weighty issues, and intent on lifting up the legacies of fellow African American artists and cultural figures by paying...
Studio Museum in Harlem Offers 'Last Look' Before Making Way for New Building

Studio Museum in Harlem Offers ‘Last Look’ Before Making Way for New Building

  AN ERA IN ART HISTORY is coming to an end in order to make way for the future. The Studio Museum in Harlem is closing for three years while a new building designed by architect David Adjaye is built at its current West 125th Street location. The groundbreaking is set for this fall and...
On the Horizon in African American Art: What to Look Forward to in 2018

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,...
New Artforum Editor Describes Kia LaBeija as 'An Artist I Immediately Needed Know.' Her Work Covers Latest Issue of Magazine

New Artforum Editor Describes Kia LaBeija as ‘An Artist I Immediately Needed Know.’ Her Work Covers Latest Issue of Magazine

  AN AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHIC SELF-PORTRAIT by Kia LaBeija covers the January issue of Artforum. LaBeija is a young African American artist who describes her practice as exploring “her personal narrative and the relationship between space, trauma, and the female body.” David Velasco, the new editor of Artforum, says he saw LaBeija’s work for the first...
'Face of MoMA's Future'?: Brigitte Lacombe Commission Features Museum's Diverse Young Curators and Collaborators

‘Face of MoMA’s Future’?: Brigitte Lacombe Commission Features Museum’s Diverse Young Curators and Collaborators

  THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (MoMA) asked photographer Brigitte Lacombe to create a visual commission (read photographic portraits and a video) for its Creative New York platform featuring the young curators, artists, fellows and collaborators who represent “the face of MoMA’s future.” A demographically diverse group of creatives was selected to participate. All the...