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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
SOME OF THE BEST ART BOOKS published this year focus on the past and the present. Exhibition catalogs such as “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-85” and “Soul of a “Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” and the scholarly publication “South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in...
SURVEY is a review of the latest news and happenings related to visual art by and about people of African descent, with the occasional nod to cultural matters. From left, Artists Emeka Ogboh and Simone Leigh made the shortlist for the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize. | From left, Photos by Adolphus Opara and Paul Mpagi...
THIS SPRING, Jack Whitten is sharing a previously unknown aspect of his practice with the public for the first time. “Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2016” opens at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) on April 22, 2018. Co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the show will feature 40 sculptures Whitten...
HOWARDENA PINDELL, Detail of “Oval Memory Series II: Castle Dragon,” 1980-81. LAST YEAR, ANDREA BOWERS was in conversation with Martha Rosler at the Dia Art Foundation. The two artists discussed “If You Lived Here…,” a project about homelessness and real estate in New York City Rosler presented at the Dia in 1989. Invited to...
THE PRINCIPLES AND COLLECTIVE AESTHETIC established by AfriCOBRA in 1968 are evident in the work of Gerald Williams. Exploring culture, place, and identity from a global perspective, works by the Chicago artist are on view in the Kavi Gupta booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. Williams, a co-founder of AfriCOBRA, the artist collective that...
Barnes Foundation Appointed Judia S. Jackson Head of Human Resources and Culture at Philadelphia Museum
Jun 1, 2025
Malcolm X at 100: Transformational Leader and Outspoken Orator Inspired Artworks by Jack Whitten and Barbara Chase-Riboud
May 30, 2025
Alma Thomas Way: Washington D.C., Street Where Famous African American Artist Lived is Now Named in Her Honor
May 26, 2025
On View: ‘Vanessa German: Gumball’ Presented Monumental Heads and Fallen Figures at Kasmin Gallery in New York
May 11, 2025
Los Angeles Artist Alison Saar is 2025 Recipient of David C. Driskell Prize, For 20 Years Award Has Recognized ‘Field-Defining’ Contributions to African American Art
May 9, 2025
