WHEN THE HAMMER CAME DOWN at Phillips London, Mark Bradford’s “Biting the Book” sold for more than $3.8 million, a record for the Los Angeles-based artist. A large-scale, mixed-media painting created in 2013, it was featured in Bradford’s “Through the Darkest America by Truck and Tank” exhibition at the Bermondsey location of White Cube...
KEHINDE WILEY, “Femme piquée par un serpent,” 2008 (oil on canvas). | Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York. © Kehinde Wiley IN ADVANCE OF HIS RETROSPECTIVE “A New Republic” opening at the Brooklyn Museum on Feb. 20, the New York Times profiled Kehinde Wiley. Deborah Solomon visited the artist at his studio in the...
THIS WINTER IS PROVING TO BE UNPREDICTABLE, with massive snow expected one week and relatively mild temperatures the next. On the art front, the forecast this season is more reliable with a robust slate of exhibitions, from New York, San Francisco and Ontario to London and Munich, featuring a range of modern and contemporary black...
THE COLOR-INFUSED CANVASES of Sam Gilliam, un-stretched and un-framed, are suspended from the ceiling of the American embassy in Bamako, Mali. Across the globe, visitors to America’s diplomatic outposts in more than 20 countries have been greeted by the innovative work of the Washington Color School artist. On view from Lima and Rabat to...
Marchers on the way to Montgomery, Ala., as families watch from their porches, 1965 | Courtesy Stephen Somerstein WITHOUT THE IMAGES, the protracted fight for American civil rights is an abstract notion. The legal outcomes are tangible, but the untenable measures undertaken by countless foot soldiers in the pursuit of racial justice are brought...
TODAY IS FIRST LADY OBAMA’s 51st birthday. From the moment she entered the national spotlight, Obama has been a history maker and a cultural icon. Mickalene Thomas was inspired by the latter image when she made what is considered the first solo portrait of Obama, a print donated to the Obama campaign shortly before the...
RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Gary Simmons” by Jodie Bass | BOMB Magazine For Prospect 3 in New Orleans (open through Jan. 25), Gary Simmons built “Recapturing the Memories of the Black Ark,” a site-specific “sculpture activated by live musicians.” Jodie...
WITH A NEW YEAR UNDERWAY and a promising selection of new books, exhibitions and events on the horizon, here is what is on my radar, what I am most looking forward to in 2015: “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” a sweeping new exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Jan. 10 – April...
IT WAS A THRILL TO OPEN the January issue of W magazine and find photographer Lorna Simpson’s evocative images of the cast of “12 Years a Slave” and conclude the year with a package delivered after Christmas containing “Du Bois in Our Time,” a visual testament to the intellectual’s legacy. In the months between, some...
OFFERING COVERAGE OF ARTS AND CULTURE that rivals its fashion reporting, W magazine has recently trained its lens on several Black artists. In November, articles were published on Sam Gilliam and Rashid Johnson. Though separated by nearly two generations, the artists are closely connected. Both are represented by David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles where...
FROM THE DAK’ART BIENNIAL in Senegal, to the 1:54 art fair in London and Prospect.3 in New Orleans, 2014 was brimming with compelling exhibitions, innovative projects and well-deserved honors. Kara Walker’s sugar sphinx installation in Brooklyn was perhaps the most thought-provoking and buzzed about exhibition of the year; Chris Ofili’s “Night and Day” survey at...
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM CULTURE TYPE. Whenever this time of year rolls around, I begin to think of images documenting the holiday season and none resonate more than the black-and-white photographs of James VanDerZee (1886-1983). The renowned Harlem photographer took a couple of memorable Christmas images in 1933 that document the vintage charm of traditional...
OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS, Hyperallergic has published impassioned essays by two Black women expressing their frustration with the racial dynamics of the art world. Both are ensconced in it—one is a public relations rep; the other a performance artist. Their stories are very different, but each became so fed up with the veiled...
RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Considering Brazil’s Racial Heritage” by Laura C. Mallonee | Hyperallergic Laura C. Malonnee speaks with Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão, who lives and works in Rio De Janeiro, about the “two contrasting subjects that have preoccupied [her]...
THE BEST EXHIBITION CATALOGS do more than document their gallery counterparts. They provide critical context, visual reference, an opportunity for innovative design that reflects the work, and a format in which the exhibition can live beyond its presentation dates. This year, there were a number of remarkable exhibitions featuring Black artists and the coinciding catalogs...
RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Theaster Gates by Tom McDonough” | Bomb Magazine Tom McDonough engages Chicago artist and urban visionary Theaster Gates in a conversation about the many activities that define his robust, less-than-a-decade old practice. McDonough, chair...
NOTHING BEATS SPENDING THE HOLIDAYS in New York City and the best way to avoid the clutch of shoppers is to sneak away and take in some art. All around Manhattan, from the New Museum, where British-born Chris Ofili’s first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum is on view, to the Metropolitan Museum of...
LIKE SO MANY OTHER AMERICANS, artist Titus Kaphar has been struggling with how to respond to the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the choking death of Eric Garner in New York, and the countless other incidents involving police officers killing unarmed Black men and youth across the country. Ultimately, he expressed himself...
WHAT MAKES AN EXHIBITION exceptional? For artist Glenn Ligon, it must be “rigorous, challenging, and beautifully installed” and it really registers if it causes him to self reflect. “A good exhibition is one that makes me reconsider my own practice,” he says in Artforum. The magazine’s December “Best of 2014” issue takes a look back...
RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “The Met Embraces Neglected Southern Artists” by Paige Williams | The New Yorker The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the acquisition of dozens of works by African American self-taught artists from the South including Thornton Dial,...
Vogue’s ‘Black Dandy’ Issue is Fashion Forward and Artist Centered, Featuring Photographs by Tyler Mitchell and Cover Painted by Henry Taylor
May 2, 2025
New Obama Presidential Center Artist Commissions Include Lindsay Adams Painting Inspired by Langston Hughes Poem
Apr 26, 2025
Turner Prize 2025 Shortlist of Four British Artists Includes Nnena Kalu and Rene Matić
Apr 24, 2025
Diallo Simon-Ponte is Joining Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, as Inaugural Sam Gilliam Assistant Curator of Artist Programs
Apr 23, 2025
On View: ‘Alberta Whittle: Towards a Motherful Loving Praxis, We Cast Seeds Into the Darkness’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York
Apr 19, 2025
