Photo by Victoria L. Valentine YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, A GROUP OF ARTISTS staged a die-in at the Armory Show in New York. About a dozen people chanted “I can’t breathe” and then they fell to the floor at Pier 94 where the international art show has been open to the public since Thursday. According to...
WHEN OKWUI ENWEZOR WAS NAMED director of the Visual Arts Sector of the 56th Venice Biennale on Dec. 4, 2013, the appointment was historic. Nigerian-born Enwezor, the increasingly influential curator, writer and critic who serves as director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, is the first African director of the Venice Biennale. At the...
EARLIER THIS MONTH, Toyin Odutola spoke to BOMB magazine about race, representation and inspiration. The Nigerian-born artist’s work is instantly recognizable. Executed in charcoal, ink and often ballpoint pen, her self portraits and images of her brothers and others are usually set against dark backgrounds, the subject’s skin depicted in black hues defined by...
Malcolm X reading an article about the Nation of Islam written and photographed by Gordon Parks that was published in the May 31, 1963, edition of Life magazine. | Photo: Robert Flora/Corbis FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. To pay tribute to her father, Ilyasah Shabazz...
LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE FINDS PAINTING “DIFFICULT.” Critically recognized for her moody-hued paintings of people who sprout from her imagination (above), the British artist says the challenge is a good thing. “I paint because I love doing it and because I never stop finding it difficult,” she told Frieze magazine. “I always feel like I’m trying to...
THE NEW YORKER IS CELEBRATING its 90th anniversary with nine covers by nine illustrators including award-winning artist Kadir Nelson. The magazine’s first issue in February 1925 featured a “starchy-looking gent with the beaver hat and the monocle,” an iconic character who later became known as Eustace Tilley. Standing the test of time, Tilley has been...
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]...
On View: ‘In the Medium of Life: The Drawings of Beauford Delaney’ at The Drawing Center in New York Explores Centrality of Drawing in Artist’s Practice
Aug 11, 2025
New African Masquerades: Museums in United States and West Africa Presenting Landmark Look at Contemporary Masquerade Practices
Aug 9, 2025
Culture Type | The Month in Black Art: Here’s What Happened in July 2025
Aug 7, 2025
On the Market: Artist Lorna Simpson’s Studio, Custom-Designed by David Adjaye in Brooklyn, New York
Aug 6, 2025
Betye Saar, 99, Formed a Scholarly Committee of International Curators Charged with Advancing Her Artistic Legacy
Jul 30, 2025
