A Call for Justice and Healing, Nina Chanel Abney’s First Public Art Installation in Canada Declares ‘Stop,’ ‘Don’t Kill,’ and ‘Love’
A NEW THOUGHT-PROVOKING PROJECT from Yorkville Murals implores the community to choose joy and hope over violence and despair. “Generally Speaking” by Nina Chanel Abney is the artist’s first public art work in Canada. Installed in Toronto’s Yorkville district, the 120-foot street mural (one-third the length of a football field) is replete with the...
Nina Chanel Abney’s First New Yorker Cover Raises a Glass to Post-Covid Return of New York Social Culture
FOR HER FIRST COVER of The New Yorker, Nina Chanel Abney made an image that celebrates a return to socializing. The portrait references Eustace Tilley, the magazine’s famous dandy mascot. Abney’s version is a Black female dandy who appears on the May 31 issue of the magazine. Enjoying a cocktail outdoors among a few...
Paintings by 4 Black Female Artists Set Auction Records at Christie’s Evening Sale: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Nina Chanel Abney, Mickalene Thomas, Jordan Casteel
PAINTINGS BY 10 OF THE MOST HIGHLY REGARDED Black contemporary artists active today were featured in Christie’s inaugural 21st Century Evening Sale in New York. Six set new artist records, including four figurative works by women artists. Nina Chanel Abney‘s powerful 2015 painting of two Black cops arresting a white man sold for $990,000....
Nina Chanel Abney Embraces the Great Outdoors in ‘Idyllic Scenes of Blackness’
“Nina Chanel Abney: The Great Escape” at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. A CAMPFIRE, BIKES, AND FRESHLY CAUGHT FISH have replaced the tumult and complexity of contemporary urban life that have animated Nina Chanel Abney‘s paintings in recent years. Her latest exhibition features rural scenes: farming, hunting, and kayaking. The graphic, boldly hued paintings...
There’s a New Wave of Critically Recognized Black Female Artists. These Publications are the First to Document Their Work
A NEW WAVE OF BLACK FEMALE ARTISTS has been making strides in the art world, over the past several years, with major exhibitions, museum acquisitions, collector support, gallery representation, and auction records that most practitioners don’t see in their entire careers. These recent publications are the first major volumes to document the individual practices...
Curated by Painter Nina Chanel Abney, ‘Punch’ at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles Gathers More Than 30 of Her Artist Friends
AN AMAZING PAINTER who juggles a variety of projects and collaborations, Nina Chanel Abney has been channeling her talents as a curator. Last fall, Abney organized “Punch” at Jeffrey Deitch in New York. The show focused on 19 artists in her circle whose work, similar to her own, examines contemporary life through the lens...
Paintings By Black Female Artists Soar at London Contemporary Auctions, Records Set by Kara Walker, Tschabalala Self, Nina Chanel Abney, and Toyin Ojih Odutola
IN VIVID BLACK AND BLUE, “Four Idioms on Negro Art #4 Primitivism” (2015) by Kara Walker depicts a violent confrontation among four silhouetted figures. A police officer in combat gear hovers over the scene. A phallus hanging between his wide spread legs, he is kicking a male figure that is sucking the breast of...
Holiday Gift Guide 2018: Selections Inspired by the Works of African American Artists Jack Whitten, Mickalene Thomas, Charles White & More
FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA recommends giving a gift of museum membership this holiday season. On the occasion of the publication of her new book “Becoming,” Obama contributed a gift guide to People magazine. She said when she first became a mom, she and her girlfriends would take their children on museum tours. She mentioned...
Nina Chanel Abney Debuts a New Series of Monumental Works at Pace Prints
WHETHER ITS THE BREAKING NEWS or a song she recently heard, Nina Chanel Abney is inspired by contemporary events and meaningful moments that often find their way into her work and may spontaneously define or change its direction. A new generation storyteller, Abney blends abstraction and figuration. Her images draw on the public discourse,...
‘Royal Flush’: Artist Nina Chanel Abney Debuts in Los Angeles at Two Museums
IN A 2008 PAINTING, Nina Chanel Abney brought together the seemingly disparate images of her friend Randal, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a pack of dogs, and Michael Vick, the NFL player who was serving 21 months in prison for participating in dog fighting, when the work was made. Titled “Randaleeza,” the...
Corcoran Collection Art Goes to Howard University, and Smithsonian African American and Anacostia Museums
Sam Gilliam’s 1969 painting, “Light Depth” will be added to the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. | Courtesy Corcoran Collection THE REMAINING ART from the Corcoran Gallery of Art has been distributed. More than 10,750 works were given away. Nearly all of it went to 22 institutions in Washington, D.C. The...
The Week in African American Art: Solange Creates Performance with Dozens of Dancers and White Minimalist Cube & More
PROJECTS/UNVEILINGS | Solange Ferguson, “Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube),” 2018, at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles The following review of the past week presents a snapshot of the latest news in African American art and related culture: NEWS Jerome Meadows, a Savannah, Ga.-based artist has been commissioned to create a memorial to Ed Johnson,...
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,...
Culture Type Picks: The 14 Best Black Art Books of 2017
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...
November Exhibitions: 18 New Shows Feature African American Artists Nick Cave, Ellen Gallagher, Sam Gilliam, Mark Bradford, Nina Chanel Abney, Kehinde Wiley, and More
“White River Fish Kill” (2017) by Nina Chanel Abney. PROSPECT.4 OPENS TO THE PUBLIC on Saturday. The international triennial features major exhibitions and inventive installations by more than 70 artists, including prominent artists of African descent, the late Barkley L. Hendricks, Derrick Adams, John Akomfrah, Hank Willis Thomas, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kahlil Joseph, Odili...
February Exhibitions: Edgar Arceneaux, Lorna Simpson, Dread Scott, and Nina Chanel Abney’s First Solo Museum Show
A NUMBER OF EXHIBITION FIRSTS coincide with Black History Month this year. “Royal Flush,” Nina Chanel Abney’s first solo museum show opens Feb. 16 at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. In February, South African artist Nicholas Hlobo is presenting his first exhibition in Sweden. Major works by British artists Yinka Shonibare...
