The Year Ahead in African American Art: What to See and Do in 2020

THE YEAR IN BLACK ART is off to a fascinating start. In January, Helen Molesworth organized a Noah Davis (1983-2015) exhibition at David Zwirner gallery in New York, a rare look at more than 20 paintings by the late Los Angeles-based artist and founder of the Underground Museum. The Johnson Publishing Company art collection was sold at Swann Auction Galleries, introducing more than 24 new African American artists to the auction market and setting records for an additional 27 artists, according to Swann.

There is much more to come as the year unfolds. Recognizing the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, a number of institutions are planning exhibitions and events reflecting the historic milestone, none more ambitious than the Baltimore Museum of Art where all of its 2020 programming is focused on women artists, including Mickalene Thomas, Valerie Maynard, SHAN Wallace, and Shinique Smith.

Across the United States, major photography exhibitions are opening featuring Dawoud Bey, Deana Lawson, and Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop. South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s first major UK survey opens at the Tate Modern in April. Solo shows at major institutions are celebrating artists such as Jordan Casteel, Tschabalala Self, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Christina Quarles, and Deborah Roberts, who focus on portraiture and black figures. Huge events are also happening in Bentonville, Ark., with the debut of a new arts space, and New Orleans, where Prospect.5 opens in October.

Following is a selection of more than two dozen important exhibitions, events, and happenings to look forward to in 2020:

“A Moment’s Pleasure” is an installation by Mickalene Thomas on view in the East Lobby of the Baltimore Museum of Art. | Photo by Mitro Hood

EXHIBITIONS | Multiple Shows Featuring Women Artists @ Baltimore Museum of Art | Throughout 2020

Last November, the Baltimore Museum of Art announced it would exclusively acquire artworks by women in 2020 and mount 22 exhibitions featuring the work of women artists or focused on women as subjects. The radical gesture was designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. The museum’s all-female programming was inaugurated at the end of last year with “Mickalene Thomas: A Moment’s Pleasure,” an installation in the East Lobby (Nov. 24, 2019-May 2021). Additional exhibitions on view this year include “SHAN Wallace: 410” (March 1-June 28, 2020), “Valerie Maynard: Lost and Found” (March 1-June 28, 2020), “Howardena Pindell: Free, White and 21” (March 1-June 28, 2020), “Elissa Blount Moorhead and Bradford Young: Back and Song” (March 1-June 28, 2020), and “Shinique Smith: Grace Stands Beside” (March 15-Aug. 9, 2020). More

Installation view of Derek Fordjour: Shelter, CAM St. Louis (Jan 17-April 19, 2020). Shown, From left, “Two More Years” (2018) and “Rally Finale” (2017). | Photo by Dusty Kessler

EXHIBITION | Derek Fordjour: Shelter @ Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis | Jan 17-April 19, 2020

For his first major solo museum show, New York-based Derek Fordjour has fashioned an exhibition space as a form of shelter with corrugated metal walls and a dirt floor. The immersive experience is intended to remind museum goers of the perils and uncertainty of the world. Displayed within the makeshift space, Fordjour’s layered portraits of athletes, cheer squads, and marching bands explore a variety of themes through the lens of sport—from identity, inequality, and spectacle to competition, excellence, and community.

JACOB LAWRENCE, “We crossed the River at McKonkey’s Ferry 9 miles above Trenton…the night was excessively severe…which the men bore without the least murmur… —Tench Tilghman, 27 December 1776,” Panel 10, 1954, from Struggle: From the History of the American People,” 1954–56 (egg tempera on hardboard). | Metropolitan Museum of Art. © The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

EXHIBITION | “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle” @ Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. | Jan. 18-April 26, 2020

This museum exhibition reunites for the first time in more than six decades Jacob Lawrence‘s “Struggle: From the History of the American People” (1954–56). The 30-panel series documents moments dating from 1770 to 1817. A fully illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition, which is traveling to four venues: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, Seattle Art Museum, and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Installation view of “Tschabalala Self: Out of Body,” ICA Boston (Jan. 20-July 5, 2020). | Photo by Mel Taing, © Tschabalala

EXHIBITION | “Tschabalala Self: Out of Body” @ Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston | Jan. 20-July 5, 2020

Tschabalala Self‘s large-scale figurative paintings blend drawing, printmaking, sewing, and collage and feature a cast of expressive characters whose exaggerated forms represent strength, memories, emotions, and femininity. Self has described her figures as the kind of people she might meet in Harlem, the neighborhood where she grew up. Showcasing new works alongside recent paintings and sculpture, “Out of Body” is her largest exhibition to date and first show in Boston.

KEHINDE WILEY (American, born 1977), “Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps,” 2005 (oil on canvas, 108 x 108 inches / 274.3 x 274.3 cm). | Brooklyn Museum, Partial gift of Suzi and Andrew Booke Cohen in memory of Ilene R. Booke and in honor of Arnold L. Lehman, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, and William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund , 2015.53. © artist or artist’s estate, Photo by Brooklyn Museum

EXHIBITION | Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley @ Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, N.Y. | January 24–May 10, 2020

Kehinde Wiley‘s portraits reimagine classic European paintings with black and brown figures. Wiley’s “Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps” (2005) is in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. The painting was inspired by Jacques-Louis David’s “Bonaparte Crossing the Alps” (1800–1). This unprecedented presentation brings together two works and two artists across two centuries.

Kamoinge photographers reflect on the formation of the group and the influences of Louis H. Draper. | Video by Virginia Museum of Fine Art

EXHIBITION | “Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop” @ Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond | Feb. 1-June 14, 2020

In 1963, Richmond-born Louis H. Draper helped create the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of black photographers in New York who approached their work as a form of art. Focusing on the first 20 years of the group, this exhibition presents more than 180 photographs by 15 early members, including Anthony Barboza, Adger Cowans, Roy DeCarava, Louis Draper, Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, and Shawn Walker. A new exhibition catalog accompanies the show.

DAWOUD BEY, “Three Women at a Parade, Harlem NY,” 1978, from the Series Harlem U.S.A. (gelatin silver print). | Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, Stephen Daiter Gallery, and Rena Bransten Gallery, © Dawoud Bey

EXHIBITION | Dawoud Bey: An American Project @ San Francisco Museum of Modern Art | Feb. 15-May 25, 2020

The first major retrospective in 25 years of Chicago-based photographer Dawoud Bey presents about 80 works from eight major series over more than four decades and highlights his commitment “to portraying the black subject and African-American history in a manner that is at once direct and poetic, and immediate and symbolic.” The exhibition will travel to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

“Dawoud Bey has dedicated more than four decades to portraying underrepresented communities and histories. From portraits in Harlem to nocturnal landscapes, classic street photography to large-scale studio portraits, his works combine an ethical imperative with an unparalleled mastery of his medium.” — SFMOMA

JORDAN CASTEEL, “Fallou,” 2018 (oil on canvas, 90 × 78 inches / 228.6 × 198.1 cm). | © Jordan Casteel, Courtesy Casey Kaplan, New York

EXHIBITION | “Jordan Casteel: Within Reach” @ New Museum, New York, N.Y. | Feb. 19-May 24, 2020

Jordan Casteel‘s portraits bring attention to people who aren’t ordinarily centered and capture the full humanity of her subjects. Her first solo museum exhibition in New York features nearly 40 paintings spanning her short but acclaimed career. A fully illustrated catalog. will accompany the exhibition. Casteel will be in conversation at the museum Feb. 29 and April 5.

Exterior view of The Momentary in the evening, Bentonville, Ark. | Photo by Dero Sanford, Courtesy The Momentary

ARTS SPACE | The Momentary, Bentonville, Ark. | Grand Opening Feb. 22, 2020

The Momentary is a new satellite venue opened by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Housed in downtown Bentonville in a decommissioned cheese factory, the multidisciplinary space will present visual and performing arts, culinary experiences, and festivals, and also serve artists-in-residence. The visual arts programming is organized by Crystal Bridges curators, led by Lauren Haynes with Alejo Benedetti and Allison Glenn. The inaugural exhibition “State of the Art 2020” (Feb. 22-May 24, 2020) features 61 artists spread across both locations—the museum and The Momentary.

A selection of objects from public and private collections on view in “Seeing Chicago.”

EXHIBITION | “Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago” @ Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago | Feb. 29-May 10, 2020

Mining the collection of MCA Chicago and other public and private holdings in Chicago, fashion designer Duro Olowu explores relationships and connections between artists and objects presenting a mosaic of Chicago’s cultural and artistic history and identity. A book, “Duro Olowu: Seeing,” is being published to accompany the exhibition, which is guest-curated by Olowu with MCA Chicago Senior Curator Naomi Beckwith. Olowu previously organized exhibitions at Salon 94 in New York City and Camden Arts Centre in London (“Making & Unmaking” in 2016).

HANK WILLIS THOMAS, “Icarus,” 2016 (quilt, 56 1/2 x 85 1/4 X 2 inches). | © Hank Willis Thomas. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

EXHIBITION | “Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition” @ Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. | Feb. 29-May 24, 2020

Exploring the complicated influences of European modernists on African American artists active in the 20th and 21st centuries, this show brings together works by more than 50 artists including William H. Johnson, Pablo Picasso, Romare Bearden, Bob Thompson, Felrath Hines, Henri Matisse, Sam Middleton, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellen Gallagher, Winold Reiss, Vincent van Gogh, Mickalene Thomas, John Edmonds, and Hank Willis Thomas. Curated by Adrienne Childs, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog.

DERRICK ADAMS (American, born 1970), “Floater 17,” 2016 (acrylic paint and fabric collage on paper, 50 × 50 inches). | Pizzuti Collection

EXHIBITION | “Derrick Adams: Buoyant” @ Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, N.Y. | March 7-June 14, 2020

Images of African Americans lounging on pool floats are among the most recognizable works by Derrick Adams. The Brooklyn-based artist is presenting the series, Floaters, for the first time in a museum exhibition. The show also includes We Came to Party and Plan, a new body of work he created during his Rauschenberg Residency in summer 2019. A fully illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition, which is traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Fla., in July 2020.

Installation view of KAHLIL JOSEPH, “BLKNWS,” 2018-2019 (two-channel newscast), 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, “May You Live in Interesting Times,” 2019. | © Kahlil Joseph, Photo courtesy the artist

INSTALLATION | BLKNWS: Kahlil Joseph @ Brooklyn Academy of Music and Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, N.Y. | March 23-June 21, 2020

Drawing on a variety of historical and contemporary sources, BLKNWS is a brilliant and loving affirmation of black culture by Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker Kahlil Joseph. After premiering at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and being presented at David Zwirner gallery earlier this year (part of his brother Noah Davis’s exhibition), the two-channel installation will be on view at three venues—BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building, BAM Strong, and the Weeksville Heritage Center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Kahlil Joseph’s distinctive use of juxtaposition and montage produces a positively pitched news broadcast in the form of a visual art experience that delivers strangely truthful, original, and hyper-contemporary insights into the human condition. — Brooklyn Academy of Music

ROBERT BLACKBURN, “Girl in Red,” 1950 (lithograph, 18 1/4 x 13 1/2). | Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Photograph by Karl Peterson

EXHIBITION | “Robert Blackburn & Modern American Printmaking” @ Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Mo. | March 28-Aug. 2, 2020

A pioneering figure in 20th century printmaking, Robert Blackburn was a master printer and influential teacher. In 1947, he founded the Printmaking Workshop in New York City. The collaborative graphic studio continues to serve artists today. Exploring his life and work, the exhibition presents 70 original prints by Blackburn and many other artists with whom he collaborated, including Charles Alston (Blackburn’s former instructor), Romare Bearden, Grace Hartigan, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Rauschenberg, Faith Ringgold, and Charles White.

After staging an electrifying dance installation at the Park Avenue Armory, Nick Cave is introducing the immersive experience to Chicago. | Photo by Da Ping Luo

INSTALLATION | “Nick Cave: The Let Go” @ Navy Pier, Chicago | April 3-12, 2020

Chicago-based artist Nick Cave is organizing a free dance party cum interactive performance installation. He is turning Festival Hall at the Navy Pier into a venue where Chicago dance companies and choreographers will perform and the public can let loose, too. Bringing the community together through dance and movement, Cave is reprising the immersive, commissioned work he presented at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2018.

CHRISTINA QUARLES, “Peer Amid (Peered Amidst),” 2019 (acrylic on canvas, 55 x 86 inches x 2 inches). | © Christina Quarles, Courtesy of the artist, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London

EXHIBITION | Christina Quarles @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago | April 4-Aug. 23, 2020

Fascinating, ambiguous, and provocative, the figurative compositions of Los Angeles-based Christina Quarles are animated by her creative and strategic use of color. Her tangled and intertwined bodies “are subjected not only to the weight and gravity of the physical world but also to the pleasures and pressures of the social realm.” The exhibition is the largest presentation of her work to date. A selection of works made over the past three years and a new large-scale installation will be on view.

The work of Christina Quarles explores the universal experience of existing within a body, as well as the ways race, gender, and sexuality intersect to form complex identities. — MCA Chicago

“Busi Sigasa, Braamfontein, Johannesburg,” 2006 (silver gelatin print). | © Zanele Muholi

EXHIBITION | Zanele Muholi @ Tate Modern, London | April 29-Oct. 18, 2020

Tate Modern is presenting the first major UK survey of South African visual activist Zanele Muholi, whose work brings visibility to the LGBTQI community in South Africa. Muholi first gained international recognition with Only Half the Picture, an early photographic series highlighting the experiences of black lesbians in South Africa. Even wider acclaim has accompanied Somnyama Ngonyama, a more recent ongoing series of self-portraits. The career-spanning exhibition features about 260 photographs dating from the early 2000s.

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE, “Complication,” 2013 (oil on canvas). | © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Private Collection

EXHIBITION | “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly With League of the Night” @ Tate Britain, London | May 20-Aug. 31, 2020

British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye makes portraits of timeless, imagined figures. Tate Britain is presenting her first major museum survey. About 80 paintings and works on paper spanning her career, from 2003 to the present, will be on view.

FIRELEI BÁEZ, ICA Watershed installation rendering, 2019. | Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Rendering by Nate Garner

INSTALLATION | Firelei Baez @ ICA Watershed, Boston Harbor Shipyard | May 24-Sept. 7, 2020

Commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Firelei Báez‘s new work will be her largest installation to date. The monumental sculpture “imagines the archeological ruins of the Sans-Souci Palace in Haiti as though they were revealed in East Boston after the sea receded from the Watershed floor.”

BBC journalist Laeila Adjovi won the Grand Prize at the 2018 Dakar Biennale. Shown here, her series of photographes titled ‘Malaïka Dotou Sankofa’ was inspired by the idea of breaking free. | Courtesy Dakar Biennale

BIENNIAL Dakar Biennale 2020, Dakar, Senegal | May 28-June 28, 2020

The Dakar Biennale is the oldest and largest biennial in Africa. Under the artistic direction of Malick Ndiaye, the international exhibition at the former Palace of Justice in Dakar will showcase the work of 64 artists. The theme of the exhibition is Forging / Out of the Fire, a reference to “the founding of African creativity, which nurtures the diversity of African contemporary creativity, while planning new ways to relate and understand Africa.”

Green Book Cover, 1959 | Courtesy Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, New York Public Library

EXHIBITION | “The Green Book” @ National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tenn. | June 13-Sept. 13, 2020

The Green Book was a national guide developed in 1936 by Harlem postman Victor Green to help African Americans navigate road travel safely and with dignity during Jim Crow. The guide was an invaluable resource providing a listing of businesses, such as restaurants and hotels, where African Americans were welcome. The exhibition will explore the reality of the segregation era that made the resource necessary, black-owned businesses that thrived during the period, and the rising leisure class in the black community. A Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition, this show is organized in collaboration with Candacy Taylor, a photographer, cultural documentarian, and author of “Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America.” Explore Green Books in Schomburg Collection

The High Line at night. | Photo by Liz Ligon, Courtesy High Line

FESTIVAL | Out of Line, The High Line, New York, N.Y. | July 2020

Broadway playwright Jeremy O. Harris (“Slave Play”) is co-curating the High Line’s annual summer performance series featuring a variety of contemporary artists. For the first time, the event is a multi-day festival. With Diya Vij, High Line associate curator of public programs, Harris is organizing a slate of original commissioned performances over three days “with an emphasis on the interdisciplinary and experimental.” More

Rendering of proposed project, “Day’s End,” looking west. | Courtesy Guy Nordenson and Associates

PUBLIC ART | “David Hammons: Day’s End” @ Hudson River Park, Gansevoort Peninsula, New York, N.Y. | September 2020

David Hammons is erecting a “ghost” monument on the Hudson River waterfront. Three years in the making, the project is inspired by the work of Gordon Matta Clarke who cut openings in an industrial shed on the same site, creating an architectural installation animated by light and shadow.

DEBORAH ROBERTS, “When you see me,” 2019 (mixed media and collage on canvas, 65 x 120 inches; Framed, 67 1/4 x 122 inches). | © Deborah Roberts. Image courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

EXHIBITION | “Deborah Roberts: I’m” @ The Contemporary Austin, Texas | Sept. 12, 2020-Jan. 31, 2021

For her first solo exhibition in a Texas museum, Austin-based Deborah Roberts is presenting a selection of new paintings and works on paper. Roberts makes collage portraits of African American boys and girls combining found images with hand-painted details. The works explore race and identity, perceptions and vulnerability. In addition to her mixed-media works, Roberts is showing two new interactive sound, text, and video sculptures and the museum has commissioned her to create a mural on the museum’s exterior.

Deborah Roberts focuses her gaze on African American children—historically, and still today, among the most vulnerable members of our population—investigating how societal pressures, projected images of beauty or masculinity, and the violence of American racism conditions their experiences growing up in this country as well as how others perceive them. — Contemporary Austin

Marigny Opera House, New Orleans. | Photo by Pompo Bresciani, Courtesy Prospect New Orleans

TRIENNIAL | Prospect.5: “Yesterday we said tomorrow,” New Orleans, La. | Oct. 24, 2020-Jan. 24, 2021 (Postponed to 2021)

Led by co-artistic directors Naima Keith and Diana Nawi, the latest iteration of Prospect New Orleans is titled “Yesterday we said tomorrow.” Inspired by an album from New Orleans–born jazz musician Christian Scott, the theme “addresses the social body and the individual, suggesting the deferral of structural and political change.” Keith and Nawi tapped an eight-member directors council of prominent curators and arts leaders to help organize exhibitions and programming for the citywide triennial. An international slate of participating artists will be announced in the coming months. In addition, a group of emerging cultural producers is planning public programs in advance of the opening.

Artists Abe Odedina, Ayesha Feisal, Evans Mbugua, Boris Nzebo, Uthman Wahaab featured at Art x Lagos 2019 discuss their practices. | Video by Art x Lagos

ART FAIR | Art x Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria | Nov. 6-8, 2020

Launched in 2016, Art x Lagos is celebrating its fifth year in 2020. An international slate of galleries, primarily from African nations, showcases and sells artworks by emerging and established African artists. Fair programming includes special commissions and projects, talks, music performances, and the Access Bank ART X Prize, an annual artist award.

DEANA LAWSON, “Roxie and Raquel, New Orleans, Louisiana,” 2010 (inkjet print, 35 × 43 inches / 88.9 × 109.2 cm). | © Deana Lawson. Courtesy the artist; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

EXHIBITION | Deana Lawson @ Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston | Nov. 18, 2020-March 14, 2021

ICA Boston is presenting the first museum survey dedicated to the unique practice of photographer Deana Lawson. Intended to reflect everyday life, her highly staged and stylized large-format images explore representations of black identity rarely seen in museums and galleries. The show is traveling to MoMA PS1 and a fully illustrated catalog is being published to document the exhibition. (This presentation follows a solo exhibition of Deana Lawson at Kunsthalle Basel in Basel, Switzerland, from March 27-May 24, 2020.)

For more than 15 years, Deana Lawson has been investigating and challenging the conventional representations of black identities. Drawing on a wide spectrum of photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images, Lawson’s posed photographs channel broader ideas about personal and social histories, sexuality, and spiritual beliefs.
— ICA Boston

Rendering of “Our Destiny, Our Democracy,” a monument to Shirley Chisholm designed by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous. | © Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous

PUBLIC ART | Shirley Chisholm: Our Destiny, Our Democracy @ Prospect Park, Brooklyn. | End of 2020

The inaugural commission for She Built NYC is a monument to Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005), the first black woman elected to Congress. Designed by Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous, “Our Destiny, Our Democracy,” stands 40-feet-high and will be installed at the Parkside entrance of Prospect Park. CT

IMAGES (“Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago): Left, Clockwise, From top left, Magdalene Odundo, “Teardrop I,” 1996 (terracotta and slip, 20 × 16 in. / 50.8 × 40.6 cm). | The Art Institute of Chicago, Harriott A. Fox Endowment. © Magdalene Odundo. Photo by The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, N.Y.; DURO OLOWU, Spring/Summer 2020, Look 1. | Photo by Christina Ebenezer; and Jonas Dovydenas, “Wedding Reception of Emilija and Romas Sakodolskis, Pakstas Hall, West 38th Street,” 1977 (gelatin silver print, 8 × 12 inches / 20.3 × 30.5 cm). | Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of the artist, 1980.3.13. © 1977 Jonas Dovydenas. Photo by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago; Right, Clockwise from top: Bruce Nauman, Bound to Fail (from the portfolio Eleven Color Photographs), 1966-67/1970/2007. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, © 2019 Bruce Nauman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Photo by Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago. Simone Leigh, No Face (House), 2017. Photo © Simone Leigh; Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Duro Olowu, Spring/Summer 2020, Look 7. Photo by Christina Ebenezer