This post will be updated with the latest news in Black art throughout the week
Deana Haggag. Photo by Braxton Black
March 12, 2021
Deana Haggag is Joining the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
After serving as president and CEO of United States Artists (USA) for four years, Deana Haggag has accepted an appointment at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as a program officer in Arts and Culture. Haggag is stepping down from USA on April 30 and will continue to advise the organization through June 30. She starts at the Mellon Foundation on May 17, focusing on grantmaking and projects with a diverse group of artists and organizations “working outside traditional boundaries and institutional walls.”
10 Artists Shortlisted for British Ceramic Award
Mawuena Kattah is among the 10 artists selected to produce new work for the British Ceramics Biennial (BCB) AWARD, which is considered the UK’s leading platform for contemporary ceramic art practice. London-based Kattah “brings people and pattern together in complex, vibrant immersive installations of ceramic vessels, friezes and table services. Her proposal for AWARD, The Meal, is a ceramic table setting for eight people inspired by her regular trips to Brixton market to buy the food and African fabrics that inspire her work. She has worked with chef and author Zoe Adjonyoh to create a bespoke menu for The Meal.” The biennial is in Stoke-on-Trent, from Sept. 11-Oct. 17, 2021, where a juried panel will award one artist a £5,000 prize.
New NMAAHC Director Kevin Young Answers 12 Questions
Kevin Young, who recently left the helm of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem to serve as director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, answered a battery of questions about moving to Washington, D.C., for his new job. A native of Topeka, Kan., he said he brought along the pew he owns from the church where Linda Brown (of Brown v. Board of Education) sang and played the piano. Young, who serves as The New Yorker’s poetry editor, also talked about how poetry speaks to grief, violence, and resistance. At NMAAHC, he said he is launching a searchable museum project, which will be inaugurated in the fall with an online version of museum’s Reconstruction exhibition. | Time
ELIZABETH CATLETT, “Singing Head,” 1968. | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gift of the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection; © Catlett Mora Family Trust / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS). Photo by David Heald
March 11, 2021
SFMOMA Receives Major Gift of Artworks From Joyner/Giuffrida Collection
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art announced the donation of 31 paintings by 20 African American artists from the Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection. The gift includes works by Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, Lois Mailou Jones, and Richard Mayhew.
Lauren Haynes Appointed Senior Curator at Nasher Museum
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University named Lauren Haynes Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. Since 2016, Haynes has been at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., where she serves as director of artist initiatives and curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges and The Momentary, the museum’s recently opened satellite contemporary art space in downtown Bentonville. She starts at the Nasher Museum June 7. | Culture Type
From left, Ibrahim Mahama and Samson Kambalu are among six artists shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square, London. | Photos by George Darrell and Jeremy Hibbert
March 10, 2021
Six Artists Vying for Fourth Plinth Commission
A shortlist of six artists was announced for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, a prominent, internationally recognized public art commission in London. Malawi-born, Oxford-based Samson Kambalu and Ibrahim Mahama, who lives and works in Ghana, are among the artists invited to propose sculptures for the next two commissions in 2022 and 2024. | The Art Newspaper
Brooklyn Public Library Names Artist in Residence
Conceptual artist Chloë Bass has been named the Brooklyn Library’s 2021 Katowitz-Radin Artist-in-Residence. She will present The Parts, a multi-platform project at the Central Library’s Center for Brooklyn History (May 8-Sept. 20, 2021).
Nicholson Project Announced Two Artists in Residence
A.J. McClenon and Stan Squirewell have been named 2021 Artists-in-Residence at The Nicholson Project. Founded in 2019 and located in the Fairlawn neighborhood of SE Washington, D.C., The Nicholson Project pairs a three-month artist residency program with a neighborhood garden.
GRAFTON TYLER BROWN, “Hot Springs at Yellowstone,” 1889 (oil on canvas, 16 x 24 inches). | Purchased with funds from the Terra Art Enrichment Fund, Palmer Museum of Art, 2020. Image courtesy Penn State
March 9, 2021
Palmer Museum Purchases Grafton Tyler Brown Painting
“Hot Springs at Yellowstone” (1889), a Western landscape painting by Grafton Tyler Brown (1841–1918), was acquired by the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University. “Nineteenth-century landscape paintings by African American artists are exceedingly rare,” said Erin M. Coe, director of the Palmer Museum of Art. “This work is the first by an African American artist of the era to enter the museum’s collection.” | Penn State News
CAC Cincinnati Announces Inaugural Appointment
Marcus Margerum was named deputy director and chief business officer at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. He is the first person to serve in the newly created position at the Ohio museum. Margerum previously served as vice president of government and community affairs at the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. He official joined CAC Cincinnati on March 1. | Artdaily
SHAWANDA CORBETT, “You don’t hear me, now,” 2015. | Courtesy the artist and Salon 94
UK Artist Shawanda Corbett Joins Salon 94
Visual and performance artist Shawanda Corbett is now represented by New York gallery Salon 94. She works across ceramics, painting, dance, film, and performance, battling otherness and challenging the idea of the “complete” body. Corbett received a Turner Bursary from Tate in 2020. The New York-born artist lives and works in Oxford, UK. Her first solo exhibition at Salon 94 is scheduled for January 2022. She is co-represented internationally by Salon 94 with Corvi-Mora Gallery in London.
Mariane Ibrahim’s is opening a new gallery space on Avenue Matignon in Paris.
March 8, 2021
Mariane Ibrahim is Opening Paris Space
Mariane Ibrahim is expanding her eponymous gallery with a second space in Paris, France, forthcoming in September 2021. After debuting the gallery in Seattle, Wash., in 2012, Ibrahim relocated to Chicago, opening in September 2019. The French-Somali art dealer lived in Paris prior to establishing her U.S. gallery. The Paris venture marks the gallery’s inaugural presence in Europe.
Gallery 1957 Announces Prize for Africa-Based Women Artists
Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana, is marking its five-year anniversary by launching the Yaa Asantewaa Art Prize. The gallery describes the prize as the first-ever dedicated women artists living and working in Africa.
Fourteen30 Contemporary Adds Two Artists to Roster
In Portland, Ore., Fourteen30 Contemporary announced its representation of Portland-based artist and writer sidony o’neal and artist and designer Leena Similu, who lives and works in Los Angeles. This summer, the gallery is hosting a solo exhibition of Similu.
Glenstone Hosting Major Faith Ringgold Exhibition
Glenstone is presenting a survey of 70 works by Faith Ringgold in spring 2021. The private museum in Potomac, Md., is the only U.S. venue for the exhibition organized by Serpentine Galleries in London. After debuting at Serpentine, the show traveled to Bildmuseet in Umeå, Sweden. Glenstone’s version of the show will feature nine Ringgold works from its collection and the publication of an expanded edition of the exhibition catalog.
FAITH RINGGOLD, “The American Collection #6: The Flag is Bleeding #2,” 1997 (acrylic on canvas, painted and pieced border, 76 x 79 inches / 193 x 201 cm). | © 2021 Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York
1 comment
Simone Agoussoye says:
Mar 25, 2021
This is so encouraging to me as a black artist I love it!