This post will be updated with the latest news in Black art throughout the week
Surviving a Lynching | Ashes to Ashes: An award-winning, short documentary made in 2019, considers artist Winfred Rembert’s traumatic experiences in the Jim Crow South, a narrative that reflects America’s dark history with racism and injustice. | Video by The New Yorker
April 2, 2021
Connecticut Artist Winifred Rembert Has Died
Winfred Rembert (1945-2021), who lived and worked in New Haven, Conn., died at home on March 31, after a long illness. He was 75. Rembert painted on carved and tooled leather. His vivid scenes of the Jim Crow South—cotton fields, chain gangs dressed in stripes, pool halls, and church services—reflect his memories of growing up in rural Cuthbert, Ga. His experiences took a consequential turn when he was arrested during a civil rights protest in 1967. After being thrown in jail, he escaped, was caught, nearly lynched, and ended up serving on a chain gang until 1974. While he was incarcerated, Rembert learned to carve wallets from leather, a craft that decades later he developed into an artistic practice. In 2000, his first exhibition, “Southern Exposure: Works by Winfred Rembert and Hale Woodruff,” was presented at Yale University Art Gallery. “Winfred Rembert: Memories of My Youth” at Adelson Galleries marked his New York debut in 2010. Rembert’s memoir, “Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South,” includes a foreword by Equal Justice Initiative Founder Bryan Stevenson and will be published in August 2021. | New Haven Independent.
New Museum Announces Artists for 2021 Triennial
In New York, the fifth edition of the New Museum Triennial will feature 40 emerging artists and collectives from around the world, including Gaëlle Choisne (born Cherbourg, France/lives and works in Paris, France), Krista Clark (Burlington, Vt./Atlanta, Ga., USA), Kahlil Robert Irving (San Diego, Calif., USA/St. Louis, Mo.), Bronwyn Katz (Cape Town, South Africa), Sandra Mujinga (Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo/Oslo, Norway and Berlin, Germany), Brandon Ndife (Hammond, Ind., USA/Brooklyn, N.Y.), Ima-Abasi Okon (London and Amsterdam), and Nickola Pottinger (Kingston, Jamaica/New York, N.Y.). The exhibition is co-curated by New Museum Associate Curator Margot Norton and Jamillah James, curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Titled “Soft Water Hard Stone,” the exhibition is on view from Oct. 27, 2021-Jan. 23, 2022.
From left, In New York, curator Danielle A. Jackson is joining nonprofit Artists Space; Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle will become online director at Pace Gallery. | Photos by Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Shaniqwa Jarvis
April 1, 2021
Danielle A. Jackson Named Curator at New York’s Artists Space
Based in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, Artists Space has appointed Danielle A. Jackson as curator. She joins the nonprofit on April 7. Jackson has served as a curatorial assistant in the department of media and performance at the Museum of Modern Art since 2018. | Artforum
Pace Gallery Hires Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle as Online Director
Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle is joining Pace Gallery as its first-ever digital sales director. Pace has nine locations in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Since 2019, Boyle has served as senior director at Canada gallery in New York, where she curated her first exhibition. “Black Femme: Sovereign of WAP and the Virtual Realm,” remains on view through April 10. She starts at Pace on May 3. | ARTnews
March 31, 2021
New Swann African American Art Sale Catalog Released
The new catalog for the April 22 African American art sale at Swann Auction Galleries features 220 lots with “Yes We Will” (1972), a mixed media work by AFRICOBRA artist Nelson Stevens on the cover. Major works by Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff are featured in the auction. A selection of works by highly regarded contemporary artists are offered, including Dawoud Bey, Bisa Butler, Fred Eversley, Vanessa German, Deana Lawson, Dindga McCannon, Howardena Pindell, Betye Saar, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kehinde Wiley. Many less familiar names active in the 20th and 21st centuries are also represented. Sale estimates range from $150,000-$250,000 and $1,000-$1,500.
Judges Announced for Queer | Art Award for Black Trans Women
Queer | Art in New York announced Texas Isaiah, Connie Fleming, and Lyle Ashton Harris are serving as judges for the second annual Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists. The winner receives $10,000 and a studio visit with each of the judges. Four finalists will also be awarded $1,250 each. Applications for the award opened today and close June 30, 2021. Queer | Art supports LGBTQ+ art and artists across generations and disciplines through exhibitions and programming, professional development, and awards.
March 30, 2021
Lisa Corinne Davis Joins Jenkins Johnson Gallery
New York artist Lisa Corinne Davis is now represented by Jenkins Johnson Gallery. Davis makes abstract paintings that explore identity through the lens of race, culture, and history. She will be featured in the gallery’s Frieze New York presentation at The Shed, from May 5-9, 2021. Davis was recently recognized with a 2020 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. She is also a 2021 recipient of the Arts and Letters Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A professor at Hunter College in Manhattan, Davis lives and works in Brooklyn and Hudson, N.Y. Her first solo show with Jenkins Johnson will be on view in 2022. Learn More
Lezley Saar Now Represented by Various Small Fires
Various Small Fires gallery announced its representation of Los Angeles artist Lezley Saar in Asia. The gallery said, “Saar’s practice is deeply rooted in her ancestral history and her experience as a mixed-race woman of African descent.” She explores a variety of themes in her work, including identity, race, gender, beauty, normalcy, and sanity. “Saar hops, skips and jumps among media, extracting the best of each and creating wholes greater than the sum of their parts,” the Los Angeles Times said in a recent exhibition review. “Her works take visitors on trips that leave European Surrealism — and its American variants — in the dust. Saar’s artistry is a form of magical realism. Scrappy and ravishing, it’s, at once, down to earth and out of this world.” Learn More
San Francisco to Provide Local Artists with Basic Income
For six months, the city of San Francisco in collaboration with Yerba Buena Arts Center is offering support to San Francisco artists to help mitigate the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts. The Guaranteed Income Pilot provides monthly payments of $1,000 for 130 eligible San Francisco artists. Applications close April 15, 2021. | Artforum
“The arts are truly critical to our local economy and are an essential part of our long-term recovery. If we help the arts recover, the arts will help San Francisco recover. This new program is an innovative effort to help our creative sector get through this challenging time, and come back even stronger and more resilient than before.”
– San Francisco Mayor London Breed
Dominic Chambers in his studio. | Courtesy Roberts Projects
March 29, 2021
Roberts Projects Announces its Representation of Dominic Chambers
New Haven, Conn.-based Dominic Chambers is now represented by Roberts Projects in Los Angeles. His imaginative figurative paintings reference literary narratives, draw on mystical realism, explore Black introspection, and inspired by Josef Albers, experiment with color theory. Born in St. Louis, Mo., Chambers received a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (2016) and earned an MFA from the Yale University School of Art (2019). Presented last year at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, “Like the Shapes of Clouds on Water” was the artist’s first solo exhibition at a cultural institution. Chambers’s first solo show with Roberts Projects is scheduled for 2022 and will be accompanied by a catalog published by the gallery. Learn More
Damon Reaves Joins National Gallery of Art as Head of Education
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., announced the appointment of Damon Reaves as head of education. He will lead a large team of art education specialists; organize hundreds of free public programs for adults, families, children, school teachers, interns, and scholars; and manage nearly 200 volunteer docents. Reaves previously served as interim senior curator of education and public programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. | Culture Type
Cleveland Museum of Art Adds Works by African American Artists to its Collection
The Cleveland Museum of Art announced a series of new acquisitions, including screenprints by Barbara Jones-Hogu, Wadsworth Jarrell, and Amy Sherald, and four photographs by D’Angelo Lovell Williams. | Culture Type
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UPDATE (10/27/21): Haitian-French artist Gaëlle Choisne was added to the list of Black artists participating in the New Museum Triennial
