Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Valerie Cassel Oliver. | Photo by Travis Fullerton, Courtesy the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Awards & Honors
Valerie Cassel Oliver is receiving the 2022 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Cassel Oliver serves as the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, where she organized “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse.” (The exhibition is currently on view at CAM Houston through Feb. 6.) The CCS Bard award includes a $25,000 prize. Cassel Oliver will be honored at an April 6 gala dinner. | More
United States Artists announced 2022 fellows, 63 artists across 10 disciplines, each receiving $50,000 unrestricted cash awards. This year’s fellows include: Architecture & Design – Germane Barnes, Nina Cooke John, and Dream The Combine (Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers); Craft – Indira Allegra and Alison Croney Moses; Media – American Artist and Salome Asega; Traditional Arts – Peggie L Hartwell; Visual Art – Lonnie Holley, Olu Oguibe, Jordan Weber, and Peter Williams (1952-2021). | More
Appointments
The Smithsonian announced Jorge Zamanillo is the inaugural director of the forthcoming Museum of the American Latino. He joined HistoryMuseum Miami in 2000 and since 2016 has served as executive director and CEO. At age 19, when Zamanillo was an undergraduate student, he visited Washington, D.C., and spent days on the National Mall visiting the Smithsonian’s free museums. The experience changed his academic path. He ditched his music major and took up anthropology and eventually earned a masters degree museum studies. Zamanillo starts at the Smithsonian on May 2. The debut of the Museum of the American Latino is about a decade away. | New York Times
Marie Madison-Patton (right) has been promoted to deputy director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She has been with the museum for a decade, most recently serving as director of business operations. The announcement was made along with new leadership news at the museum. After an 18-month search, Cara Courage has been selected as the museum’s incoming executive director. She joins MOCAD this spring from the Tate in the UK, where she is head of Tate Exchange, a platform for socially engaged art that reflects contemporary ideas and issues. | More
Adeze Wilford (left) is joining the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami as curator, a position supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Since 2018, Wilford has been serving as assistant curator at The Shed, a New York City cultural institution that produces and presents art across disciplines. Wilford curated “Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water” at The Shed in 2020. She official starts at MOCA on Feb. 14. | Instagram
The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) announced Nina Elizabeth Ball is the museum’s new director of programming and education. A poet, performance artist, educator, and activist, Ball is also known as “Lyrispect.” She joined AAMP on Jan. 31. | Instagram
The Birmingham Museums Trust Board in Birmingham, UK, announced two new trustees—Tony Simpson, a partner at Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm; and Liam Darbon, head of Omnichannel Trading at Tate, the London museum institution that houses four art galleries. The board oversees nine sites, including the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Soho House. | More
IMAGES: Above right, Marie Madison-Patton. | Courtesy MOCAD; At left, Adeze Wilford. | Photo by Rachell Morillo
THEASTER GATES, Black Chapel: Serpentine Pavilion 2022. | Design render, interior view. © 2022 Theaster Gates Studio, Courtesy Serpentine
Public Art
The first look at “Black Chapel,” the Serpentine Pavilion commission designed by Theaster Gates, has been revealed. Created with architectural support from Adjaye Associates, the structure “draws inspiration from the architectural typologies of chapels and the great kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, England. A single source of light coming from an oculus creates a sanctuary-like setting for reflection and conviviality as the Pavilion once again becomes a platform for live performances and public convenings.” The London pavilion opens to the public on June 10 and remains of view through Oct. 16. Visits are free. | More
Fifty years ago, Faith Ringgold installed a public artwork at Rikers Island in New York. “For the Women’s House” (1971) is being moved permanently to the Brooklyn Museum where it was featured in the 2017 exhibition “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85.” With Rikers pending closure in 2027, Diana Budds reports on what will happen to the rest of the art at the city jail, where conditions are infamously inhumane. It’s quite a collection, with works by both famous artists like Ringgold and incarcerated artists, including about 60 murals. | Curbed
Magazines
Artist Deborah Roberts created a collage portrait of Trayvon Martin for the cover of a special issue of New York titled “10 Years After Trayvon” (Jan. 31-Feb. 13). Edited by Lindsay Peoples Wagner and Morgan Jerkins, the magazine asks, a decade later, “are Black lives any safer?” | More
Works by artist Amoako Boafo are featured on the cover of the Autumn/Winter 2021 edition (Issue 66) of Indie, the Berlin-based magazine of art, fashion, opinion, and culture. Inside the issue, the artist is in conversation with Tate curator Osei Bonsu. | More
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