Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
María Magdalena Campos-Pons. | Photo by John Russell, Courtesy Vanderbilt University
Appointments
María Magdalena Campos-Pons is serving as the inaugural consulting curator of the Tennessee Triennial. A Cuban-born artist and educator, Campos-Pons is a professor of fine arts and Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts, Drawing, Performance, and Installation at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Forthcoming in 2023, the statewide triennial exhibition is planned for Jan. 27-May 7, 2023. The event was postponed from 2021 due to the pandemic. At the time, Lauren Haynes and Teka Selman were attached to the event as co-curators. | Instagram
Ernest Gause is joining Newfields as vice president of human resources and chief people officer, a newly created position. He is joining the organization (which includes the Indianapolis Museum of Art) in the wake of public missteps regarding race, including the resignation of a Black curator who called the museum’s culture discriminatory and toxic and a job posting seeking an executive director that emphasized the need to maintain a “traditional, core, white art audience.” Gause has more than 20 years of experience in HR, working in a variety of industries, and is the founding President for the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources in Cincinnati. | ArtDaily
Indigo Arts Alliance, a Black-led organization, announced an international slate of five artists in residence—Tonya Crane, Alexandra Bell, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Shay Youngblood, and Renata Felinto—who will each serve as a mentor to a local artist, between April and October. | More
Center for Architecture and Design in Philadelphia named Michael Spain, Associate AIA, director of design education, leading education programming for K-12 students. He previously served as design director at the design firm D2. | More
Artist Ferrari Sheppard. | Courtesy Mariane Ibrahim Gallery
Representation
Mariane Ibrahim Gallery announced its global representation of Ferrari Sheppard yesterday. A Black-owned gallery, Mariane Ibrahim has a roster of 17 artists. Based in Chicago, the gallery recently opened a location in Paris, France. Chicago-born Sheppard lives and works in Los Angeles. His first exhibition with the gallery opened in December. “Where to begin…” was a two-artist show with Carmen Neely in Paris. Sheppard’s work is also featured in “La Vie En Rose” in Chicago, the gallery’s current group exhibition marking its 10-year anniversary. | More
Magazines
The work of Howardena Pindell covers the January issue of Apollo Magazine. Inside the New York artist is profiled by Jonathan Griffin. The coverage coincides with “Howardena Pindell: A New Language” at Fruitmarket in Edinburgh, Pindell’s first solo exhibition at a public institution in the UK, which will travel to Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and Spike Island, Bristol. | More
COVER IMAGE: Detail of HOWARDENA PINDELL, “Untitled #4D,” 2009 (mixed media on paper collage, 7 x 10 inches). | © Howardena Pindell, Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York and Victoria Miro, London/Venice
Museums
The Met Gala exhibition, set to open May 2 in tandem with the gala event, will feature contributions from eight film directors, including Janicza Bravo, Sofia Coppola, Julie Dash, Tom Ford, Regina King, and Martin Scorsese. “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Curator Andrew Bolton said the exhibition will explore “unfamiliar sartorial narratives filtered through the imaginations of some of America’s most visionary film directors.” | Los Angeles Times
The traveling exhibition “Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech” opens at the Brooklyn Museum in New York on July 1. Originally organized by MCA Chicago, the Brooklyn presentation offers a fresh take on the show. Guest-curated by Antwaun Sargent in close collaboration with Virgil Abloh, the presentation will be the first showing of the 20-year survey since the designer’s death on Nov. 28, 2021. | GQ
The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery announced The Obama Portraits Tour has been extended, adding two new stops. Originally slated for five venues, the exhibition featuring Kehinde Wiley‘s portrait of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s portrait by Amy Sherald will continue through the fall, with presentations at the de Young Museum in San Francisco (June 18–Aug. 14) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Sept. 3–Oct. 30). | More
Established by Allan Edmunds in 1972, Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an exhibition at Harvard Art Museums. “Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities” opens March 4 and features prints by 30 artists acquired by the museums in 2018. | More
Galleries
Founded by Skoto Aghahowa in 1992, Skoto Gallery was one of the first galleries in New York City to focus on contemporary art by African artists. Marking a milestone, the gallery’s “30th Anniversary Group Show” features works by 30 artists in a variety of mediums. | More
CT
DANCE | Artist SHANTELL MARTIN, who is known for her stream-of-consciousness line drawings, is choreographing her first ballet in collaboration with the Boston Ballet. Titled “Kites,” Martin’s work is “inspired by the idea that our lives are like kites that travel with a string tracing together memory and weaving the past, and the future to the present.” The performance is part of a female-led program featuring five creatives called ChoreograpHER (March 3-13). | Video by Boston Ballet
