Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Rendering of “Of many waters…” (2022) by Sanford Biggers on the Sculpture Terrace of the forthcoming Orange County Museum of Art, opening to the public in October 2022. | Photo: Morphosis
Commissions
When the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) opens in its new Costa Mesa, Calif., home on Oct. 8, a monumental outdoor sculpture by Sanford Biggers will be installed on the museum’s upper terrace. Commissioned by OCMA, “Of many waters…” (2022) will be on view through Feb. 5, 2023. In addition, Biggers will be honored at the museum’s Oct. 1 gala. Among the opening exhibitions at OCMA, “Fred Eversley: Reflecting Back (the World)” surveys five decades of the artist’s career. | Los Angeles Times
“Black Chapel,” the 2022 edition of Serpentine Pavilion designed by Theaster Gates, was unveiled on June 8 in London. The occasion was celebrated with a conversation between the Chicago artist and architect David Adjaye, whose firm helped develop the project. Free and open to the public through Oct. 16, the structure features a display of new tar paintings by Gates and will serve as a space for live performances and public programming. | More
The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., has acquired “OMNISCIENCE,” a new ironwork sculpture by New York artist Fred Wilson. Inspired by the life of Omar Ibn Said (1770-1864), an Islamic scholar from Futa Toro (now Senegal) who was enslaved in the Carolinas from 1807 until his death, the work is temporarily on view in the museum’s Campbell Rotunda (May 27-June 16). | More
Serpentine Pavilion 2022 designed by Theaster Gates. | © Theaster Gates Studio. Photo by Iwan Baan, Courtesy Serpentine
Awards & Honors
The Kitchen held its 2022 benefit gala at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, under the leadership of new executive director and chief curator Legacy Russell. The June 8 event honored renowned artist Lorraine O’Grady and George Lewis, the composer, trombonist, scholar of experimental music, and professor at Columbia University, who was recently named the first Black artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Linda Goode Bryant, Fred Moten, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Tyshawn Sorey served as honorary co-chairs. | More
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York honored two longtime friends, artist Glenn Ligon and Studio Museum in Harlem Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden, at its annual gala on May 17. | Vogue
Lives
New York Collector and patron Vivian Davidson Hewitt (1920-2022) died on May 29, 2022, according to the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts+Culture in Charlotte, N.C. She was 102. Hewitt is believed to be the first African American librarian in Pittsburgh, where Charles “Teenie” Harris photographed her wedding. Along with her husband, Hewitt spent four decades building the John & Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art, which includes 59 works by John T. Biggers, Hale Woodruff, Ernest Crichlow, Elizabeth Catlett, Henry O. Tanner, and Romare Bearden, among others. In 1998, NationsBank (now Bank of America) acquired the collection and pledged it to the Gantt Center (then known as the Afro-American Cultural Center). The museum received the works in 2009 and describes the gift as the cornerstone of its collection. | More
IMAGE: Vivian Davidson Hewitt at the Harvey B. Gantt Center before a work by Virginia Evans Smit. | Gantt Center
Appointments
Artist Mark Thomas Gibson was appointed to the board of trustees of the International Print Center New York. | More
Representation
Two up-and-coming artists joined the roster at Tiwani Contemporary, a London gallery that recently opened a second location in Lagos, Nigeria. Miranda Forrester (left) is based in London and Joseph O. Wilson lives and works in New York. | More
Detroit, Mich.-based artist Matthew Angelo Harrison is now represented by Galerie Eva Presenhuber. The gallery has four locations in Zurich (2), Vienna, and New York. The representation is in collaboration with Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco. Galerie Eva Presenhuber will show a sculpture by Harrison at Art Basel in Switzerland (June 16-19) and plans to present a solo exhibition of the artist in Spring 2023 in Zurich. | More
IMAGE: Miranda Forrester. | via Tiwani Contemporary
More News
Los Angeles-based artist and co-founder of Art + Practice, Mark Bradford and his gallery Hauser & Wirth are collaborating with the nonprofit PILAglobal on a new initiative called Education Lab LA. The program currently serves 17 students from Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts (known as Grand Arts), which is near Hauser & Wirth in downtown Los Angeles, providing educational experiences and first-hand exposure to how a commercial gallery operates through workshops with staff from various teams. | ARTnews
Tribeca Festival and CHANEL announced that winning storytellers at this year’s film festival (June 8-June 19) will receive an original work of art. Artists participating in the 2022 Artist Awards Program include Deborah Roberts, February James, Garry Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas, Leilah Babirye, Ming Smith, Nicoletta Darita de la Brown, Nina Chanel Abney, Ouattara Watts, and Wardell Milan. More
New York University is naming a new performance venue The African Grove Theater, in honor of a New York production company and space founded in 1816 and believed to be the first Black theater in the United States. The new venue at NYU is expected to open in spring 2023. | New York Times
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