Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Artist Alteronce Gumby. | Photo by Katharina Balgavy
Representation
Abstract artist Alteronce Gumby (above) is now represented by Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York. Gumby makes “vivid interstellar paintings that emerge from his profound fascination with the cosmos and theories of energy. His prismatic fields add new perspectives to the history of abstract painting by proposing deliberate connections between color, society and the universe.” Born in Harrisburg, Pa., Gumby lives and works in New York. His first solo exhibition with Nicola Vassell, a Black woman-owned gallery, opens in September. | More
Tiwani Contemporary with locations in London, UK, and Lagos, Nigeria, announced its representation of Emma Prempeh (right). A London-based British artist with Ghanaian and Vincentian heritage, Prempeh is the gallery’s inaugural artist-in-residence at the G.A.S. Foundation in Lagos (August 2022). Her first solo exhibition with Tiwani Contemporary opens Sept. 8 on Victoria Island, Lagos. | More
Nina Chanel Abney and Gallery of Digital Assets (GODA) announced ICNCLST, a brand strategy and partnerships firm, will represent Abney’s Super Cool World. A singular artist with a critically recognized fine art practice, Abney’s bold, colorful, and graphic images of contemporary culture are highly sought for a variety of public art projects and brand collaborations. Abney has worked with ICNCLST since 2017. The new representation formalizes and expands the relationship. | More
IMAGE: Above right, Artist Emma Prempeh. | Courtesy the artist and ALSO Journal, Photo by Ellyse Anderson
Lynette L Allston is VMFA’s new Board of Trustees President. | Photo by Sandra Sellars, © 2022 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Appointments
Lynette L. Allston (above) was elected president of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) Board of Trustees in Richmond. A member of the board since 2017, she succeeds Dr. Monroe E. Harris Jr., the first Black person elected president of VMFA’s governing body. Allston is the first Native American president of the VMFA Board of Trustees and, according to VMFA, she is also the first Native American to lead the board of a top 10 U.S. comprehensive art museum. Allston is chief and chair emeritus of the Tribal Council of the Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia. In addition to her VMFA role, she is president of the board of the Rawls Museum Arts in Courtland, Va. | More
Earlier this summer, Kara Tucina Olidge (right) joined the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles as associate director for collections and discovery. She previously served as executive director of the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. In earlier roles, Olidge worked at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, N.Y., and was director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute in Newark, N.J. | More
The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago announced two new members of its advisory board: Henok Misgina, vertical lead-retail at Meta, and Carlos Javier Ortiz, a director, cinematographer and documentary photographer. | More
President Biden announced 11 appointments to the National Museum and Library Services Board, including two art museum directors and Julius C. Jefferson Jr., a longstanding leader in the local, national, and international library communities who currently works for the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. | More
IMAGE: Above right, Kara Tucina Olidge. | Courtesy Getty Research Institute
Museums
The African American Museum in Philadelphia is moving to a new location on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where its nearby neighbors will include the Barnes Foundation and the Franklin Institute. The museum will be housed in the former Family Court Building which was built in 1941 and modeled after the buildings on the Place de la Concorde, a public square in Paris. | Philadelphia Inquirer
The Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine, announced four design teams shortlisted for its Campus Unification + Expansion project. Groups led by David Adjaye’s Adjaye Associates and LEVER Architecture, whose principals include Chandra Robinson, are among those selected. | More
The International African American Museum (IAAM) received a $1 million donation from Boeing, bringing the company’s support of the Charleston, S.C., museum to $2 million. IAAM is scheduled to open in early 2023. | More
A Turner Prize-winning artist (2017), Lubaina Himid was born in Zanzibar and lives and works in Preston, UK. | Photograph by Magda Stawarska-Beavan
Awards & Honors
British artist and educator Lubaina Himid (above) won the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. The honor includes a $200,000 cash award and a solo exhibition that will debut in Texas at the Contemporary Austin in spring 2024 and travel to The FLAG Art Foundation in New York in fall 2024. | More
Curator and multidisciplinary artist James Williams II won the $30,000 Sondheim Prize. The annual award recognizes visual artists in the Baltimore region. Williams’s work is currently on view in the Sondheim Finalists’ Exhibition, a three-artist show at the Walters Art Museum through Sept. 18. | ArtDaily
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