Latest News in Black Art features updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Sonia Boyce © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2023. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh
REPRESENTATION
British artist Sonia Boyce (above) joined Hauser & Wirth gallery. The new representation is in collaboration with Apalazzo Gallery in Brescia, Italy. Boyce was the first Black woman to represent the UK at the Venice Biennale. Her solo exhibition “Feeling Her Way,” won the Golden Lion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. A key figure in the British Black Arts Movement, Boyce established her practice in the early 1980s, first working in figuration before transitioning to conceptual work across a variety of media. She developed her practice alongside a nearly four-decade career in academia. Since 2014, Boyce has served as a professor at University of the Arts London, where she is the inaugural chair in Black Art & Design. Her first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth is planned for 2025. (9/5) | More
APPOINTMENTS
Danille Taylor was named director of the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. A professor of African American studies at Clark Atlanta, Taylor has served as interim director of the HBCU’s museum since August 2022. Her background includes 17 years in higher education administration (Texas Southern University, Dillard University, Indiana University Northwest). She joined Clark Atlanta in 2015 as dean of the School of Arts & Sciences. Taylor earned a Ph.D., in American civilization from Brown University and a masters in African American studies from Boston University where she studied with Edmund Barry Gaither, founder of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston and first president of the African American Museum Association. The experience established her foundation in African American visual art history. (8/25) | PR Newswire
Fridman Gallery announced Maty Sall has joined the New York City gallery as sales director. A French-Senegalese art dealer and curator, Sall was previously a director at Jason Jacques Gallery for four years and has also held roles at Paul Nicklen Gallery and Rosenfeld Gallery, all in New York. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and earned a degree in studio art and art history at the Fashion Institute of Technology. (8/31) | More
AWARDS & HONORS
Artist and educator Tomashi Jackson (right) is the recipient of the 2023 Rappaport Prize. Presented by the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Mass., the $50,000 prize was established by the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation to recognize the accomplishments of contemporary artists in New England. Tomashi will deliver a lecture about her work in May 2024. (8/24) | Boston Globe
The National Portrait Gallery in London announced five artists shortlisted for the 2023 Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize. The competition is open to artists with a range of experience, from amateurs to established professionals. The shortlist includes photographers from a variety of backgrounds: Serena Brown, Jake Green, Alexandre Silberman, Gilleam Trapenberg, and Carl Francois van der Linde. Four out of five were recognized for portraits of Black subjects. 5,020 entries from 1,785 photographers were considered. The winner will be announced on Nov. 6, and 58 portraits by 51 photographers will be on view Nov. 9, 2023 to Feb. 25, 2024. The show marks the return of the annual exhibition since 2020. | More
Chicago sculptor Richard Hunt, 87, is among four recipients of the 2023 Chicago Public Library Foundation Awards. The honors were announced July 26 and will be celebrated at an Oct. 24 event. Known for his abstract, metal sculptures, Hunt’s portfolio features more than 150 public art commissions across the United States, including dozens in Chicago. He installed “Jacob’s Ladder” at the Carter G. Woodson Library in 1977 and “Flight Forms” at Midway Airport in 2001. More recent works include “The Light of Truth Ida B. Wells National Monument” in Bronzeville, “Book Bird” for the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center, and a 15-foot work planned at the Emmett Till/Mamie Till-Mobley historic home. (8/22) | Chicago Tribune
IMAGE: Above right, Tomashi Jackson, 2022. | Photo by Julia Featheringill, Courtesy artist and Tilton Gallery, New York
The Forten family Bible was donated to the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia by Atwood “Kip” Forten Jacobs and his daughter Taylor Jacqueline Rodriguez Jacobs. | Photo courtesy Museum of the American Revolution
MUSEUMS
“Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia,” a special exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pa., includes a family Bible that belonged to Black Revolutionary War veteran and abolitionist James Forten. Updated over six generations with the family’s birth, death, and marriage records, the historic volume is described as a “living artifact.” The Bible was donated to the museum by Forten’s direct descendants and is currently on public display for the first time through Nov. 26. (8/15) | More
The California African American Museum (CAAM) in Los Angeles is closed at least until October due to water intrusion caused by flash flooding from the unprecedented tropical storms that occurred in Southern California on Aug. 20-21. September and October exhibitions and programming at CAAM are postponed until the damage is addressed. In the meantime, “Bahia Reverb: Artists and Place,” a collaboration with Art + Practice, opens Sept. 16 in Leimert Park. (8/30) | More
ACQUISITIONS
The Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles acquired the archive of artist Maren Hassenger (left), an extensive collection including original sketches, drawings for large scale projects, documentation of exhibitions, photographs, correspondence, handwritten notes, print media, and audio-visual items. Measuring bout 200 linear feet, the material dates from the early 1970s, according to GRI, and “details her affiliations with prominent African American Los Angeles-based artists, as well as histories of often undocumented African American art exhibitions, organizations, artists, lectures, and meetings during an era of exclusion from the mainstream artworld.” The acquisition is part of GRI’s African American Art History Initiative and joins the archives of artists Richard Hunt, Evangeline J. Montgomery, and Betye Saar, and architect Paul R. Williams. (8/30) | Art Newspaper
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IMAGE: Above left, Maren Hassinger shown with “On Dangerous Ground” in her Los Angeles studio, April 1981. | Photo: Museum Associates/LACMA/Susan Inglett Gallery
