Latest News in Black Art features updates and developments in the world of art and related culture
Asa Jackson. | Courtesy McColl Center
APPOINTMENTS
Asa Jackson to Helm McColl Center for Artists in North Carolina
The McColl Center in Charlotte, N.C., announced its next president and CEO. Asa Jackson will lead the art center effective Jan. 6, 2025. Jackson is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, arts leader, and 2023-24 artist-in-residence at the McColl Center. Previously, he was director of 670 Gallery in Hampton, Va. (2014-17); founded and served as executive director of the Contemporary Art Network (CAN) Foundation in Newport News, Va. (2017-24); and a member of the Virginia Commission for the Arts from 2018-23, serving as chair for FY 2022. The McColl Center supports artists by through a variety of programs, including artist’s residencies, subsidized studio space, and access to tools and equipment and gallery space to display and sell their work. Founded in 1999, the center is celebrating its 25th anniversary. (11/5) | More
Alvin Ailey Dance Company Announced New Director
Alicia Graf Mack was appointed artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. Mack has served as dean and director of Juilliard Dance since 2018. A former member of the Ailey company, she has also performed with Dance Theatre of Harlem. She received an undergraduate degree in history from Columbia University and earned a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. She will assume the leadership role at Alvin Ailey in July. Mack succeeds Robert Battle who announced his resignation abruptly in November 2023, citing health reasons. “In Alicia, we saw a strength of character like Mr. Ailey’s, along with a vision for the future,” said Ailey Board Member Anthony A. Lewis, who led the selection committee. “It became a clear choice.” (11/21) | New York Times
New Consulting Firm Working at Intersection of Art x Everything
In New York, Isolde Brielmaier (right) joined Work of Art Holdings (WOAH) as chief strategy officer. Working at the intersection of art, business, and social impact, the new venture publicly launched at Art Basel Miami Beach last week with an initiative that paired artists and chefs. WOAH also plans a platform uniting female artists with female athletes. The Rockaway Beach Hotel opened in 2020. WOAH Founder and CEO Michi Jigarjian is a partner in the popular hotel, where she organized a menu of art-centered activities for guests and curates a rotating contemporary art program, including public art. “One of the things where Michi and I have come together on in an unspoken way is the way in which you can take art out of the art world and also build community around it,” said Brielmaier, who previously served as deputy director and chief innovation officer at the New Museum in New York and is on faculty at NYU. “It’s this idea that art can be a catalyst, to build community, to bring people together, to push down boundaries, or perceived boundaries, and also to spark conversations, whether they’re delightful and comfortable or sometimes even uncomfortable. But it’s a way of bringing people together.” (12/3) | W Magazine
IMAGE: Above right, Isolde Brielmaier. | Courtesy WOAH
MAGAZINES
Laura Wheeler Waring Portrait Covers Antiques Magazine
From the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, “Woman with Bouquet,” a circa 1940 painting by artist Laura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948) covers the November/December 2024 issue of The Magazine Antiques. Inside the issue, Betsy Pochoda wrote about the Brooklyn Museum’s recently reinstalled American art galleries where Waring’s portrait is on view. Born in Connecticut, Waring graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, spent time in France, and taught for more than three decades at what is now Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, the nation’s first HBCU. In his publisher’s letter, introducing the issue, Don Sparacin wrote Waring is known for her portraits of noteworthy Harlem Renaissance figures and added that the artist’s work, “precipitated, captured, and continues to influence American society, beyond the historical confines of the Harlem Renaissance. We see in it a vibrancy born of adversity and a devotion to artistic freedom.” (12/1) | More
Nka Journal Reflects on 60th Venice Biennale
The latest issue of Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art reflects on this year’s 60th Venice Biennale in three separate essays, features a review of curator Ekow Eshun‘s exhibition “The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure,” and considers the work of Wangechi Mutu, Henok Melkamzer, and South African artist Gavin Jantjes, whose work graces the cover of the issue. (11/1) | More
COVER: The Magazine Antiques, November/December 2024. | Image: LAURA WHEELER WARING. “Woman with Bouquet,” ca. 1940 (oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches / 76.2 x 63.5 cm). | Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art in honor of Teresa A. Carbone, 2016.2. © artist or artist’s estate
Danielle McKinney talks about her Lady Dior design which was inspired by one of her paintings. Picturing female characters in domestic settings, McKinney’s figurative paintings explore the interior lives of women. Born in Montgomery, Ala., the artist lives and works in New Jersey. | Video by Christian Dior
FASHION
2024 Artist-Inspired Lady Dior Bags
French fashion house Christian Dior announced new artist collaborations for its Lady Dior bags. Since 2016, Dior has invited artists to put their stamp on the modest-sized, architecturally designed tote-style bags. The international slate of 11 Dior Lady Art #9 artists includes Danielle McKinney, Faith Ringgold (1930-2024), Vaughn Spann, and Jeffrey Gibson, who represented the United States at this year’s 60th Venice Biennale. The artists produced 30 different designs, which were rolled out globally in select stores. (11/14) | More
BOOKS
Kamala Harris: Forthcoming Volume Pictures Her Rise in Politics
Co-authored by Deborah Willis and Kevin Merida, “Kamala: Her Historic, Joyful, and Auspicious Sprint to the White House” is expected to be published next week. The volume charts the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris in photographs, from state politics in California to the national stage and her historic campaign for the White House striving to be the first female President of the United States. More than 140 photographs and artworks by the likes of Carrie Mae Weems and Hank Willis Thomas are featured. The images are curated by Willis, artist, author, and chair of NYU’s Department of Photography & Imaging, and Merida, a veteran journalist and former executive editor of the Los Angeles Times. (12/17) | More
COVER: Image by Erin Schaff/The New York Times, Redux
AWARDS & HONORS
2024 Arts Writers Grants Announced
The Andy Warhol Foundation announced its annual Arts Writers Grants. The 2024 grants went to 30 writers, providing support in three categories—articles, books, and short-form writing-with grants ranging from $15,000 to $30,000. The recipients included Catherine Quan Damman, “Vivian Browne’s Black Internationalism” (Articles); Isaiah Matthew Wooden, “Out of Water and Dirt: LaToya Ruby Frazier and Kiyan Williams’ Monumental Acts of Refiguration” (Articles); Che Gossett, Marlon Riggs and the Black Queer Cinematic (Books); T. Lax, A Diary of Dependency: Artists Process Museums (Book); and Carolina Miranda, Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, Jasmine Weber, and Christopher Whitfield (Short-Form). (12/2) | More
Romare Bearden at the Apollo in Harlem. | Courtesy Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage/Romare Bearden Foundation
FILMS
Coming Soon: New Romare Bearden Documentary
“Romare Bearden: A Life in Collage” a forthcoming documentary project about artist Romare Bearden (1911-88) launched at Art Basel Miami Beach with a series of sponsored events, including a teaser screening and panel discussion (Dec. 2-5). Written and directed by Deborah Riley Draper, the film is co-produced by the Romare Bearden Foundation and remains in development. (11/29) | More
MORE NEWS
Young Foundation Supports Underrepresented Curators and Social Good
Several emerging curators, educators and administrators attended the VIP preview of the Venice Biennale earlier this year. The expensive, but arguably essential professional experience, was made possible courtesy the A&L Berg Foundation. Launched by Allison K. and Larry Berg in 2020, the foundation focuses on annual fellowships, providing $10,000 each for six underrepresented visual art professionals, with the goal of helping to provide resources that are out of reach for many, yet critical to progressing in the field. “It isn’t focused on discussing the art or teaching anybody how to be a curator,” Allison Berg told the New York Times. “It is about the relationships and the behind-the-scenes that nobody talks about.” Berg is an art collector who serves on LACMA’s board and her husband is a private equity investor and managing owner of the Los Angeles Football Club. The foundation has also established a substantial grant directed toward social impact. The first grant of $100,000 went to artist Lauren Halsey last fall to support her Summaeverythang community center in South Central Los Angeles. An impressive group is advising the foundation: Andrea Bowers, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Christine Y. Kim, Courtney J. Martin, Brooke Minto, and Franklin Sirmans. According to the Times, Rashid Johnson is also an advisor. (12/9) | New York Times
CT
COLLECTORS | In Los Angeles, Dr. V. Joy Simmons reflects on being a student of artist and gallery founder Alonzo Davis back in the day and her eclectic collection of contemporary African American art, including works by Kenturah Davis, Diedrick Brackens, and Keith Williams, among many others. | Video by PBS SoCal
