Culture Type: The Month in Black Art, Here’s What Happened in March 2025

Elizabeth Giorgis, scholar of Ethiopian art history died. Artists Mônica Ventura and Precious Okoyomon joined new galleries. Republic of Togo will present its first pavilion at Venice Biennale of Architecture

Fred Eversley (1941-2025), pictured in 2022. | Photo by Timothy Schenck, Courtesy Maria Larsson

TALKS & LECTURES | March 4: In Washington, D.C., the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in collaboration with the Sam Gilliam Foundation announced the inaugural speakers for the Sam Gilliam Lecture Series: Harvard professor and art and culture historian Sarah Lewis, founder of Vision & Justice and author of the recently published book, “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America” and Chicago artist Theaster Gates, founder of the Rebuild Foundation and Stony Island Arts Bank. Free and open to the public, the lecture series launches April 9, when Lewis will speak. The Gates lecture is Dec. 11. | More

AWARDS & HONORS | March 5: New Mexico-based artist Paula Wilson received the 2024 ReeKaneko Award from the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. The annual $25,000 award honors Bemis alum. Wilson’s solo show “The Backward Glance,” was presented at the center in 2017. The exhibition “transported viewers into a mythological landscape through paintings, video, and prints on fabric. Exploring themes of race, identity, and the representation of the female body, she transformed Bemis’s galleries into a processional space where ancient symbolism met contemporary expression.” Wilson will be in conversation at the Bemis Center on April 2. | More

SYMPOSIUMS | March 6: The Vision & Justice project announced its second convening will occur Oct. 6-7 at the Ford Foundation in New York. The Vision & Justice initiative explores the role of visual art and culture in the quest for equity and justice. Harvard University professor and Vision & Justice Founder Sarah Lewis is hosting the event in collaboration with civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill. The former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (2013-2022), Ifill is a Howard University professor and founder of Howard’s 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy. The convening will feature presentations by scholars and thought leaders from a variety of disciplines. | More

< MAGAZINES | March 7: In advance of “Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers” opening at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on April 18, the artist engaged in a conversation with his father and son over a meal. Rashid Johnson asked his father about some of his formative experiences. Many he has heard before and influence his practice. His son, however, is learning about for the first time. Titled “Passing Down,” the exchange about art, history, and family appears in Ursula, the magazine published by Hauser & Worth gallery. | Ursula

LIVES | March 11: Junior Bridgeman (1953-2025), one of the few NBA players to become a billionaire, died at age 71. Bridgeman (whose given name is Ulysses Lee Bridgeman Jr.) spent 12 seasons in the NBA, becoming an entrepreneur before he retired, and eventually buying hundreds of fast-food and casual restaurants, including Wendy’s and Chili’s, and a Coca-Cola Bottling business. In 2020, he added Ebony and Jet magazines to his portfolio. Beginning in the 1980s, Bridgeman played for a decade with the Milwaukee Bucks. He acquired a 10 percent stake in his former team in September 2024. | New York Times

REPRESENTATION > | March 11: Brazilian artist Mônica Ventura (b. 1985), shown below left, is now represented by Nara Roesler. The gallery has locations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York. Working across video, sculpture, and painting, Ventura explores the intersections of femininity and race. According to her biography, she “rescues and reinterprets pre-colonial cultural elements, such as the architecture and manual techniques of Afro-Amerindian peoples.” A new museum exhibition of the artist, “Monica Ventura: From here a place,” is on view in the Pina Luz Octagon at Pinacoteca de São Paulo (March 22-Aug. 3, 2025). 
Ventura lives and works in São Paulo. | More

From left, Adam Pendelton. | © the artist, Photo by Matthew Septimus; Monica Ventura. | Photo: Flavio Freire

REPRESENTATION | March 13: Mennour announced its representation of New York artist Adam Pendleton (b. 1984), shown above left. The Paris gallery will show a painting by Pendleton at Art Basel (Switzerland) in June and present a solo exhibition of the artist in Paris in fall 2026. In the meantime, “Adam Pendelton: Love, Queen” just opened at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where the artist’s first solo exhibition in Washington, D.C., will be on long-term view through January 2027. In addition to Mennour, Pendleton is represented by Pace Gallery and Galerie Max Hetzler. | More

AWARDS & HONORS | March 13: Each year, the ellipse Prize from Ellipse Art Projects in France focuses on an emerging art scene in a new geographical area. The 2025 prize is dedicated to Ghana, where five artists were selected as finalists: Sena Burgundy, Reginald Boateng, Emmanuel Aggrey Tieku, Nana Frimpong Oduro, and Dela Anyah. A group exhibition featuring works by the finalists will be on view at The Mix Design Hub in Accra, from April 11-27. The winner will be announced on May 4. The prize includes a solo exhibition in Paris at the Also Known as Africa art fair (Oct. 24-26, 2025). | More

LIVES | March 14: Fred Eversley (1941-2025), shown at top of page, an engineer-turned-artist, died at age 83 in New York. A sculptor associated with the Light and Space movement, Eversley was best known for his cylindrical resin discs, called as parabolas. His pioneering, nearly 60-year practice was a feat of engineering, drawing on his previous experience in the aerospace industry. “He transformed the way we perceive the world, oftentimes using cosmic color to open our eyes to new dimensions. His work wasn’t just visual, it was an invitation to experience light, space, and energy in ways we had never imagined…,” David Kordansky, Eversley’s art dealer said in a statement. “With his art, Fred taught us that color could be a portal to something vast and infinite.” (Photo: Courtesy The Africa Institute) | ARTnews and New York Times

< LIVES | March 16: Elizabeth Wolde Giorgis (1956-2025), a prominent scholar of Ethiopian art history and African modernism, has died. Giorgis, 68, was chair of the humanities department and a professor of art history, theory, and criticism at The Africa Institute of Global Studies University in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The university announced her death. Born in Addis Ababa, Giorgis attended college in the United States, where she worked in banking for 17 years. Seeking a career change, she pursued museum studies at New York University (2004) and earned a Ph.D., in the history of art and visual studies from Cornell University (2010). At Addis Ababa University, Giorgis had served as director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, dean of the College of Performing and Visual Art, and the director of the Modern Art Museum: Gebre Kristos Desta Center. Giorgis is the author of “Modernist Art in Ethiopia” and editor of “Henok Melkamzer: Telsem Symbols and Imagery,” which is forthcoming in May. | More

AWARDS & HONORS | March 17: David. C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, announced Lisa Gail Collins as the recipient of the 2025 James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History. Collins is a professor of art and director of the American Studies Program at Vassar College. She is being recognized for her book “Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt.” The award will be presented at the Driskell Center on April 3, followed by the David C. Driskell Distinguished Lecture delivered by scholar Kellie Jones on the practice of artist Suzanne Jackson. The event is part of Howard University’s annual Porter Colloquium. | More

From New York Times: “The man depicted in this 26-inch-high painting was a member of a group of Africans from the Gold Coast (a former British colony now known as Ghana) who were live exhibits in colonial ‘human zoos’ that toured Europe at the end of the 19th century. In the summer of 1896, they were put on display in a mock-African village in Vienna’s Zoological Garden, where Klimt might have seen them.” Shown, GUSTAV KLIMPT, Portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, circa 1897. | Photo: W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher

ART FAIRS | March 21: Wienerroither and Kohlbacher showcased a rediscovered painting of a Ghanaian prince by Gustav Klimt at TFAF Maastricht (the European Fine Art Foundation art fair in the Netherlands). Priced at 15 million euros (about $16.4 million), the circa 1897 portrait drew great interest and the Vienna gallery said it was working on a purchase agreement with a major museum. | New York Times

APPOINTMENTS | March 21: British Culture Minister Chris Bryant announced 16 new trustees for Tate, the British Museum, and Victoria & Albert Museum. The appointments included artist Sir Isaac Julien CBE and TV broadcaster June Sarpong OBE at Tate; and TV and radio broadcaster Victoria Nwosu-Hope at V&A. | More

MAGAZINES | March 24: “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” a portrait painted by Amy Sherald in 2014, graces the cover of the March 24 edition of The New Yorker. The cover coincides with the artist’s first major museum survey and first museum exhibition in New York. | Culture Type

< REPRESENTATION | March 24: Gladstone Gallery announced its representation of Precious Okoyomon, who works across sculpture, installation, and poetry. The Nigerian American artist engages with the natural world and explores identity, spirituality, the quotidian, and the histories of migration and colonialism. According to Okoyomon’s bio statement, “In their practice, organic materials serve a dual purpose: they remind us of our violent histories but also celebrate nature’s ability to adapt and flourish in the face of man-made crises.” “One Either Loves Oneself or Knows Oneself,” a major survey of the artist is currently on view at Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, through May 25. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Okoyomon is also represented by Mendes Wood DM. (Photo: Jerome Miza, Courtesy Art of Change 21) | More

From left, SONIA BOYCE, “Someone Else’s Fear Fantasy (A Case Of Mistaken Identity? Well This Is No Bed Of Roses) To Metamorphosis,” 1987. | © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025. Formerly in the collection of British artist Sutapa Biswas. Photograph by Tim Bowditch; HEW LOCKE, “Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales),” 2024 (mixed media on antique Parian ware). | Image Courtesy the Artist, Hales London and New York. © Hew Locke. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025; Both Purchased with kind support from the Bukhman Foundation as part of Collecting the Now

ACQUISITIONS | March 25: The National Portrait Gallery in London added works by Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke to its collection. “From Someone Else’s Fear Fantasy (A Case Of Mistaken Identity? Well This Is No Bed Of Roses) To Metamorphosis” (1987) a rare self-portrait Sonia Boyce and Locke’s “Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales)” (2024) are the first works acquired through the new Collecting Now fund supported by a gift from the Bukhman Foundation, providing one million pounds over three years for the purchase of contemporary works. Boyce and Locke are represented as sitters in the museum, but the portraits are the first works made by the artists to enter the collection. Locke’s bust of Prince Albert Edward is now on view in the Empire and Resistance gallery. | More

BIENNIALS | March 27: The Republic of Togo will present its first pavilion at the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture this year. The pavilion is commissioned by Sonia Lawson, founding director of Palais de Lomé, and curated by Studio NEiDA, which was co-founded by architect Jeanne Autran-Edorh and curator Fabiola Büchele. Open to the public from May 10-Nov. 23, the exhibition “explores the architectural narratives of Togo from the turn of the 20th century, focusing on the themes of conservation and transformation.” | More

DESIGN > | March 28: Architectural Digest featured the Toronto home of dentist, curator, and art collector Kenneth Montague, shown at right, and his family, in an online-only article. “The 1919 Arts and Crafts house, which was originally built by Eden Smith, was reimagined by architect Tura Cousins Wilson of SOCA to highlight Montague’s art collection—The Wedge Collection—and facilitate modern life,” Morgan Goldberg wrote. The words and pictures highlight Montague’s collection of African diasporic art on display throughout the home, including works by Lynette Yiadom Boakye, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Preston Pavlis, Richard Nattoo, Emmanuel Osahor, and Jim Adams. (Photo by Doublespace Photography/SOCA) | Architectural Digest
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