Basel and Beyond: Overdue Recognition of African American Artists at Home is Generating Unprecedented Curatorial and Collector Interest Throughout Europe
“The Music of Color: Sam Gilliam, 1967-1973” recently opened in Basel, Switzerland. THE GALLERIES OF KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL are alive with color in the form of 45 abstract paintings by Sam Gilliam. “The Music of Color: Sam Gilliam, 1967-1973” is the Washington, D.C.-based artist’s first solo survey exhibition in a European museum. The show is...
British Artist Steve McQueen’s Latest Film is a Heist Thriller Starring Viola Davis
Viola Davis leads an ensemble cast in Steve McQueen’s latest film “Widows.” | Screenshot from Trailer A DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, screenwriter, and video artist, Steve McQueen has a dual career making movies for museums and movies for the cineplex. In the art world, recent video installations have included “End Credits,” an homage to Paul Robeson,...
In a New Documentary, 4 Los Angeles Area Artists Explore the Creative and Practical Implications of Motherhood
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle is among the artists profiled in the documentary “Artist and Mother.” | Video by KCET DOES MOTHERHOOD ALTER an artist’s practice or change her work and approach to creativity? It’s a question rarely discussed publicly that a new documentary takes on and addresses directly. “You have very significant successful artists and...
A New Documentary About André Leon Talley Traces His Southern Roots and Unimaginable Rise in High Fashion
A WISE AND SEASONED arbiter of style, André Leon Talley has been cutting a fabulous figure in the fashion world for more than 40 years. Before he became a fixture at Vogue, he worked at Andy Warhol’s Factory, volunteered with Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, and did stints at...
It’s World Book Day. Have You Read an Exhibition Catalog in the Past Year?
Johnson Publishing Library Archive at Rebuild Foundation, Chicago (April 23, 2016). | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine TODAY IS WORLD BOOK DAY, what are you reading? An exhibition catalog or critical text perhaps? Designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Book and Copyright Day celebrates and promotes books, reading,...
Moments in Time: Andre D. Wagner Photographs African American Life as it Unfolds on the Streets of New York
THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF Andre D. Wagner celebrate everyday excellence and the power of fleeting moments. The New York-based street photographer trains his camera primarily on African Americans throughout the city, documenting the many untold stories found in neighborhoods from Brooklyn and Harlem. His images of blackness have recently been featured in the New York...
Architect David Adjaye Named Lead Designer for National Holocaust Memorial in London
THE UK GOVERNMENT has selected Adjaye Associates, Ron Arad Architects and landscape architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman to design a new national Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London. David Adjaye will serve as lead designer of the project. Commissioned by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, the memorial honors “the six million Jewish men,...
Monumental Practice: Long Before the Violence in Charlottesville, Mabel O. Wilson Was Exploring the Intersection of Race and History in Public Spaces
Robert E. Lee Monument in Emancipation Park, Charlottesville, Va. | via UVA THE CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE’S plan to remove a monument memorializing Confederate General Robert E. Lee drew protests from tiki torch-bearing white supremacists and white nationalists. On Aug. 12, counter-demonstrators clashed with participants in the “Unite the Right” rally and one woman, among...
LaToya Ruby Frazier and Nari Ward Among 16 Artists Participating in Creative Time’s Political ‘Pledges of Allegiance’
FLAGS HAVE PROVEN to be a powerful medium in contemporary art, from David Hammons’s “African American Flag” (1990), which sold at Phillips auction for more than $2 million, to Dread Scott’s “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday” (2015) displayed last summer at Jack Shainman Gallery, and Nu Barreto’s “Desunited States of Africa” (2010)...
Henry Taylor’s Portrait of Black Panther Bobby Hutton is a Record Setter
Lot 75: HENRY TAYLOR, “‘The Young, the Brave, Bobby Hutton’ R.I.P. Oakland, California,” 2007 (acrylic, charcoal and graphite on canvas). Estimate $35,000-$45,000. Sold for $235,500 (including fees) IN MARCH, TWO PAINTINGS by Henry Taylor set artist records at auction. A couple of weeks after Henry Taylor‘s 2011 painting “Terri Philips” sold for $182,078 (including...
May 18: Art Museum Day Raises Awareness of Cultural and Community Contributions
Installation view of Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair” at GWU Museum and The Textile Museum. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine MUSEUMS ARE BEING CELEBRATED around the world with an emphasis on the critical role the institutions play in civil society. On May 18, hundreds of museums are observing Art Museum...
For World Book Day, 5 New Volumes Featuring African American Artists
DESIGNATED BY THE UNITED NATIONS Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Book Day promotes reading, publishing and copyright. It’s a great excuse to learn more about five new art books. Recently published volumes pay tribute to women artists and explore the work of African American artists active in 1960s and 70s Los Angeles—the work...
Celebrating Earth Day with Alma Thomas’s Nature-Inspired ‘Earth’ Paintings
Alma Thomas, “Untitled,” circa 1968. | MoMA A NEW EXHIBITION at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is dedicated to works by women artists created between the end of World War II in 1945 and the onset of the Feminist Movement in the late 1960s. “Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction”...
Schomburg Acquires James Baldwin Archive, Including Letters to Artist Beauford Delaney Who Painted Many Portraits of the Writer
Embed from Getty Images DURING HIS LIFETIME, James Baldwin (1924-1987) had a lot to say. His insightful observations and thoughtful, sometimes fiery, words about race, civil rights, and the American paradigm resonate 30 years after his death. The recent Oscar-nominated documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” which is based on an unpublished Baldwin manuscript,...
Washington Renaissance: 8 Distinguished Artists Reflect and Connect in Wide-Ranging Discussion of African American Art in 20th Century Washington
Artists Sam Gilliam and David C. Driskell. | © 2017 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington WASHINGTON, D.C. — The first time Lilian Thomas Burwell met Sam Gilliam, he told her if she wanted to be taken seriously as an artist she should get her own studio space. “He didn’t know me...
Scurlock Photography Studio: Father and Sons Documented Black Washington for Much of 20th Century
ADDISON SCURLOCK, Howard University Students,” circa 1920-30 (printed 1970). | Scurlock Studio Records, circa 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History FOR THE GREATER PART of the 20th century, America’s black metropolises were documented by visionary black photographers who forged successful businesses and important roles as local community historians. They offered portraits of...
Art Capital: Nearly 500 Gather at National Gallery of Art to Discuss African American Art in 20th Century Washington
Detail of ALMA THOMAS, “Red Rose Cantata” 1973 (acrylic on canvas). | Courtesy National Gallery of Art Symposium gives a nod to Howard University and local artists, scholars and curators who shaped the field WASHINGTON, D.C. — For decades, Howard University in Washington, D.C., was at the center of the African American art world....
From London to New York, Whitney Biennial Artist Henry Taylor is Having a Major Art World Moment
HENRY TAYLOR’s paintings on view at 2017 Whitney Biennial, including his depiction of Philando Castile, at right. | Photograph by Matthew Carasella, Courtesy Whitney Museum THROUGH LOOSLY RENDERED FIGURATION Henry Taylor conveys a sense of authenticity and insight into the complexity of humanity. The Los Angeles-based artist is participating in the 2017 Whitney Biennial,...
Henry Taylor’s March Cover of Art in America Magazine is Inspired by 1968 Photo of Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis
FOR THE MARCH COVER of Art in America magazine Henry Taylor was inspired by a society photograph from half a century ago. Titled “Cicely and Miles Visit the Obamas” the Los Angeles-based painter imagines Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis (1926-1991) visiting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House. The...
Pomegranate is Publishing 2018 Calendar Devoted to Paintings by Eldzier Cortor, More Products Featuring African American Artists on Horizon
Eldzier Cortor’s “Classical Study No. 39,” 1979 (oil on canvas) is featured on the cover of Pomegranate’s 2018 calendar. KATIE BURKE WAS VISITING Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York when she saw a major painting by Eldzier Cortor (1916–2015) and it sparked an idea. The publisher of Pomegranate Communications, Burke was very familiar with...
