Black Artist News – June 19: Nick Cave, Gordon Parks, Mickalene Thomas & More
THE WEEK’S TOP NEWS COVERAGE from around the web featuring artists Nick Cave, Gordon Parks, Noah Purifoy, Mark Bradford, Mickalene Thomas and designer Duro Olowu. Nick Cave: Soundsuit Invasion, Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead. | Photo by PD Rearick, Courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum via T Magaine Nick Cave T MAGAZINE talks to Chicago-based artist Nick...
Porter Magazine Reports on ‘Quiet Power’ of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Paintings
MYSTERIOUS AND CAPTIVATING are among the descriptors often used to label the subjects in Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s remarkable portraits. Fictional figures, the men and women she paints—whether sitting, standing, reclining, gazing at a floral arrangement or nursing a cup of tea—betray no sense of time or place, and their clothing and spare surroundings don’t offer any...
Mark Bradford’s ‘Smear’ Sells for Record $4.3 Million at Sotheby’s
TEN BIDDERS VIED FOR A NEW PAINTING by Mark Bradford at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction on May 12. The sale price for “Smear” was ultimately $4,394,000 (including fees), a record for the Los Angeles-based artist, according to Sotheby’s and Iris Index. A brilliant nexus of color, technique and materials executed in 2015, the...
Kara Walker Offers a Critical Assessment of Toni Morrison’s New Book
View image | gettyimages.com FOR TWO DECADES, KARA WALKER HAS PURSUED a unique practice focused on exploring the history of race, gender, power and exploitation in the antebellum South through large-scale cut-paper silhouettes, drawings, watercolor and video animation. The artist’s primary subject parallels that of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” (1987), as well...
Alma Thomas is Given Pride of Place at the White House
THE INSTANTLY RECOGNIZABLE work of Alma W. Thomas (1891-1978) graces the Old Family Dining Room at the White House. In February, First Lady Michelle Obama revealed the newly refurbished space where Thomas’s “Resurrection” is displayed on the north wall. The painting is the first artwork by an African American woman to hang in the...
How Artist Charles Gaines is Influencing the Creative Economy in Los Angeles
THE HAMMER MUSEUM is currently presenting “Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989,” the first museum survey of the Los Angeles-based artist’s early work. The exhibition originated at the Studio Museum in Harlem and includes some rare works, previously presumed to be lost, being shown for the first time. The work of Charles Gaines has been acquired...
For Artist Project, Mickalene Thomas, Nick Cave and Kehinde Wiley Reveal Their Favorite Works at the Met
RECLINING IN THE NUDE or posed upright on sofas, Mickalene Thomas‘s female subjects are always surrounded by a dynamic mix of patterned textiles. Mixed-media paintings and photographs, her portraits of African American women are inspired in part by the practice of Malian photographer Seydou Keita (1921-2001), whose work is shown above. “I wasn’t trained...
Theaster Gates Gave a TED Talk About Reviving Communities with Cultural Development
WHETHER DESCRIBED AS AN ARTIST, urban planner or creative entrepreneur, Theaster Gates‘s innovative approach to improving his Chicago neighborhood has garnered wide attention over the past five years or so. His use of cultural capital to transform blighted buildings on his Dorchester block into gathering places for film screenings, musical performances, dinner parties, conferences...
South African Artist Nicholas Hlobo Joins Lehmann Maupin
SOUTH AFRICAN ARTIST Nicholas Hlobo, whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, works on paper, and video installation, has joined Lehmann Maupin in New York. Recognized for his innovative use and mix of materials, Hlobo’s first U.S. solo show opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in 2008 and, later that year, he...
Toyin Odutola Discusses New York, Artistic Influences and the Wonders of Ballpoint
EARLIER THIS MONTH, Toyin Odutola spoke to BOMB magazine about race, representation and inspiration. The Nigerian-born artist’s work is instantly recognizable. Executed in charcoal, ink and often ballpoint pen, her self portraits and images of her brothers and others are usually set against dark backgrounds, the subject’s skin depicted in black hues defined by...
Frieze Magazine Asks Henry Taylor and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye About Painting
LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE FINDS PAINTING “DIFFICULT.” Critically recognized for her moody-hued paintings of people who sprout from her imagination (above), the British artist says the challenge is a good thing. “I paint because I love doing it and because I never stop finding it difficult,” she told Frieze magazine. “I always feel like I’m trying to...
Kadir Nelson Interprets New Yorker Icon for Magazine’s 90th Anniversary
THE NEW YORKER IS CELEBRATING its 90th anniversary with nine covers by nine illustrators including award-winning artist Kadir Nelson. The magazine’s first issue in February 1925 featured a “starchy-looking gent with the beaver hat and the monocle,” an iconic character who later became known as Eustace Tilley. Standing the test of time, Tilley has been...
Mark Bradford and Theaster Gates Post Record Sales at London Auctions
WHEN THE HAMMER CAME DOWN at Phillips London, Mark Bradford’s “Biting the Book” sold for more than $3.8 million, a record for the Los Angeles-based artist. A large-scale, mixed-media painting created in 2013, it was featured in Bradford’s “Through the Darkest America by Truck and Tank” exhibition at the Bermondsey location of White Cube...
New York Times ‘Paints’ Portrait of Kehinde Wiley
KEHINDE WILEY, “Femme piquée par un serpent,” 2008 (oil on canvas). | Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York. © Kehinde Wiley IN ADVANCE OF HIS RETROSPECTIVE “A New Republic” opening at the Brooklyn Museum on Feb. 20, the New York Times profiled Kehinde Wiley. Deborah Solomon visited the artist at his studio in the...
Titus Kaphar Paints Ferguson Protesters for Time Magazine
LIKE SO MANY OTHER AMERICANS, artist Titus Kaphar has been struggling with how to respond to the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the choking death of Eric Garner in New York, and the countless other incidents involving police officers killing unarmed Black men and youth across the country. Ultimately, he expressed himself...
On ‘Black Friday,’ a Look Back at Kerry James Marshall’s ‘Dollar for Dollar’ Exhibition
“Buy Black” by Kerry James Marshall on view at “Black Eye” group exhibition curated by Nicola Vassell, May 2014 in New York | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine AMERICA’S THIRST FOR HOLIDAY CONSUMPTION, paired with retailers desperate push to convince consumers to spend, spend, spend so that they can maximize revenues during the most...
Senga Nengudi’s First UK Exhibition Opens at White Cube Gallery
ARTISTS HAVE LONG USED EVERYDAY OBJECTS as inspiration, tools and materials, often transforming and utilizing them in entirely new and unrecognizable ways. A generation before Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto began filling nylon textiles with spices, Senga Nengudi (below left) was twisting, stretching and manipulating nylon pantyhose, testing their tension and form by stuffing them...
Njideka Akunyili Crosby Wins Smithsonian’s 2014 James Dicke Prize
THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM has awarded Njideka Akunyili Crosby the 2014 James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize for her “bold yet intimate” mixed- media paintings, which it describes as “among the most visually, conceptually and technically exciting work being made today.” The museum made the announcement yesterday. The prize recognizes an artist younger than...
Kay Hassan Uses Everyday Materials to Tell Compelling Stories
STORIES, MEMORIES AND DREAMS fill Jack Shainman Gallery. They are embedded in ambitious portraits composed of torn paper and installations of found radios, album covers and eyeglasses. The materials have a history that artist Kay Hassan mines for meaning, envisioning how everyday people live, face challenges and find joy. Images from billboard advertisements and the...
At Sotheby’s, $3.9M White Text Painting Sets Glenn Ligon Record
IT WAS THE FIRST LOT OF THE NIGHT, a white-on-white text painting by Glenn Ligon. Originally executed in 1990 and repainted in 2003, “Untitled (I Was Somebody)” opened Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction and sold for more than $3.9 million, according to sales results. The price was well over twice the estimate of $1 million...
