Culture Type: The 13 Best Black Art Books of 2023
The Best Black Art Books of 2023 explore the work of Simone Leigh, Benjamin Wigfall, Kerry James Marshall, Hughie Lee-Smith, Dalton Paula, William Edmondson, and more A GLORIOUS TRIBUTE and essential overview, “Simone Leigh” is the first publication to document the singular artist’s practice, which focuses on sculpture and centers Black female subjectivity. The catalogue...
Design Industry Celebrates Best in Books, Recognizing Volumes on Artists Wangechi Mutu, Shikeith, and Just Above Midtown
Winning selections included books dedicated to a variety of visual artists. ONE Of THE MOST ANTICIPATED museum exhibitions of 2022 paid tribute to Just Above Midtown, the storied New York gallery space Linda Goode Bryant launched nearly half a century ago, providing a platform for Black artists when they were largely shut out of...
5 New Books Focus on Artists Ming Smith, Wangechi Mutu, Romare Bearden, Caribbean Art, and Found Photos of Black Life
FIVE NEWLY PUBLISHED illustrated art books celebrate an intergenerational slate of Black artists. The volumes include the first monograph of Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu and books dedicated to the work of Ming Smith and Romare Bearden. A collection of found photographs and contemporary Caribbean art are also explored: “Wangechi Mutu (Phaidon Contemporary Artists...
Culture Type: The 18 Best Black Art Books of 2022
The Best Black Art Books of 2022 explore the work of El Anatsui, Firelei Báez, Richard Hunt, Marilyn Nance, Henry Taylor, Black potters, Haitian artists, and more TWO NEW BOOKS harken back nearly 50 years exploring profound moments in Black art history. Published on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Museum of...
As We Rise: Photography Publication and Coinciding Traveling Exhibition Explore Black Life on Both Sides of Atlantic
OVER THE PAST 25 years, Kenneth Montague has built an expansive photography-based collection that explores Blackness and the Black experience, visualizing what Black life looks like on both sides of the Atlantic. The Wedge Collection features images by Black artists from throughout the diaspora—from Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Great Britain, South America,...
New York Street Photographer Jamel Shabazz Named 2022 Recipient of Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize
SINCE THE LATE 1970S, New York photographer Jamel Shabazz has been cataloging his iconic street portraits in thematic albums. Housing small prints, numerous albums form a visual archive across nearly half a century documenting the city’s cultural shifts, sociopolitical landscape, and evolving style. The treasure trove will soon be published in book form. Shabazz is...
While Traveling the World Documenting Foodways of African Diaspora, Jessica B. Harris Has Been Collecting Vintage Postcards
TRAVELING THE WORLD for more than 50 years, Jessica B. Harris has been documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora surfacing Black history in the culture and traditions of food and the people who cultivate, sell, and cook it. Along the way, she’s collected recipes and vintage postcards. Turns out, the acclaimed culinary historian...
AIGA Selects 50 Best Book and Cover Designs: Winners Include ‘Black Futures’ and Publications From Ming Smith, Duro Olowu, and Tyler Mitchell
KNOWN AS MORCOS KEY, Waël Morcos and Jon Key are the design team behind “Black Futures,” the ambitious collaboration from Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. The authors set out to answer the question “What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?” Their response is an impressive compilation—a cacophony of images, memes,...
Nicole R. Fleetwood Wins National Book Critics Circle Award for ‘Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration’
IN THE CATEGORY OF CRITICISM, Nicole R. Fleetwood won the National Book Critics Circle Award for
College Art Association 2021 Awards Honor Samella Lewis, Deborah Willis, Nicole R. Fleetwood, Simone Leigh, Charles L. Davis II, and Maren Hassinger
From left, Nicole R. Fleetwood and Samella Lewis AN INTERGENERATIONAL SLATE of artists and scholars was recognized by the College Art Association (CAA) with 2021 Awards for Distinction. In previous years, one or a few of the honorees have been Black. This year, there were several. Recipients of the juried awards included Samella Lewis,...
What to Look Forward to in 2021: More Than 30 Exhibitions, Books, and Events Focused on African American Art
THE YEAR AHEAD is rife with an expansive and diverse selection of exhibitions, books and other opportunities to engage with the work of African American artists. From Austin, Texas, to Brooklyn and Boston, a notable line up of solo museum exhibitions opening in 2021 is focused on Black female artists, including Emma Amos, Sonya...
Culture Type Picks: 15 Best Black Art Books of 2020
WITH MUSEUMS CLOSED and galleries shuttered for months on end in 2020, a succession of new art books focused on Black artists provided much needed solace, insights, and deep dives into the practices of up-and-coming artists and historic figures. When exhibitions dedicated to Kamoinge Workshop, Tyler Mitchell, Jordan Casteel, and Yvette Yiadom-Boakye were temporarily...
‘Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi’ Exhibition Catalog Wins Publication Award
PUBLISHED TO DOCUMENT her solo exhibition at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, “Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi” is the first major publication to explore the work of artist Deborah Roberts. It’s an exceptional volume and an award winner. “Deborah Roberts: The Evolution of Mimi” received a 2020 Mary Ellen...
For LA Artist Henry Taylor ‘Blackness is Not an Uneasy, Overcompensating Assertion, Blackness Just Is’
THE WRITING AND THE ART featured in Henry Taylor’s first major monograph are just as striking as the vivid orange cloth cover in which it is bound. Los Angeles-based Taylor is known for his richly colored, bluesy approach to figuration. His subjects are rendered loosely and somewhat abstract. He makes paintings of his friends,...
Finding Joy in the Everyday Mundane, Tyler Mitchell’s Photographs ‘Visualize What a Black Utopia Looks Like, or Could Look Like’
TYLER MITCHELL, Untitled, 2019. | © Tyler Mitchell ALLURING, JOYFUL, AND TIMELY, the photographs of Tyler Mitchell center the Black experiences he didn’t see represented in media when he was growing up. The images Mitchell came across, mostly on Tumblr, focused on attractive white models at leisure and at play, having fun. Shifting how...
There’s a New Wave of Critically Recognized Black Female Artists. These Publications are the First to Document Their Work
A NEW WAVE OF BLACK FEMALE ARTISTS has been making strides in the art world, over the past several years, with major exhibitions, museum acquisitions, collector support, gallery representation, and auction records that most practitioners don’t see in their entire careers. These recent publications are the first major volumes to document the individual practices...
Carrie Mae Weems on Kitchen Table Series: ‘Not Simply a Voice for African American Women, but More Generally for Women’
IN A NEW ONLINE VIEWING ROOM, Jack Shainman Gallery is showcasing Carrie Mae Weems‘s iconic Kitchen Table Series (1990). The photographs feature a succession of staged scenes that explore female identity, experiences, and relationships in the context of a traditionally female domain. Employing visual performance, image making, and a compelling narrative text, the powerful...
New Voice With Plenty to Say: Kenyan Painter Michael Armitage Bridges European Traditions and East African Modernism
Artist Michael Armitage. | Photo courtesy White Cube ONE OF THE MOST THOUGHT-PROVOKING figures in contemporary painting, Kenyan artist Michael Armitage probes the politics and cultural history of East Africa. His fascinating narrative scenes have a mythical quality and abstract tendencies that draw on aesthetic tensions between European traditions and East African modernism. In...
Books on Race and Racism are Dominating Bestseller Lists and ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ by Ibram X. Kendi is Near the Top
A MUST READ FOR THE MOMENT, historian Ibram X. Kendi published “How to Be an Antiracist” last summer. Jeffrey C. Stewart, a museum veteran and biographer of Alain Locke, reviewed the volume for The New York Times. Stewart called it a “stunner of a book” and a “manual of racial ethics.” “How to Be...
10 Children’s Books Tell Uplifting Stories About the Lives and Work of Black Artists Including Tyree Guyton, Frank Bowling, Laura Wheeler Waring, and Ernie Barnes
This week is National Children’s Book Week (May 4-10), a celebration of books and the joy of reading RIFE WITH NARRATIVES about doing whatever it takes to overcome personal and societal challenges to pursue their dreams, the lives of artists and designers offer young readers invaluable life lessons with a dose of culture and...
