Closing Soon: From New York to Atlanta and Dallas, 5 Museum Exhibitions Featuring African American Artists
FROM NEW YORK TO TEXAS, museums are presenting some of the most socially engaging and historically significant work of our time. Five must-see exhibitions feature critically acclaimed video installations by Arthur Jafa and Garrett Bradley; retrospectives exploring the photography of New York collective Kamoinge Workshop and Chicago-based Dawoud Bey; and works by artists incarcerated...
Hugo McCloud’s New Paintings are Made with Single-Use Plastic Bags: ‘This Material Could Be Used as Art, But Also as a Tool to Open Up Conversation’
THE WORK OF Hugo McCloud has shifted profoundly over the past year. His latest paintings on view at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, were produced using single-use plastic bags—plentiful, overlooked, non-biodegradable material available in a spectrum of colors. The plastic served as his “paint.” The works are composed of hundreds, or maybe even...
Curator Laura Hoptman Reflects on Meeting Artist David Hammons and Organizing New Show at Drawing Center, the First Museum Exhibition Dedicated to His Body Prints
IN THE LATE 1960s, David Hammons adapted an inventive method for creating monoprints, using grease, pigment, and his own body to make the impressions. He was living and working in Los Angeles at the time. Over the span of a decade, Hammons produced a spectrum of body prints, combining the process with silkscreening and...
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...
An American in Paris: Herbert Gentry Said His Paintings Possess a ‘Certain Spontaneity’ and Reflect ‘People I’ve Met Throughout the World’
MANY BLACK AMERICAN ARTISTS, seeking a more racially receptive experience, thrived in Europe during the post-war years. A New Yorker, Herbert Gentry (1919-2003) was at the center of the milieu. In 1949, he established Chez Honey, a gallery-club in the Montparnasse area of Paris, a popular gathering place that engendered many of his friendships...
Coming Soon: ‘Icons of Nature and History,’ a Major Survey of David Driskell Opens at High Museum in Atlanta in February 2021
A MAJOR TRAVELING SURVEY of David Driskell (1931-2020) opens at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in February 2021. “David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History” will present an overview of Driskell’s illustrious career and celebrate highlights of his oeuvre, across painting, printmaking and collage. About 60 paintings and works on paper will...
Titus Kaphar Explored Renaissance Christian Imagery and Presented a Black Jesus Painting in a Deconsecrated Church in Brussels
Gesù Church in Brussels A DECONSECRATED CHURCH in Brussels, Belgium, served as the venue for a recent exhibition of religious paintings by Titus Kaphar. “The Evidence of Things Unseen” was presented by Maruani Mercier gallery at Gesù Church. Kaphar’s practice is a sustained interrogation of Western art. He challenges historic narratives and questions what...
Nina Chanel Abney Embraces the Great Outdoors in ‘Idyllic Scenes of Blackness’
“Nina Chanel Abney: The Great Escape” at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. A CAMPFIRE, BIKES, AND FRESHLY CAUGHT FISH have replaced the tumult and complexity of contemporary urban life that have animated Nina Chanel Abney‘s paintings in recent years. Her latest exhibition features rural scenes: farming, hunting, and kayaking. The graphic, boldly hued paintings...
Sam Gilliam on His New Work at Pace Gallery: ‘I Am Trying to Express Something That is Contemporary’
THE SIX-DECADE CAREER of Sam Gilliam has been defined by a commitment to color and a penchant for invention, innovation, and charting his own path. In the mid-1960s, Gilliam developed two new formats for presenting his work. He began wrapping his canvases on top of frames, creating his signature Beveled-Edge paintings. Then he removed...
Envisioned by the Late Artist Himself, New Ernie Barnes Exhibition Brings His Figurative Paintings to Life
Installation view of “Ernie Barnes: Liberating Humanity From Within.” | Photo by Jeff McLane, Courtesy UTA Artist Space THEIR INITIAL SIT DOWN was highly productive, a real meeting of minds. Luz Rodriguez manages the estate of artist Ernie Barnes (1938-2009). Arthur Lewis is creative director of UTA Fine Arts & UTA Artist Space. Just...
Black Motherhood and American Mourning: After Challenging Historic Narratives, Titus Kaphar Confronts Contemporary Realities
FOR HIS FIRST EXHIBITION since joining Gagosian in April, Titus Kaphar is showing a series of new paintings. “Titus Kaphar: From a Tropical Space” is on view in New York. Kaphar has developed a practice around challenging art historical images from the 18th and 19th centuries and the American history narratives they normalize. He...
National Museum of Women in the Arts is Presenting First Survey of Textile and Social Practice Artist Sonya Clark in March 2021
“Afro Abe II” (2010) by Sonya Clark THE SINGULAR PRACTICE of Sonya Clark will be showcased for the first time with a full-scale survey at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C. A textile and social practice artist, Clark explores issues of race, identity, visibility, and Blackness, expressing herself...
Phillips is Hosting a Selling Exhibition With Dindga McCannon Whose Mixed-Media Works Center Black Women
“Women in Jazz Saturday” (2020) by Dindga McCannon EMPLOYING TRADITIONAL QUILTING TECHNIQUES in combination with paint, printed images, and beaded embellishments, mixed-media works by Dindga McCannon reference the March on Washington and Monet’s Garden and pay tribute to Maya Angelou, Faith Ringgold, Nelson Mandela, Mariam Makeba, women in jazz, and Lavinia Williams, a lead...
On View: ‘Caroline Kent: A Sudden Appearance of the Sun’ at Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions FOR HER FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION with Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles, Caroline Kent is presenting a suite of large-scale paintings. Kent explores the intersection of language, abstraction, and painting. She begins by covering her canvases with black paint, creating a “non-space” of “unlocatability.” From there, the...
Across the Nation: 5 Photography Exhibitions Showcase Works by Kay Hickman, Awol Erizku, John Edmonds, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Young Genre-Bending Image Makers
FROM ST. LOUIS TO MIAMI and New York, five photography exhibitions are showcasing the work of Black image makers. John Edmonds, Awol Erizku, and a new generation of fast-rising photographers are exploring fashion, art history, and contemporary culture. On the documentary front, two photographers capture New York. Lyle Ashton Harris’s archival work tracks the...
Artist Emma Amos on Her Falling Series: I Liked the Idea Somebody Was ‘Trying to Catch You’ or ‘Holding Onto You’
IN THIS MOMENT OF CHALLENGES, uncertainty, and promise, Ryan Lee Gallery is presenting a timely exhibition of works by Emma Amos (1937-2020). “Emma Amos: Falling Figures” brings together figurative paintings that depict bodies in free fall—indeterminable states of abandon, loss, anxiety, rescue, and trust. This exhibition is the first dedicated to the falling figure...
Election 2020: Artists and Museums are Actively Engaged, Presenting Exhibitions and Public Awareness Campaigns, and Encouraging Voter Participation
Vote.org’s Plan Your Vote campaign features voting advocacy artworks by artists including, from left, Julie Mehretu and Calida Rawles ELECTION DAY IS NOV. 3 in the United States and in the lead up artists and art institutions have been active and engaged. The political season has inspired countless artist projects, information campaigns, public art...
Online: 5 Gallery Exhibitions Focus on Artists Amy Sherald, Charles Gaines, Genevieve Gaignard, Edgar Arceneaux, and The Racial Imaginary Institute
NEW NORMS of remote engagement have emerged from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the positive extensions of this development is galleries presenting online exhibitions, initially in lieu of and increasinly alongside in-person shows, expanding opportunities to experience new and recent works by artists. Shown here are five online exhibitions hosted by...
On View: ‘Dawn Williams Boyd: Cloth Paintings’ Online at Fort Gansevoort in New York
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions THESE ARE NOT QUILTS. Images of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in the moments before he assassinated NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers (1925-1963) in the driveway of his Jackson, Miss., home or the decapitation of a journalist with a bloodied sign reading “Freedom of Speech...
New York: 5 Gallery Exhibitions Showcasing Works by Kevin Beasley, Ficre Ghebreyesus, Benny Andrews, Theaster Gates, and Odili Donald Odita
FALL IS ALWAYS PRIME TIME for exhibition programming and this season is no different, despite special protocols in place at galleries for in-person shows, given the pandemic. Some of the must-see art shows on view in New York City feature painting, both traditional forms and innovative mixed-media approaches incorporating a variety of materials. A...
