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An essential resource focused on visual art from a Black perspective, Culture Type explores the intersection of art, history, and culture

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Holiday Gift Guide 2022: Great Finds Inspired by African American Artists, From Barkley L. Hendricks to Faith Ringgold, Henry Taylor, Kehinde Wiley & More

Holiday Gift Guide 2022: Great Finds Inspired by African American Artists, From Barkley L. Hendricks to Faith Ringgold, Henry Taylor, Kehinde Wiley & More

  CRITICALLY RECOGNIZED African American artists are introducing their work to wider audiences through accessible products and design objects sold at museums, galleries, and other outlets. Major exhibitions of Faith Ringgold, Henry Taylor, and Nick Cave this year have inspired skateboard decks, hoodies, boxed note cards, and fine china plates. Artist Kehinde Wiley’s online shop...
14 Jigsaw Puzzles Celebrate Work of Highly Regarded Black Artists, From Derrick Adams, Faith Ringgold, and Gee's Bend Quilters to Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence

14 Jigsaw Puzzles Celebrate Work of Highly Regarded Black Artists, From Derrick Adams, Faith Ringgold, and Gee’s Bend Quilters to Horace Pippin and Jacob Lawrence

  THREE FOLK MUSICIANS (1967) by Romare Bearden is one of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s prized acquisitions. The large-scale collage was added to the collection of the Richmond museum in 2016 and with the newfound popularity of jigsaw puzzles, a 500-piece version of the work is now available from the museum’s gift shop....
Culture Type Gift Guide 2021: Celebrate the Holidays with Fabulous Finds Inspired by Leading Black Artists

Culture Type Gift Guide 2021: Celebrate the Holidays with Fabulous Finds Inspired by Leading Black Artists

  THE EVER-PRESENT FLORAL PATTERNS in the background of Kehinde Wiley’s famous portraits inspired a set of notecards. A deck of playing cards features artwork by Gee’s Bend, Ala., quilt artists. Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Escape Collage is emblazoned on a hoodie. From apparel and accessories to stationery and home goods, African American artists have inspired...
Culture Type 2020 Holiday Gift Guide: Artist-Inspired Ideas for Everyone on Your List

Culture Type 2020 Holiday Gift Guide: Artist-Inspired Ideas for Everyone on Your List

  FAITH RINGGOLD COLLABORATED with Vans and the Museum of Modern Art. The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat partnered with Coach and Derrick Adams joined forces with a swimsuit brand. Considering an art-inspired gift? This year, highly acclaimed Black artists have made their work more accessible to wider audiences in the form of products such as...
Holiday Gift Guide 2019: Selections Inspired by African American Artists From Betye Saar to Nick Cave and Kehinde Wiley

Holiday Gift Guide 2019: Selections Inspired by African American Artists From Betye Saar to Nick Cave and Kehinde Wiley

  MANY POPULAR AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS are making versions of their work more accessible through objects and products sold at museums and other outlets. A box of artist-inspired notecards, an artful calendar, or a new coffee table book makes the perfect gift. In November, “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power”...
Holiday Gift Guide 2018: Selections Inspired by the Works of African American Artists Jack Whitten, Mickalene Thomas, Charles White & More

Holiday Gift Guide 2018: Selections Inspired by the Works of African American Artists Jack Whitten, Mickalene Thomas, Charles White & More

  FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA recommends giving a gift of museum membership this holiday season. On the occasion of the publication of her new book “Becoming,” Obama contributed a gift guide to People magazine. She said when she first became a mom, she and her girlfriends would take their children on museum tours. She mentioned...
Holiday Gift Guide 2017: Exhibition Posters for the Art Lovers on Your List

Holiday Gift Guide 2017: Exhibition Posters for the Art Lovers on Your List

  AN EXHIBITION POSTER featuring “Bid ‘Em In/Slave (Angie)” by Barkley Hendricks (1945-2017) was produced on the occasion of “Black Fire: A Constant State of Revolution,” a 2015-16 group show at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Neb. I discovered the poster last spring, shortly after the artist died. The image features a female...
Holiday Gift Guide 2017: 14 New Books for the Photography Lovers on Your List

Holiday Gift Guide 2017: 14 New Books for the Photography Lovers on Your List

EXCEPTIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS tell amazing stories. Through images by and about people of African descent, a number of recently published volumes further reveal the personalities, places, cultures and issues that have captured our imaginations and surface others largely overlooked. Must haves for the photography enthusiasts on your gift list, these titles span fine art, documentary, and...
2016 Holiday Gift Guide: 30 Objects Inspired by the Work of African American Artists

2016 Holiday Gift Guide: 30 Objects Inspired by the Work of African American Artists

  FOR THE ART ENTHUSIASTS ON YOUR LIST, consider a gift inspired by one of the most critically acclaimed African American artists working today. Culture Type has curated a list of 30 fabulous finds to fit any budget and suit a variety of recipients. Many special products were created to accompany major exhibitions in 2016,...
Media Report: Alma Thomas Opens at Tang, Naima Keith Joins CAAM, and More

Media Report: Alma Thomas Opens at Tang, Naima Keith Joins CAAM, and More

Naima Keith, who served as an associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, has joined the California African American Museum in Los Angeles.   MEDIA REPORT CITES recently published news and features from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to read and explore:   Harlem’s Studio Museum Curator Naima...
On the Horizon in African American Art: Artists to Watch and Events to Look Forward to in 2016

On the Horizon in African American Art: Artists to Watch and Events to Look Forward to in 2016

WITH A NEW YEAR UNDERWAY and a compelling selection of new books, exhibitions and events on the horizon, here is what to look forward to in African American and African diasporic art—the most-anticipated happenings and artists to watch in 2016:   After spending January at the historic residence of a Mexican muralist, Henry Taylor will...
Recommended: Time on Chris Ofili, Wall St. Journal on Adam Pendleton, W on Hank Willis Thomas

Recommended: Time on Chris Ofili, Wall St. Journal on Adam Pendleton, W on Hank Willis Thomas

RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Visionary Artist: Chris Ofili” by David Adjaye | Time Magazine This week, Time magazine published its annual list of The 100 Most Influential People and Chris Ofili made the list of artists who are at the...
Recommended: Artforum Publishes Isaac Julien, Melvin Edwards and Simone Leigh in Their Own Words

Recommended: Artforum Publishes Isaac Julien, Melvin Edwards and Simone Leigh in Their Own Words

RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: Over the past month, Artforum’s 500 Words feature has captured the as told to remarks of Simone Leigh, Melvin Edwards and Isaac Julien. The artists explain their work and share the sources and motivations behind their...
Theaster Gates Gave a TED Talk About Reviving Communities with Cultural Development

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...
Recommended: New York Times on Lowery Stokes Sims, William Pope.L and Martine Syms

Recommended: New York Times on Lowery Stokes Sims, William Pope.L and Martine Syms

RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “At Museum of Arts and Design, a Swan Song for Lowery Stokes Sims” | New York Times Lowery Stokes Sims, chief curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, is retiring on April...
New York Times 'Paints' Portrait of Kehinde Wiley

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...
Recommended: Gary Simmons Talks to BOMB, Times on Collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Interview Anoints Jacolby Satterwhite

Recommended: Gary Simmons Talks to BOMB, Times on Collector Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Interview Anoints Jacolby Satterwhite

RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Gary Simmons” by Jodie Bass | BOMB Magazine For Prospect 3 in New Orleans (open through Jan. 25), Gary Simmons built “Recapturing the Memories of the Black Ark,” a site-specific “sculpture activated by live musicians.” Jodie...
Hyperallergic: 2 Personal Essays Address Racial Dynamics of the Art World

Hyperallergic: 2 Personal Essays Address Racial Dynamics of the Art World

  OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS, Hyperallergic has published impassioned essays by two Black women expressing their frustration with the racial dynamics of the art world. Both are ensconced in it—one is a public relations rep; the other a performance artist. Their stories are very different, but each became so fed up with the veiled...
Recommended: Hyperallergic Talks to Adriana Varejão, Adrian Piper on Rosemary Mayer, AiA Reviews Bradford Young

Recommended: Hyperallergic Talks to Adriana Varejão, Adrian Piper on Rosemary Mayer, AiA Reviews Bradford Young

RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: “Considering Brazil’s Racial Heritage” by Laura C. Mallonee | Hyperallergic Laura C. Malonnee speaks with Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão, who lives and works in Rio De Janeiro, about the “two contrasting subjects that have preoccupied [her]...
Recommended: LA Times Talks to LaToya Ruby Frazier, Bomb Chats with Theaster Gates, Fast Company on Weeksville

Recommended: LA Times Talks to LaToya Ruby Frazier, Bomb Chats with Theaster Gates, Fast Company on Weeksville

  RECOMMENDED FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore:   “Theaster Gates by Tom McDonough” | Bomb Magazine Tom McDonough engages Chicago artist and urban visionary Theaster Gates in a conversation about the many activities that define his robust, less-than-a-decade old practice. McDonough, chair...