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”...
OVER THE PAST YEAR, an “African American Art” wall calendar has featured a succession of 19th and 20th century artists, each month showcasing works by William H. Johnson, Robert S. Duncanson, and James A. Porter, among others. Expressing support for Angela Davis, Charles White‘s “Love Letter” (1971) presided over October and this month Laura...
IT’S GALA SEASON and museums have been hosting star-studded fetes honoring artists and raising funds to support their programs and venues. Artist Rashid Johnson was honored at Performa 19’s opening night gala, paid tribute to a fellow artist at the Dia Art Foundation, and co-chaired the Guggenheim Museum’s gala. (He serves as a trustee...
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions THE SAN JOSÉ MUSEUM OF ART acquired “Defeated, depleted,” (2018) by Woody De Othello last year. Shiny, black, anthropomorphic, and collapsing in on itself, the ceramic sculpture (above left) inspired a body of work now on view at the museum. “Breathing Room” is De Othello’s first museum...
FIVE LIKE-MINDED ARTISTS came together half a century ago with a common purpose. Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004), Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu (1938-2017), and Gerald Williams met in Wadsworth’s studio on the South Side of Chicago and committed to harnessing the power of their collective artistic voice. The artists formed AFRICOBRA in 1968 and...
FRANK BOWLING (b. 1934), “Penumbra” (1970) (acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 8 X 23 feet). | de Young Musuem, Photo by Gary Sexton The following review presents a snapshot of recent news in African American art and related black culture: NEWS ACQUISITIONS | The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (which comprise...
AN IMAGE OF BLACK LOVE by Kerry James Marshall was highly sought this week. Nearly six-feet tall, “Vignette 19” (2014) depicts three couples captured in a park-like vignette framed with strokes of pink and a glittery heart. Offered at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction on Nov. 14 in New York, the painting was expected...
A GROUNDBREAKING REPORT published in November 2018 declared the restitution of Africa’s cultural heritage was “impossible no more.” Commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, the document is authored by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and examines the history, inventory, and display of ill-gotten artifacts and art objects of questionable...
THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM presented the 2019 Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize to Torkwase Dyson at its annual gala this evening in New York City. The $50,000 prize is awarded annually to an African American artist recognizing exceptional “innovation, promise, and creativity.” Dyson’s interdisciplinary practice is centered around black spatial politics. She considers...
Gus Casely-Hayford is the inaugural director of V&A East in London The following review presents a snapshot of recent news in African American art and related black culture: NEWS APPOINTMENT | Gus Casely-Hayford is joining the Victoria & Albert Museum in London as inaugural director of V&A East. He is heading up two...
THIS IS A BIG WEEK IN ART. Wednesday evening, the Studio Museum in Harlem is announcing the winner of the annual Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize at its 2019 gala. Last year, Los Angeles-based textile artist Diedrick Brackens received the $50,000 prize. Simone Leigh won in 2017. The latest Power 100 List is also...
FOR SIX YEARS, Dread Scott has been planning a slave rebellion. The artist wants to bring attention to a fight for freedom waged more than two centuries ago by hundreds of African, American, and Haitian-born people in the Mississippi River parishes outside New Orleans. Scott is reimagining the German Coast Uprising of 1811. It...
NYC Cultural Affairs Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl made a “surprise exit.” The following review presents a snapshot of recent news in African American art and related black culture: NEWS Big news in arts leadership. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is losing the chair of its education department. Sandra Jackson-Dumont has been named director...
THE LUCAS MUSEUM of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has tapped Sandra Jackson-Dumont as its new director and CEO. Envisioned by billionaire philanthropist and legendary filmmaker George Lucas, the focus of the Lucas Museum is visual storytelling through filmmaking and a variety of other artistic mediums, including painting and photography. The museum is currently...
Untitled 1996 quilt by Rosie Lee Tompkins OVER THE COURSE of three decades, Eli Leon assembled a collection of nearly 3,000 quilts by both well-known and little-known African American artists. Leon died last year and through a posthumous bequest, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) has acquired the unparalleled collection....
On View presents images from noteworthy exhibitions GIVEN THE PERILS of the contemporary world, how do artists envision the future? “Utopian Imagination” at the Ford Foundation Gallery brings together 13 international artists whose works—spanning sculpture, photography, and film—suggest how we all might exist and persist on a planet under threat from natural and man-made forces....
THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART is expanding its contemporary art department, hiring Jessica Bell Brown and Leila Grothe as associate curators. They are joining a growing team of female curators at BMA led by chief curator Asma Naeem and fortified by senior research and programming curator Katy Siegel. A New York-based writer, curator, and...
IN ANTICIPATION OF ITS REOPENING, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York asked writer Roxane Gay to select a work of art from its collection and discuss what she sees in it. She chose “Christ’s Entry Into Journalism” (2017) by Kara Walker. “She has managed in a series of figures to depict...
Installation view of Betye Saar at Museum of Modern Art FALL IN NEW YORK CITY is always a time of renewal and fresh new perspectives when it comes what’s next and relevant in art. This season there are an exceptional number of opportunities to experience the work of African American artists in museums, galleries,...
Artist Ed Clark (1926-2019) A SINGULAR FIGURE in post-war Abstraction, Ed Clark (1926-2019) died Oct. 18 in Detroit. He was 93. Clark is recognized for his innovation, experimentation, and seductive use of color. Over seven decades, he built a practice influenced by his education in Chicago and Paris, exposure to European modernists, and a...
New Obama Presidential Center Artist Commissions Include Lindsay Adams Painting Inspired by Langston Hughes Poem
Apr 26, 2025
Turner Prize 2025 Shortlist of Four British Artists Includes Nnena Kalu and Rene Matić
Apr 24, 2025
Diallo Simon-Ponte is Joining Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, as Inaugural Sam Gilliam Assistant Curator of Artist Programs
Apr 23, 2025
On View: ‘Alberta Whittle: Towards a Motherful Loving Praxis, We Cast Seeds Into the Darkness’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery in New York
Apr 19, 2025
Jack Shainman Gallery Now Represents the Estate of Faith Ringgold, ‘Artist Played Significant Role in Shaping Culture of American Art’
Apr 17, 2025
