A Feat of Engineering and Craftsmanship, Martin Puryear’s First Brick Sculpture Was a Decade in the Making: ‘It’s Been an Adventure and a Challenge’
MARTIN PURYEAR, Installation view of “Lookout,” 2023. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, N.Y. | © Martin Puryear, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo by Jeffrey Jenkins A CURIOUS LOOKING, CURVED FORM sits on a high overlook in the North Woods of Storm King Art Center. A miracle of construction with no underlying framework, the brick...
Latest News in Black Art: Storm King Center Commissions Martin Puryear Sculpture, Mellon-Funded Report Assesses U.S. Monuments, Rashod Taylor Wins Arnold Newman Photography Prize & More
Latest News in Black Art features news updates and developments in the world of art and related culture Scale model of Martin Puryear’s permanent commission for Storm King Art Center. | © Martin Puryear Studio. Photo by SandenWolff Commissions Storm King Art Center commissioned Martin Puryear to create a site-specific sculpture for...
Latest News in Black Art: New Weeksville CEO, Cranbrook Academy Investing $30 Million Gift in Student Diversity, Major Acquisitions at PAFA, Morgan Library, and High Museum
The following is a snapshot of the latest news in Black art: Raymond Codrington. | Courtesy Weeksville Heritage Center Appointments Brooklyn’s Weeksville Heritage Center Names New CEO Raymond Codrington is joining Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn as CEO. The news was announced April 6. A cultural anthropologist, Codrington has served as...
Culture Type: The Year in Black Art 2019
ONCE RELEGATED TO THE MARGINS, artists of African descent continued to migrate toward the center of the art world in 2019, claiming space on just about every front as the decade came to a close. Black contemporary artists won many of the year’s most prestigious and lucrative international art prizes. They shared their work...
The Year Ahead in African American Art: What to Look Forward to in 2019
THE YEAR AHEAD begins and ends with major traveling exhibitions, each presenting nearly a century of works by African American artists. The January debut of “Black Refractions: Highlights From the Studio Museum in Harlem” at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco kicks off a tour of six venues. Scheduled for seven...
Record Breakers? Paintings by Jack Whitten, Sam Gilliam, Barkley L. Hendricks, and Other African American Artists Priced to Set New Auction Highs This Week
Sotheby’s is auctioning “Ancient Mentor I” (1985) by Jack Whitten on Nov. 14 in New York. | Video by Sotheby’s WORKS BY SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR, expensive, and critically recognized African American artists are featured in this week’s auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips in New York. Several lots will arrive at the...
Basel and Beyond: Overdue Recognition of African American Artists at Home is Generating Unprecedented Curatorial and Collector Interest Throughout Europe
“The Music of Color: Sam Gilliam, 1967-1973” recently opened in Basel, Switzerland. THE GALLERIES OF KUNSTMUSEUM BASEL are alive with color in the form of 45 abstract paintings by Sam Gilliam. “The Music of Color: Sam Gilliam, 1967-1973” is the Washington, D.C.-based artist’s first solo survey exhibition in a European museum. The show is...
New Season, New Art: Fall Begins with 45 Notable Exhibitions Featuring Works by Black Artists
THE FALL EXHIBITION SEASON IS UNDERWAY and a wide variety of amazing shows featuring Black artists is on view in museums and galleries. This month, exhibitions featuring major figures and emerging talents opened across the United States and at international venues. Kara Walker, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Jordan Casteel, Kahlil Joseph, Chris Ofili, Adrian Piper, and...
Washington Renaissance: 8 Distinguished Artists Reflect and Connect in Wide-Ranging Discussion of African American Art in 20th Century Washington
Artists Sam Gilliam and David C. Driskell. | © 2017 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington WASHINGTON, D.C. — The first time Lilian Thomas Burwell met Sam Gilliam, he told her if she wanted to be taken seriously as an artist she should get her own studio space. “He didn’t know me...
Art Capital: Nearly 500 Gather at National Gallery of Art to Discuss African American Art in 20th Century Washington
Detail of ALMA THOMAS, “Red Rose Cantata” 1973 (acrylic on canvas). | Courtesy National Gallery of Art Symposium gives a nod to Howard University and local artists, scholars and curators who shaped the field WASHINGTON, D.C. — For decades, Howard University in Washington, D.C., was at the center of the African American art world....
How Much is That Painting? Top 25 Auction Lots by African American Artists, 2014-2016
Julie Mehretu, “Looking Back to a Bright New Future” (2003). EARLY NEXT MONTH, major auction houses in New York and London are holding post-war and contemporary art sales. In anticipation of the first significant offerings of the year, Culture Type is assessing the state of art by Black artists. In recent years, a cluster...
Olympic Spirit: Over the Years, Important African American Artists Have Paid Tribute to the Games and Champion Athletes
MARTIN PURYEAR, “Untitled (Olympic Poster),” 1984. AFRICAN AMERICAN ATHLETES have been competing in the Olympics for more than a century—earning gold medals, breaking records, and making political statements. Who can forget U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) bowing their heads and raising their fists at the 200 meter medal ceremony at...
History Makers: 10 African American Firsts in Modern and Contemporary Art Continue to Resonate Today
THE LIST OF HISTORY-MAKING firsts and groundbreaking achievements made by African American artists, and more recently curators, is endless, spanning probably as early as the 17th century to the present. The following briefly captures 10 milestones and a corresponding “where are they now” look at each of these important figures. ALMA THOMAS with...
For Your Summer Agenda, 49 U.S. Exhibitions Featuring Works by Black Artists
This summer, artists including (clockwise from left) Nari Ward, Simone Leigh, Fred Wilson, Chakaia Booker, and John Akomfrah, are presenting solo exhibitions. THIS SUMMER 2016, incredible exhibitions featuring artists of African descent are on view across the United States. From Los Angeles, to Chicago, Atlanta, and New York, museums and galleries and public spaces...
Martin Puryear Appreciates the Dichotomy of ‘Big Bling,’ His Largest Sculpture to Date
Martin Puryear: “Big Bling” | Video by Art21 RISING AMONG THE TREES in Madison Square Park, “Big Bling” is a monument to Martin Puryear‘s practice. Standing 40-feet high, it is the largest temporary outdoor sculpture the artist has created. Part animal, part abstract form, from afar the voluminous sculpture looks heavy, but upon closer...
Winter Wonders: 44 Exhibitions Feature Exceptional Works by Black Artists
LONG OVERDUE, THE COLORFUL AND EXPRESSIVE abstract works of Alma Thomas (1891-1978), pictured above, are being celebrated with a groundbreaking retrospective at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College in upstate New York. This summer, Thomas’s first solo museum exhibition since 2001 will travel to the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is co-organizing the show....
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...
Fall Exhibitions: 42 Must-See Museum Shows Featuring Black Artists
DURING A TALK ABOUT COLLECTING African American art, collector Rodney Miller told curator Ruth Fine that he is a “big, big, big fan of painting.” And soon, Fine revealed to the audience gathered to hear the conversation at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., that two of Miller’s paintings by Norman Lewis...
In New York for the Holidays? 17 Exhibitions for Your Agenda
NOTHING BEATS SPENDING THE HOLIDAYS in New York City and the best way to avoid the clutch of shoppers is to sneak away and take in some art. All around Manhattan, from the New Museum, where British-born Chris Ofili’s first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum is on view, to the Metropolitan Museum of...
Recommended: Hyperallergic on Martin Puryear, NY Times Profiles Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Renee Green in Artforum
RECOMMENDED READING FEATURES recently published content from around the web, recommendations from Culture Type worth taking the time to explore: Some Thoughts About Richard Serra and Martin Puryear by John Yau | Hyperallergic Martin Puryear and Richard Serra were born two years apart and both attended Yale’s MFA program. Puryear draws on traditional woodworking skills,...
