Arthur Jafa: ‘I Think Being Black in a White Supremacist Environment is Fascinating, Often Fun, Generally Harrowing’
ARTHUR JAFA, “Mickey Mouse was a Scorpio,” 2017 (chromogenic print mounted on aluminum, 52 × 83 inches / 132.1 × 210.8 cm). | Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of Marilyn and Larry Fields, 2023.61. Photo by Fredrik Nilsen A PROLIFERATION OF CELEBRATED Black contemporary artists focuses on figuration and portraiture and explores...
Jamillah James Appointed Senior Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago: As a Student ‘Visiting the MCA Helped Me Realize the Possibilities of Curating and of Museums’
THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO announced new leadership appointments to its curatorial team today. Jamillah James was named Manilow Senior Curator. MCA Chicago described her new role as leading the visual arts department and serving as a “driving force” in curatorial programming. She joins the museum from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los...
From California to Chicago, Tennessee to Maine, 15 of Summer’s Best Museum Exhibitions Remain on View This Fall
A BROAD SELECTION of exhibitions opened at art museums throughout the United States over the summer months. A great number of these shows remain on view, some through September, others further into the fall and beyond. Major traveling exhibitions of Bob Thompson, Joseph Yoakum, and Alma Thomas are underway. The first solo museum exhibitions...
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Promotes Gwendolyn Perry Davis to Senior Director of Operations
THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO named a new senior director of operations. Gwendolyn Perry Davis has been elevated to the position, a critical leadership role overseeing both strategic and creative aspects of the museum’s operations. Perry Davis’s new responsibilities include the collections and exhibitions department and the human resources, information technology, facilities, and security...
On View: ‘Christina Quarles’ at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
While museums and galleries are temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 virus, On View will continue to showcase images from noteworthy exhibitions REPRESENTING THE BODY as flexible and free, contorted and constricted, intertwined and engaged, the work of Christina Quarles reflects the pressures and pleasures of life and the complexities of identity. The...
MCA Chicago’s ‘Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech’ is an Exhibition Experience Dedicated to the Fast Rise of the Artist/Designer
Installation view of “Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech” at MCA Chicago THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO is presenting the first museum exhibition dedicated to Virgil Abloh. The fast-rising designer and inveterate collaborator is the head of menswear design at Louis Vuitton and founder of the “streetwear” label Off-White. A traveling survey spanning two...
First Lady Michelle Obama Visits Kerry James Marshall Exhibition at MCA Chicago
Kerry James Marshall gave First Lady Michelle Obama a tour of his exhibition. | Photo courtesy MCA Chicago LAST FRIDAY, FIRST LADY Michelle Obama viewed “Mastry,” the Kerry James Marshall exhibition at MCA Chicago. Marshall’s powerful paintings chronicle the African American experience. The exhibition documents the artist’s practice over the past three decades and...
‘The Figure Remains Essentially Black in Every Circumstance’: Kerry James Marshall Previews His Master Paintings at MCA Chicago
Kerry James Marshall previews his new exhibition “Mastry” at MCA Chicago. | Photo by Victoria L. Valentine CHICAGO — TWO PAINTINGS MARKED A TURNING POINT for Kerry James Marshall. Complete with Royal Crown Dressing hair pomade, a Zenith radio, and a business license with the first dollar made tucked into the frame, “De Style,”...
New Year, New Art: What to Look Forward to in 2015
WITH A NEW YEAR UNDERWAY and a promising selection of new books, exhibitions and events on the horizon, here is what is on my radar, what I am most looking forward to in 2015: “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” a sweeping new exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Jan. 10 – April...
Art Agenda | Sept. 8-14, 2014
ART AGENDA LISTS UPCOMING EVENTS, must-see exhibition openings and interesting talks happening this week in black art. Today’s edition features a Carrie Mae Weems talk in Brooklyn, a conversation with Nick Cave about his new monograph, exhibitions featuring Chakaia Booker, Kehinde Wiley, Derrick Adams, Fahamou Pecou and more: Monday, Sept. 15, 2014 DEADLINE...
