BLACK ART NEAR + FAR

The Broad is pleased to announce the launch of a new touring special exhibition Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, running from May 25 to September 29, 2024. Co-organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, and The Broad, Los Angeles, and in partnership with the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love will be the first major international tour of this pioneering artist’s work. Marking its debut at The Broad with over 80 works made by the artist over the last 20 years, the exhibition highlights how Mickalene Thomas has mastered and innovated within several disciplines, from mixed-media painting and collage to installation and photography. The exhibition shares its title and several of its themes with the pivotal text by feminist author bell hooks, in which love is an active process rooted in healing, carving a path away from domination and towards collective liberation. “Mickalene Thomas’s visionary artistic practice presents an unapologetic focus on Black female representation, amplifying portraiture’s capacity to capture authentic lived experience and relationships,” said Joanne Heyler, Founding Director of The Broad. “Thomas’s work, while pushing conventional boundaries of technique and material, touches all aspects of culture and society, from notions of beauty to sexuality and politics, powerfully bringing visibility to those who have historically been excluded and marginalized in art history.” Born in 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, Thomas completed her MFA from the Yale University School of Art in 2002 and a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2003. Soon after she became well known for her large-scale acrylic paintings of Black women in states of leisure and repose using rhinestones, a central material in her practice that symbolizes the complexities of femininity. Depicting women with confident and assured expressions, the subjects of her works are often seen in domestic interiors from Black America, claiming the agency of womanhood while deconstructing the art historical canon. Similarly, Thomas’s photographs, collages, and figurative paintings often re-stage scenes from 19th century French painters such as Henri Matisse and Édouard Manet, pushing back against the subjugation and oppressive narratives upheld by Western archives, cultural institutions, and representation systems. “In Mickalene Thomas’s hands, collage becomes a way of thinking about love in a serious way,” said Ed Schad, Curator at The Broad. “As Thomas keeps the essence of individuals alive in her work—as the individuals are re-imagined and remade, configured from different moods and different circumstances over many years of trust and commitment—it is a love ethic she is after.” The Broad’s debut of Mickalene Thomas: All About Love will reflect some of the artist’s earliest inquiries into visual culture, sexuality, memory, and erotica and move into the present. On view will be the early photographic triptych, Lounging, Standing, Looking (2003), a piece which depicts the artist’s own mother, exploring kinship and care. These modes of intimate relations come to inform work such as Portrait of Maya No. 10 (2017) from the Broad collection. This acrylic and rhinestone work embodies Thomas’s signature ability to apply several layers of material and symbolic meaning into a single surface. At eight feet tall, the subject is empowered, sparkled, and poised, commanding her outward gaze. The exhibition is largely populated by works at this immersive and ambitious scale, such as the twelve-foot wide I’m Feelin Good (2014), which also uses rhinestone elements. Unifying these larger-than-life subjects together in the museum’s galleries will envelop viewers into the bold and dynamic universe the artist has created, where steadfast love overcomes political strife. In addition to towering wall works, video collages such as Angelitos Negros (2016) will also be presented. This work immortalizes the late singer and actress Eartha Kitt, who sings about the absence of Black angels in art history, reflecting a core theme within the exhibition. Through her queries into pop culture and mass media, Thomas offers a reverberating demand for Black women to be seen and understood, and for viewers to become what hooks calls “practitioners of love.” The themes of the exhibition will extend into a full slate of associated programming developed in collaboration with the artist, including a summer concert series and in-gallery programs centering women and Black and queer communities. Additional details will be announced in the coming months.

Marielle Plaisir is a French-Caribbean multimedia artist who has been exploring the concepts of domination and supremacy for many years. Plaisir's artworks resists harmful histories and offers hope for a better future, drawing attention to the interconnections between humans, the universality of fractured identities, and the power of recognizing and depicting inner worlds. This project, consisting of digital artworks and a multimedia piece, has earned the prestigious 2022 Knight New Work Award from the Knight Foundation.

Featuring specially curated content, events, and partnerships. Selected galleries at DaDa and la Mamounia will showcase curated selections of groundbreaking contemporary pieces by both emerging and established artists. The program includes events and gatherings across Marrakech that celebrate the rich cultural landscape of the city. La Mamounia Avenue Bad Jdid, Marrakech 40040, Morocco & DaDa 2, place Jemaa El Fna Marrakech Medina 40000, Morocco. February 8-11, 2024.

A Superlative Palette: Contemporary Black Women Artists, curated by Dexter Wimberly, showcases the groundbreaking work of twelve contemporary Black women artists from across the globe. These artists have redefined artistic expression, challenging conventional narratives and advocating for social justice and empowerment. Despite historical marginalization, they have persevered, offering diverse perspectives, mediums, and styles that enrich the cultural landscape. Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture at Levine Center for the Arts 551 South Tryon Street Charlotte, NC 28202. Runs through July 28, 2024.

At The Precipice is an exhibit that explores the use of color, tactility, material, and data. The artwork explores how it feels to inhabit an irreversibly damaged planet facing a precarious future and considers the purpose of art and design in understanding how our collective trajectory must rapidly change direction. This exhibit features more than 10 artists. Design Museum of Chicago 72 East Randolph Street Chicago, IL, 60601 United States. Runs through Oct. 30, 2023.

Showcasing a dazzling array of garments alongside music, visual art, and much more, Africa Fashion celebrates the ingenuity and global impact of African fashions from the 1950s to today. More than 180 works of more than forty designers and artists from twenty African countries are represented, ranging from Kofi Ansah (Ghana) and Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria), to the newest generation of cutting-edge creatives, such as Thebe Magugu (South Africa) and Gouled Ahmed (Djibouti). Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052. Runs through Oct. 22, 2023.

Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South features: Thornton Dial, James “Son Ford” Thomas, Lonnie Holley, Mary T. Smith, Purvis Young, and other artists in the South who worked with little recognition, often using recycled materials as their art supplies and yards, porches, or boarded-up storefronts as their galleries. This exhibit brings their works to the public as prominent focal points within the National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery of Art West Building 6th St and Constitution Ave NW.​ Runs through Dec. 31, 2023.

LaToya M. Hobbs: It’s Time presents the series Carving Out Time, a life-size suite of woodcuts by Arkansas-born and Baltimore-based artist LaToya M. Hobbs. Unfolding over five scenes, the work depicts one day in Hobbs’s life with her husband, visual artist Ariston Jacks, and their two children. Hobbs shares the labor and intimacy of her private life in these prints, centering the negotiations she brokers daily to balance her manifold responsibilities—as a wife, mother, educator, and artist. The series is also a powerful statement about her influences and self-fashioning as an artist: references to paintings, sculptures, and prints by prominent artists such as Elizabeth Catlett, Alma Thomas, Valerie Maynard, and Kerry James Marshall appear throughout. Carving Out Time (2020–21) is the largest expression within Hobbs’s ongoing Salt of the Earth project, which she characterizes as “the personification of Black women as salt in relation to their role as preservers of family, culture and community.” A contemplation of nuanced concepts of time and labor, the work offers an affecting visual statement that is at once deeply personal and universal. LaToya M. Hobbs: It’s Time is the inaugural presentation of the full suite of prints and provides a unique opportunity to view the drawings that the artist made in preparation for the project, which she generously lent to the exhibition for their first public display. Hobbs received a B.A. in painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Purdue University. She is a co-founder of Black Women of Print and recently completed residencies at the Penland School of Craft and the Women’s Studio Workshop. Hobbs won the Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize in 2020 and was a finalist for the Queen Sonja Print Award in 2022. She teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Organized by Elizabeth M. Rudy, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints, Harvard Art Museums, with Ana Barros (Manager of Campus Partnerships), Jessica Ficken (Assistant Curator of the Collection, Modern and Contemporary Art), Tayana Fincher (Manager of Public Programs), Erica Lawton (Administrative Coordinator, Director’s Office), Sarah Lieberman (Cunningham Fellow in Academic and Public Programs), Tara Metal (Digital Content Manager), Marvin Smith (Staff Assistant, Modern and Contemporary Art), and Jarvis Subia (Manager of Community Partnerships). Research contributions by Nora Rosengarten (Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University). Special thanks to these students: Muriel Dol ’24, Imani Fonfield ’25, Eden Getahun ’25, Jai Gillard ’25, Jadyn Matthews ’24, Mariah Norman ’25, Ogechi Obi ’26, Anya Sesay ’25, Ebony Smith ’24, and Maryann Uduebo ’26; and thanks to Maya Alvarez-Harmon ’25, Nneka Arinzeh ’25, and the Association of Black Harvard Women for collaborating with the Harvard Art Museums on this project. Support for LaToya M. Hobbs: It’s Time is provided by the Robert M. Light Print Department Fund, the Melvin R. Seiden and Janine Luke Fund for Publications and Exhibitions, and the generous support of the Harvard Art Museums Prints Committee. Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Chakaia Booker: Surface Pressure celebrates work of multimedia artist Chakaia Booker who is renowned for her expert manipulation of unconventional materials. This exhibit presents her signature sculptures composed of recycled tires alongside innovative creations in printmaking and painting. Sarasota Art Museum Ringling College Museum Campus, 1001 South Tamiami Trail Sarasota, FL 34236. Runs through Oct. 29, 2023.

“Njideka Akunyili Crosby: Coming Back to See Through, Again” includes New Paintings, presenting “a new vernacular and iconography in contemporary visual culture”. The show will travel to David Zwirner Gallery, New York in Sept. 2023. 519 West 19th Street New York, New York. Runs Sept. 14—Oct. 28, 2023

Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw, is the first exhibition showcasing the work of Thomas W. Commeraw, a successful formerly enslaved Black craftsman. The exhibition explores his history as a craftsman, business owner, family man, and citizen through approximately 40 pieces of stoneware produced by Commeraw and his competitors between the late 1790s and 1819. Documents accompanying the exhibit convey a deeper understanding of free Black society in New York. The Fenimore Art Museum 5798 NY-80, Cooperstown, NY. Runs through Sept. 24, 2023

The Black identity is inherently improvisational, disrupting oppressive structures and often facing violence as a consequence. However, our innate resilience enables us to dream and envision futures that embrace all identities regardless of their expression. Flaunt: Being the Dream is a dynamic, multimedia group exhibition curated by Zola-Jourdan Savage with a soundscape by Run P., that explores the Black Transgender, Non-Binary, and Gender-Nonconforming (TGNC) experience to unpack contemporary perceptions of identity via the expression of gender and sex. In this presentation, universal themes including social roles and the way we inhabit them, cultural cues, power structures, survival, pleasure, and their intersection with race, transcend prejudices to represent the purest form of self-realization. In this context, the ‘performance’ refers to authenticity—being true to oneself. It is a misconception that individuals on the TGNC journey are being disingenuous and by claiming space for themselves pose a threat to the cisgender community. These preconceived notions often lead to senseless violence, social exclusion, and other forms of discrimination. To reaffirm the value of Black TGNC lives and to celebrate the myriad ways Black people connect performance to modes of expression i.e. how we show up, 20 Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender-Nonconforming and Queer artists contribute to a necessary dialogue that informs and expands the narrative.

Master Narrative presents twenty paintings and a large-scale sculptural installation by the Los Angeles-based Afro-Cuban American artist, Harmonia Rosales, who entwines tales and characters of the Yorùbá religion, Greco-Roman mythology and Christianity with canonical works and artistic techniques of European Old Masters. Rosales highlights the beauty and strength of Black people, particularly women, while touching upon narratives of creation, tragedy, survival and transcendence. Spelman College Museum of Fine Art 350 Spelman Ln. SW, Atlanta, GA. Runs through Dec. 2, 2023.

Jamel Shabazz: Faces and Places, 1980–2023 showcases hundreds of Shabazz’s portraits, drawn from his remarkable archive. Since 1980, Shabazz has documented the vitality of city life and hip-hop culture in New York City and beyond, creating enduring images of style, community, and joy. Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052. Runs through Oct. 8th 2023.

James Barnor: Accra/London - A Retrospective at Detroit Institution of Art. presents more than 50 works by British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor. Born in 1929 in Accra, Barnor is considered a pioneer of Ghanaian photography – with a career that spans six decades, bridging continents and photographic genres to create transatlantic narratives. Detroit Institute of Art, 5200 Woodward Avenue Detroit, MI USA. Runs through Oct. 1, 2023.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, includes over 200 artworks, artifacts and ephemera from the late artist’s personal life. The exhibit weaves art and personal narrative together to inspire audiences of any age. Curated, and produced by Basquiat’s family, this exhibit celebrates his singular vision and creative life with never-before-seen paintings, drawings, and more. The Grand LA, 100 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA , USA, 90012 Runs through October 15th, 2023

This exhibition highlights a defining aspect of Babirye’s artistic practice: sculptures that incorporate the visual traits of African masks, merging the traditional with the contemporary. Babirye crafts with metal, ceramics, and hand-carved wood, adding rubber, nails, and other found objects to create contrasting textures. While rooted in the ruling kingdoms of present-day Uganda, Babirye’s artwork goes beyond historical representation. Instead, it weaves personal history and resilience into ambitious sculptures that create space for queer joy and liberation. Emerging from the artist’s own experiences of struggle, Babirye’s art transcends the personal. Through her experiments with form and materials, she is able to convey powerful emotions, provoke thought, and push the boundaries of creative expression. This conversation is led by Natasha Becker, curator of African art, and followed by a short audience Q+A.

Leonardo Drew: Chapel features Leonardo Drew’s new work titled Number 360, a sculpture commissioned for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s 18th century Chapel. Representing themes of collective experience and memory, this exhibition features a response to the Chapel as a whole. Galerie Lelong & Co., New York 528 West 26th Street New York, NY. Runs through Oct. 29, 2023.

Listen Until You Hear invites audiences to approach photography, film, sculpture and performance on display, with curiosity and intentional awareness. Each of the exhibiting artists explores the idea of deep listening as healing with work that is deeply personal, political, and imaginative through a variety of media.. The artists include Hank Willis Thomas, Cassils, Maia Ruth Lee, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Eric Gottesman and Kameelah Janan Rasheed. All from diverse backgrounds. Fotografiska Museum, 281 Park Ave S, New York, NY. Runs through Oct. 22, 2023.

Longshoremen Local 1416 is part of Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora’s (Miami MoCAAD) public art mural series, Veo Veo, I See I See, Mwen Wè Mwen Wè. Miami MoCAAD's interactive mural honors the International Longshoremen Association (ILA) Local 1416, an essential part of the Overtown community since its founding in 1936. ​The mural, created by Miami-based artist Reginald O'Neal and curated by Donnamarie Baptiste, features QR codes containing oral history videos about Miami’s Black Longshoremen and Overtown. On view at ILA Local 1416 Union Hall, 816 NW 2nd Ave, Miami, FL. Ongoing with corresponding website at murals.miamimocaad.org.

Lonnie Holley: If You Really Knew, provides an intimate look at Holley’s life and explores a decades-long career in his first major debut in the Southern United States. The exhibition showcases 70 works, including foundational “sandstone” sculptures, new works on paper, and quilt paintings. Holley’s influence on Southern art is highlighted throughout the exhibition, featuring works from a cohort of artists he championed, including Miami native Purvis Young, Thornton Dial, Mary T. Smith, and Hawkins Bowling. Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, FL. Runs May 10 through Oct., 1, 2023.

OVERtown: Our Family Tree is part of Veo Veo, I See I See, Mwen Wè Mwen Wè, an interactive public art project exploring Overtown through visual art, storytelling and technology commissioned by Miami MoCAAD and curated by Donnamarie Baptiste. The mural, created by Miami-based artist Anthony “Mojo” Reed II, honors Miami's first Black judge, the late Judge Lawson E. Thomas, who as a lawyer fought fearlessly for civil rights of Black people during the 1940s and 1950s Jim Crow era. Judge Thomas owned the Overtown law office building where the mural incorporates QR codes containing oral history videos about Judge Thomas and Overtown. On view at 1021 NW Second Ave, Miami, FL. Ongoing with corresponding website at murals.miamimocaad.org.

This retrospective, Michael Richards: Are You Down?, showcases visionary artworks, including sculptures, drawings, installations, and video work. Of Jamaican and Costa Rican lineage, Richards’s artwork gestures toward both repression and reprieve from social injustices and the simultaneous possibilities of uplift and downfall as well as the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, The Bronx Museum, 1040 Grand Concourse The Bronx, NY. Runs through Jan. 7, 2024.

Give Me Wings To Fly, a solo exhibit honoring Norman Lewis, featuring sixty works dating from 1935 through 1978 that collectively trace major developments of the artist’s visual language and reveal his immense range in subject, technique, and style. An online catalog publishes new scholarship by art historian, Ruth Fine. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 100 11th Ave New York, NY New York. Runs Sept. 7th - Nov. 4th 2023

Haitian painter Shneider Léon Hilaire’s first solo show in France, Nou ak sa n pa wè yo - Nous et les Invisibles, curated by Régine Cuzin, presents work influenced by voodoo, brought from Benin by enslaved Africans. Hilaire transcribes onto canvas the oral tradition of stories, tales and legends gathered from all over the country. MAGNIN-A, 118 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 75011 Paris, France. Runs through March 16, 2024.

Past Disquiet is a documentary and archival exhibition based on four art collections that were intended to be “museums in solidarity” or “museums in exile”. The exhibition reveals stories told with documents, photographs, pamphlets, press clippings, posters, interviews, and videos curated. Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa ​​V&A Waterfront Silo District, S Arm Rd, Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa. Runs through Mar. 24, 2024.

Paula Wilson: Toward the Sky’s Back Door presents nearly two decades of Paula Wilson’s paintings, sculptures, prints, collages, and videos, with different media frequently intermixed in a single work. Breaking down perceived boundaries to connect global and local narratives, the work explores subjects as wide-ranging as the moth that pollinates Yucca plants, ancient Greek vases, West African D’mba, and modern technologies. Using the same techniques and styles to make art for viewing on the gallery wall as for the rugs she walks on and clothes she wears, Wilson challenges the separations between art and everyday living. Often biographically oriented, her work investigates the polarities of human life, including her own identity as a Black biracial artist and her experiences living in both major metropolises and the small desert railroad town of Carrizozo, New Mexico. Wilson’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally and is in the permanent collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Albuquerque Museum, the New York Public Library, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Tang Teaching Museum, among others. Born in Chicago, Wilson earned her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA from Columbia University in New York. She is the co-founder of the artist-run organizations Carrizozo Artist-in-Residency and MoMAZoZo. The exhibition title comes from a poem by Robin Coste Lewis, “Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road and Be a Friend to Man.” Paula Wilson: Toward the Sky’s Back Door is organized by The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College and curated by Tang Associate Curator Rebecca McNamara in collaboration with the artist. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue are supported by Friends of the Tang. The CAAM presentation is organized by Isabelle Lutterodt, Deputy Director, CAAM.

REACH, a collaborative installation, by contemporary artists Hank Willis Thomas and Coby Kennedy, featuring two monumental hands reaching out to each other, has been installed at O’Hare International Airport. The installation is above escalators in the airport’s Multi-Modal Facility. The sculptural commission and installation was organized by the Chicago Department of Aviation and Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and is part of the Expo Chicago fair's program for large-scale and site-specific works. Chicago O'hare Airport 10000 W Balmoral Ave, Chicago, IL 60666. On-going.

The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas is proud to present Resurgent, Kermit Miller’s solo debut of artwork that captures the movement and expression of Junkanoo and Bahamian daily life.  With an astute depiction of each subject’s emotion, Miller’s practice is a snapshot of the colorful ways Bahamian people express their joy and relate to one another.  Miller’s use of various junkanoo subjects is a clever way of portraying these heightened emotions; for instance, in Junkanoo Roar (2023), Miller depicts a rusher mid-scream, capturing the familiar extasy that locals feel when experiencing the parade firsthand.  Miller’s practice is also inspired by Bahamian master artist Brent Malone, who also depicted Junkanoo rushers throughout his career. Like Malone, Miller’s focus on brushwork and technique is very important to his practice, especially because he is re-entering the field after a 22-year hiatus.   This small exhibition is a display of Miller’s first experiments after getting back into the practice of painting.  Miller’s practice resurged after the death of his daughter, Ebony Miller, whom he artistically mentored. For 22 years, he eschewed his own artistic career in favor of nurturing her talent.  Now that she has passed, practicing art helps him feel closer to his daughter again, and as he relearns the medium, Miller’s focus on technique and expression is appropriate for an emerging artist in the genre.  This exhibition is curated by Richardo Barrett, Exhibitions & Collections Care Associate, and Letitia Pratt, Associate Curator. 

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) collaborated to present Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America, a multi-venue exhibition of new works examining: “Is the sun rising or setting on the experiment of American democracy?” Installations by 20 artists explore equality, free speech, and other tenets of democracy. Artists at AAMPinclude John Akomfram, Mark Gibson, Dread Scott, Renee Stout, Deborah Wilis and more. Concurrently at The African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch Street Philadelphia, PA & Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118-128 N Broad Street Philadelphia, PA. Runs through Oct. 8, 2023.

Participating lens-based artists include Gladys Kalichini, Latedjou, Sekai Machache, Nyancho NwaNri, Pamina Sebastião, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Helena Uambembe. Seekers, Seers, Soothsayers features seven artists whose lens-based work explores accounts and experiences connected to the nonphysical world. This invisible world can be thought of as spiritual, supernatural, psychological, or abstract. It is an otherworldly realm. Using experimental film, immersive installation, performance, sound, and narration, the artists depict how ritual, devotion and acts of remembrance can offer connectedness, bring restoration, or provide alternative ways of seeing oneself within the cycle of life. The camera lens is an effective medium that the artists have used to expand, project, and reflect on how historical narratives are carried through the body and passed on from generation to generation. The exhibition includes stories of seekers, those who engage with the celestial to call on the divine, as they attempt to gather up parts of their fragmented histories that were ruptured by colonial exploits. It involves narratives of seers and soothsayers, those bestowed with uncommon gifts. Seers can anticipate the future while making meaning of the past. Soothsayers warn, translate, implore, and mediate between dimensions. They offer language for things felt but often unspoken. There are seven artists in the exhibition. The number seven has been spiritually significant in various belief systems in the past and present. Seven has signified completion and perfection, has symbolized divine introspection and perception, healing and fulfilment. There seven phases of the moon, and seven days, named after deities in the Greco-Roman week. The Abrahamic God rested on the seventh day. The exhibition title is drawn from a poem by Jamaican author, Kei Miller titled Speaking in Tongues (2007), and it forms a mantra for the constellation of works on display. The poem points to a human need to engage with worlds one cannot touch, whilst emphasizing the limits of language to fully describe the lived experience.

With the understanding that Black girlhood is often fraught with societal hardships that can interfere with health and well-being, Sit A Spell features the work of six Black women artists who were paired with African American girls between the ages of 10 and 18. Their resulting portraits simultaneously evoke “movement and rest, contemplation and action.” The exhibition reminds us that while stillness and motion initially seem to be at odds, they actually sustain each other. 4613 Newhall St, Philadelphia, PA 19144. Ongoing.

“Strange Fruits'', curated by Yuneikys Villalonga, presents recent work by Marielle Plaisir, a Miami-based multimedia artist. Working in paint, drawing, sculpture, fashion and performance, Plaisir creates intense visual experiences exploring her French-Caribbean heritage against the backdrop of Postcolonialism. In April 2024, Plaisir will present new digital artworks and a multimedia piece that were commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora (Miami MoCAAD) as a recipient of a 2022 New Work Award from the Knight Foundation. Coral Gables Museum, 285 Aragon Avenue Coral Gables, FL. Runs through April 28, 2024.

New work by Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze entitled The Poetics of Space will be presented in a solo exhibition. She has designed the frames and plinths, in desire to emulate her interest in an architectural dimension, beyond the paper and plane. Mariane Ibrahim Paris, 18 Av. Matignon, 75008 Paris, France. On view from September 1 to Oct. 7, 2023.

The African Origin of Civilization exhibition features collections from west and central Africa alongside art from ancient Egypt for the first time in The Met’s history. The exhibit allows introspection of different African cultures and eras while providing a rare opportunity to appreciate the extraordinary creativity of the continent across five millennia. The Met Fifth Avenue 136, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY. Ongoing.

Fundação Bienal de São Paulo’s four curators—Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, and Manuel Borja-Villel—have selected 120 participants, with 92 percent of the artists identifying as Black, Indigenous, and/or non-white. The Bienal de São Paulo was initiated in 1951 and is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennial, which was established in 1895.Fundação Bienal de São Paulo Parque Ibirapuera, Portão 3, Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo BR - 04094-000, São Paulo, SP, Brasil. Runs through Nov. 26, 2023.

The groundbreaking exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism explores the comprehensive and far-reaching ways in which Black artists portrayed everyday modern life. Through some 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography, film, and ephemera, explore the new Black cities that took shape in the 1920s–40s in New York City’s Harlem and nationwide in the early decades of the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans began to move away from the segregated rural South. The first art museum survey of the subject in New York City since 1987, the exhibition establishes the Harlem Renaissance and its radically new development of the modern Black subject as central to the development of international modern art. Featured artists include Charles Alston, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, Winold Reiss, Augusta Savage, James Van Der Zee, and Laura Wheeler Waring. These artists are shown in direct juxtaposition with portrayals of international African diasporan subjects by European counterparts ranging from Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, and Pablo Picasso to Germaine Casse, Jacob Epstein, and Ronald Moody. A significant percentage of the paintings, sculpture, and works on paper on view in the exhibition come from the extensive collections of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, Fisk University Galleries, Hampton University Art Museum, and Howard University Gallery of Art. Other major lenders include the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, with pending loans from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The exhibition includes loans from significant private collections and major European

Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to present The Long Run, Clotilde Jiménez second solo exhibition at the gallery’s Parisian space, from June 7 and until September 28, 2024. The Long Run expands the artist’s explorations of movement, identity, community, and competition, building upon previous works, including the Official Olympic Posters series he created for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Traditional narratives of competition are challenged in works that foreground the importance of solidarity and shared experiences over individual victories. As an artist working in the medium of collage, Jiménez forges bonds between disparate elements, presenting them as a unified whole, mirroring the way athletes embody a fusion of community, nationality, family, and culture. His figures, composed of interlaced gestures and expressions, speak to the interconnectedness of our journeys and how individuals embody collective strength to overcome barriers. In La Danza del Listón, the characters features are intricately embedded, echoing Jiménez's words, 'I am thinking a lot about a group winning, and not just a singular athlete, as many of my figures are constructed with a multitude of faces and gestures that build the image.' Through the new works that compose The Long Run, the artist highlights the communal infrastructure of sports, which relies on cultural pride, global connection and mutual support. The artist's reflections on the Olympic Games reveal an even deeper narrative. The event serves as a celebration that also showcases societal dynamics, as athletes who might come from marginalized spheres in their home countries become celebrated on the world stage. This duality highlights the broader societal implications beyond mere patriotism, as people connect with athletes who reflect their own identities and personal narratives.

"The exhibition explores different narratives, historical and present, about Black hair through the works of Nakeya Brown, Shani Crowe, Marius Dansou, Meschac Gaba, Romuald Hazoumè, Taiye Idahor, Favour Jonathan, Murielle Kabile, Alassane Koné, Althea Murphy-Price, J. D 'Okhai Ojeikere, Anya Paintsil, Ngozi Ajah Schommers and Ana Silva, to highlight the cultural heritage and spirituality associated with it."

Artist Kerry James Marshall designed "The Now and Forever Windows" stained-glass windows showing Black Americans holding protest signs bearing the words “Fairness” and “No foul play”, replacing stained-glass windows honoring Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson after a gunman shot and killed nine Black worshippers in Emanuel AME Church (“Mother Emanuel '') in Charleston, SC in 2015. Washington National Cathedral, 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC. Permanent installation.

The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey, created a personal monument to Black lives and urban energy. Using 750 glass-fiber-reinforced concrete tiles, Halsey constructed a 22-foot-tall structure that resembles an Egyptian-style temple. Four large-scale sphinx statues with faces that are portraits of Halsey’s immediate family and her life partner stand as guardians, through which visitors can walk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue , 82nd Street New York, NY. Runs through Oct. 22, 2023.

"This Life: Black Life in the Time of Now" presents art reflecting the experiences of four artists with very distinct stories. These artists, whose heritages span three continents, delve into varied perceptions of Black experience. Each artist brings a unique perspective and creative voice to exploring Black life today.

‘TO LET’ is a studio residency of Unathi Mkonto, whose practice intersects art, design and architecture and engages the museum as a maze that his work is part of. Consisting of photographs, drawings, maquettes, sculptures, and installations, ‘TO LET’ is an open investigation that uses the physicality of space to engage and implicate the people who will encounter it. Zeitz MOCAA Silo District, V&A Waterfront, South Arm Road, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa. Runs through Feb. 25, 2024.

Drew’s second exhibition at Galerie Lelong, Paris, will highlight a new site-responsive explosion installation and a series of “core” works that include glass and painted plaster. Each new material offers Drew a new canvas of possibility of reinvention and extension and at the same time, the re-purposing of materials gives them new energy and meaning. Drew adapted the site responsive explosion to reflect Lelong’s historic 18th century environment. “The adaptability of the work is the life of the work,” says Drew, and the relationship and reinvention of the sculpture to site is a challenge he accepts.

The Windrush generation is being celebrated in a series of ten new portraits that will go on public display for the first time at Edinburgh’s Royal Palace. The portraits were commissioned by His Majesty The King. The portraits were created by black artists personally selected by His Majesty The King. National Portrait Gallery St. Martin's Place London, WC2H 0HE. Runs Oct. 2023-March, 2024.

"Water is a Right", the new exhibition of French-Cameroonian artist Barthélemy Toguo he invites spectators to discover new works, designed for the exhibition as part of a residency at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, presents paintings and sculptures, an amphora and ceramics with soft and fluid shapes. t HAB Galerie, 21 Quai des Antilles, 44200 Nantes, France Runs Sept. 7th, 2023 - Oct. 7th, 2023

Nick Cave’s glass mosaics in his installation, Everyone, at the 42nd St shuttle in New York capture motions of his “Soundsuits”. Colorful “figures on the wall are depicted leaping and twirling in mosaic Soundsuits”—Cave’s full body costumes that make noise when they move. “ ​​It’s almost like looking at a film strip,” Cave said. “As you’re moving down that from left to right, you see it in motion.” MTA New York, 42nd St Subway Connector. Permanent installation

Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s The Brad Johnson Tape, X – On Subjugation beacons Brad Johnson (American, 1952–2011), a Black gay poet whose “embrace of violence, sex, cruising, and, more importantly, his investment in love” shaped his work. Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, Manhattan, The David Geffen Wing. Ongoing.

Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience explores the Black Lives Matter Movement, social protests and the struggle for equality. Amy Sherald’s portrait of Breonna Taylor in a magnificent blue flowing gown stands regally as the sole artwork in a gallery room. The Breona Taylor portrait, which first appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair’s September 2020 issue, is buttressed by 27 newly exhibited images and artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sheila Pree Bright, Bisa Butler, Shaun Leonardo, David Hammons and more. Bisa Butler’s, I Go To Prepare A Place For You presents a quilt of multiple bright-colored cotton, silk and velvet fabrics depicting Harriett Tubman seated against a dark floral background majestically gazing down at the viewer. The exhibit offers an augmented-reality experience allowing visitors to use their mobile devices to connect the artwork with other objects and themes in the museum to create an interactive, immersive, digital experience. National Museum of African American History and Culture, 1400 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC Ongoing.