DECAHEDRON

By Jenny Lam Artist on the Lam (online exclusive) This online exhibition celebrates 10 years of Artist on the Lam. It was on Monday, June 6, 2011, that Jenny Lam published her first post on what would later be voted “Best Arts Blog” in the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago issue. As part of the celebration, Jenny has curated an international exhibition called DECAHEDRON. She invited all artists from past shows, invited other artists she admired but hadn’t exhibited yet (likening the process to an episodic TV series where you wander the land embarking on different adventures and meeting different …

Wicked Art Assignments

By Emiel Heijnen and Melissa Bremmer Order from Valiz Press, or at Amazon. Wicked Art Assignments: Practising Creativity in Contemporary Arts Education was published this October. I had the pleasure of contributing an assignment from my Advanced Painting Class. This book is sharp, in full color with 100 “assignments” and several interviews with prominent artist-teachers. The assignments collected here connect to the visual arts, performance, theatre, music and design, but more importantly, they encourage cross-disciplinarity. They reflect themes and ways of working in contemporary arts, offering opportunities to learn about ourselves, the arts, and the world. The first part of …

We Got Next, Conversation with Endalyn Taylor and Patrick Earl Hammie

“We Got Next” is a five part, webinar series designed to highlight the work and research of faculty of color relevant to race and equality. This effort is led by Endalyn Taylor, professor in the Department of Dance and Dean’s Fellow. Each week, Taylor will be joined by faculty members and special guests to share their research and a live discussion of the work’s creation, impact, relationship to the perpetual pandemic of racism, and the systematic issues brought to the forefront by George Floyd’s murder and other recent events. Graphic design by Stacey Robinson.

We Are More Than A Moment

By Genevieve Gaignard and Erica Wall August 15 – November 2020MCLA Gallery 51 (online exclusive) This virtual exhibition is organized by MCLA’s Gallery 51 and curated by Inaugural Artist in Residence, Genevieve Gaignard. Gaignard is a Los Angeles based artist whose work focuses on photographic self-portraiture, sculpture, and installation to explore race, femininity, class, and their various intersections. It is this exploration coupled with our nation’s most recent events that inspires the focus of this exhibition. Visit Gallery One: Ambrose, Cheryl Bartley, Troy Chew, Jennifer Datchuk, Alexandria Deters, Kirsten Furlong, Merik Goma, Patrick Earl Hammie, Ashley Jan, Lavaughan Jenkins, Helina Metaferia, …

BE REAL BLACK, FOR ME

BY BEATHUR MGOZA BAKER AND IMRAAN JEEVA July 4 – September 12, 2020Madlozi Art Gallery (online exclusive) In the wake of ongoing race-based police brutality, and the institutionally sanctioned killing of Black people this project is a response from artists from Africa and across the Black and African Diaspora supporting social justice movements in the United States, as a conscious intervention reclaiming and affirming Black bodies and lives universally. ‘BE REAL BLACK, FOR ME’ is an exhibition of contemporary art curated as an intervention and dialogue across continents paying homage to Black bodies as sites of healing, resilience, resistance, and …

Curating The End Of The World

BY REYNALDO ANDERSON, TIFFANY E. BARBER, STACEY ROBINSON Google Arts and Culture, New York Live Arts, and Black Speculative Arts Movement: view exhibition (online exclusive) Curating The End Of The World, curated by Reynaldo Anderson (co-curator of Live Ideas festival), Tiffany E. Barber, and Stacey Robinson, is an Afrofuturist commentary on the end of our current age and “Cyclical Chaos,” interrogating the racist pathology and corruption that influences policy around the world. This multi-part exhibition will look at the global existential risks tied to ecology, climate change, anti-blackness, medical apartheid, and responses to the dystopian present. The exhibition features creative works by Chloe Harrison, Jessi Jumanji, Kinnara …

Have you seen them? “Men of Change” at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

BY JESSICA HAMMIE Read below or view original post. “Have you seen them? You see them. Bold. Powerful.         Tragic. Beautiful.                 And true. They are icons with warrior roots. They are trees of knowledge. Legends of the past, inspiration for the future, the fierce energy of now.” The introductory text to “Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.” paints a picture of what you can expect within the two rooms containing the ambitious exhibition. “Men of Change” highlights the accomplishments and legacies of black American men through text, photography, and artwork from twenty-five American artists. The changemakers — some long gone, many …

Romare Bearden (detail)

Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.

BY MARQUETTE FOLLEY, HAILI FRANCIS, HANK WILLIS THOMAS August 17 – December 1, 2019OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, August 17, 4pm – 8pm National Underground Railroad Freedom Center 50 E Freedom Way Cincinnati, OH 45202 Skirball Gallery, Third Floor Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. presents for new generations a ten-city national touring exhibition that tells a narrative of America through the profiles of 25 African-American men who are icons in the country’s historical and cultural landscape, including: Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Kendrick Lamar. Each biography is paired with original artwork that accentuates the subjects’ individual legacies and weaves …

Portraits of Who We Are

BY CURLEE R. HOLTON February 1, 2018 – May 18, 2018 RECEPTION: Thursday, February 1, 5pm – 7pm DAVID C. DRISKELL CENTER 1214 Cole Student Activities Building College Park, MD 20742 The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland is proud to announce its spring exhibition, Portraits of Who We Are, a group exhibition that focuses on self-portraits by African American artists and portraits of African American artists created by their colleagues. The exhibition includes more than 50 works that span from 1915 to 2017 …

What’s Inside Her Never Dies

BY KARLA FERGUSON December 1, 2015 – February 28, 2016 RECEPTION: Saturday, December 5, 10pm YEELEN GALLERY Art Basel Miami 294 NW 54th St Miami, FL 33127 Being a black woman is a journey oftentimes taxed with a history of ruined and objectified bodies that recall and carry on complex legacies of suffering and struggle. Through painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture, What’s Inside Her Never Dies… A Black Women’s Legacy presents the dignity, distress, and character of these heroes who affect us generation after generation. This group exhibition features 23 artists: Ayo Akinwande, Christine Neptune, Debra Balchen, Erica Elan Ciganek, Hattie Mae William and Loni Johnson, James Clover, Jerome Soimaud, …