What to Look Forward to in 2021: More Than 30 Exhibitions, Books, and Events Focused on African American Art
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Culture Type What to Look Forward to in 2021 Victoria L. Valentine 31 January 2021 What to Look Forward to in 2021: More Than 30 Exhibitions, Books, and Events Focused on African American Art The year ahead is rife with an expansive and diverse selection of exhibitions, books and other opportunities to engage with the work of African American artists. From Austin, Texas, to Brooklyn and Boston, a notable line up of solo museum exhibitions opening in 2021 is focused on Black female artists, including Emma Amos, Sonya Clark, Deana Lawson, Wangechi Mutu, Lorraine O’Grady, Christina Quarles, Deborah Roberts, and Alma Thomas. Exhibitions about “Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America,” conceived by late curator Okwui Enwezor at the New Museum in New York; Blackness and architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; “The Dirty South,” exploring the intersection of music and visual expression at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmand; the first U.S. presentation of “Afro-Atlantic Histories” at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and the first comprehensive retrospective of David C. Driskell at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, are among the most anticipated exhibitions of the year. Major forthcoming publications include “The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and about Black American Artists, 1960–1980,” a complement to the landmark exhibition featuring more than 150 texts by artists and writers, and “Kara Walker: A Black Hole Is Everything a Star Longs to Be,” a massive 600-page volume shedding light on the artist’s personal archive of works on paper. In early February, HBO is celebrating Black History Month with the documentary “Black Art: In the Absence of Light, A Celebration of African American Artists.” Postponed from last year, Prospect 5, the citywide triennial in New Orleans, is now opening in October. Delays due to COVID-19 also affected shows dedicated to Quarles, Roberts, Lawson, and David Hammons, providing added benefits to this year’s schedule. Concerns about health and safety surrounding the pandemic continue to force institutions to temporarily close, causing some delays to programming. Many are planning ahead for these issues. Being held in Canada for the first time this year, the Black Portraiture[s} symposium will take place both online and in-person. The first-ever UK solo exhibition of Charles Gaines at Hauser & Wirth gallery in London opened online Jan. 29 in anticipation of the potential reopening of the gallery’s physical space in the months to come. The following selection of what’s on the horizon in African American art provides a guide to prime offerings, what to look forward to in 2021: Winter Image: “AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People,” Edited by Jeffreen Hayes, with a foreword by Chana Sheldon, and text by Leslie Guy (Gregory Miller/Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 176 pages). Exploring the art and legacy of the AfriCOBRA, the artist collective founded in Chicago in 1968, this fully illustrated volume documents two exhibitions curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes—“AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2018-19) and “AfriCOBRA: Nationtime,” an official collateral event of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. More than 80 works are featured 25—28 Old Burlington Street London W1S 3AN T +44 (0)20 7494 1434 stephenfriedman.com Culture Type What to Look Forward to in 2021 Victoria L. Valentine 31 January 2021 by co-founders Jeff Donaldson, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams, as well as subsequent members Sherman Beck, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Omar Lama, Carolyn Mims Lawrence and Nelson Stevens. Exhibition | The Black Index @ Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Gallery, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, Calif. | Jan. 14-March 20, 2021 Image: KENYATTA A.C. HINKLE, “The Evanesced: The Untouchables,” 2020 (100 drawings, India ink and watercolor on recycled, acid-free paper). | © 2021 University Art Gallery, UC Irvine. Photo by Paul Salveson Disrupting traditional expectations of portraiture, Dennis Delgado, Alicia Henry, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Lava Thomas employ drawing, performance, printmaking, sculpture, and digital technology to “build upon the tradition of Black self-representation as an antidote to colonialist images” and “question our reliance on photography as a privileged source for documentary objectivity and understanding” offering “an alternative practice—a Black index—that still serves as a finding aid for information about Black subjects, but also challenges viewers’ desire for classification.” Dedicated to David C. Driskll, the exhibition is curated by Bridget R. Cooks, includes a fully illustrated catalog and will travel the Palo Alto Art Center, the University of Texas at Austin, and Hunter College. Book | The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis | Expected Jan. 26, 2021 Image: “The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship” by Deborah Willis (NYU Press, 256 pages). Part of the NYU Series in Social and Cultural Analysis, Deborah Willis has assembled a striking collection of images, handwritten materials, and personal ephemera, shedding light on the “crucial role of photography in (re)telling and shaping African American narratives of the Civil War, pulling from a dynamic visual archive that has largely gone unacknowledged.” Exhibition | Deborah Roberts: I’m @ The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas | Jan. 23, 2021-Aug. 15, 2021 Image: DEBORAH ROBERTS, “The duty of disobedience,” 2020 (mixed media collage on canvas, 72 x 100 inches). | © Deborah Roberts. Courtesy the artist; Vielmetter Los Angeles; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. Courtesy The Contemporary Austin, Photo by Paul Bardagjy For her first solo exhibition in a Texas museum, Austin- based Deborah Roberts is presenting a selection of new paintings and works on paper. In addition to her mixed- media works, Roberts is showing two new interactive sound, text, and video sculptures and the museum 25—28 Old Burlington Street London W1S 3AN T +44 (0)20 7494 1434 stephenfriedman.com Culture Type What to Look Forward to in 2021 Victoria L. Valentine 31 January 2021 commissioned her to create a mural on the museum’s exterior. Originally scheduled to open in September 2020, the exhibition was delayed to late January due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Deborah Roberts focuses her gaze on African American children—historically, and still today, among the most vulnerable members of our population—investigating how societal pressures, projected images of beauty or masculinity, and the violence of American racism conditions their experiences growing up in this country as well as how others perceive them.” Exhibition | Charles Gaines: Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces @ Hauser & Wirth, London | Jan. 29-May 1, 2021 Image: Installation view of “Charles Gaines: Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces,” Hauser & Wirth, London, Jan. 29-May1, 2021. Shown, Works from Multi-Racial/Ethnic Combinations Series. | © Charles Gaines, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles-based Charles Gaines works with formulaic systems that “interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms, as well as navigating ideas around identity and diversity.” For his first-ever solo exhibition in the UK, the conceptual artist is presenting Plexiglass gridworks from his Numbers and Trees series, which dates back to the mid-1970s, and Numbers and Faces series, started in 1978. The new works are based on English trees Gaines observed and photographed in Melbury in Dorset (London Series 1’) and portraits of people who consider themselves multi-racial (Multi-Racial/Ethnic Combinations Series). Hauser & Wirth’s London space is currently closed based on government guidance regarding the pandemic. In the meantime, the exhibition is on view online. Gaines also has forthcoming solo museum presentations at Dia Beacon (February) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (March). Exhibition | Emma Amos: Color Odyssey @ Georgia Museum of Art at University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. | Jan. 30-April 25, 2021 Image: EMMA AMOS, “Tightrope,” 1994 (acrylic on linen with African fabric borders, 82 x 58 inches). | © Estate of Emma Amos. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of funds from Mary and Bob Mersky and the Ted and Dr. Roberta Mann Foundation Endowment Fund A dynamic painter, who died last May, Emma Amos (1937-2020) explored and challenged race, class, and gender norms, both in her work and career. Her works reference color-field painting, employ photo transfer techniques, and are trimmed in African fabrics. An in-depth examination of her life and practice, this career-spanning traveling retrospective presents about 60 works, including paintings, prints, and woven works. 25—28 Old Burlington Street London W1S 3AN T +44 (0)20 7494 1434 stephenfriedman.com Culture Type What to Look Forward to in 2021 Victoria L. Valentine 31 January 2021 Exhibition | David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History @ High Museum of Art, Atlanta | Feb. 6-May 9, 2021 Image: DAVID DRISKELL, “Homage to Romare,” 1975 (Collage and gouache on Masonite). | © Estate of David C. Driskell. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment Presenting an overview of the illustrious 60-year career of David Driskell (1931-2020), this exhibition celebrates highlights of his oeuvre, across painting, printmaking and collage. About 60 works will be on view, dating from 1953 to 2011. Opening less than a year after the artist and scholar died last April, due COVID-19, the exhibition will be hosted by the High Museum in Atlanta, Portland Museum of Art in Maine, with a final stop in the fall at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is guest curated by Julie McGee and accompanied by a catalog, the first publication to survey Driskell’s entire career. Film | Black Art: In the Absence of Light, A Celebration of African American Artists @ HBO and HBO Max | Premieres Feb.