Category: Black Art

By Marcus J. Moore (NPR), OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting Asher Gamedze‘s music is meant to realign your spirit, to carry you from melancholy to utopia. On his debut album, Dialectic Soul, the South African drummer makes elegant, astral jazz seemingly informed by John Coltrane, Lonnie Liston Smith and Brother Ah. At the height of free jazz and spiritual jazz in […]

For more than 40 years, the Chicago-based artist has made it his mission to paint black figures into the canon. By Wyatt Mason, The Washington Times Style Magazine WE COULD BEGIN IN Birmingham, Ala., where the artist Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955, his father a postal worker whose hobby was buying broken watches, […]

By Sara Barnes, MY MODERN MET Fantasy photography is a captivating genre. It allows us to get lost in another world—one of ethereal characters, amazing costuming, and breathtaking settings. But if you’ve spent any time admiring these surreal works, you might’ve noticed that they predominantly feature white people. Black women are often left out of […]

Best known for her series of deconstructed flags, Sonya Clark offers poignant, clearsighted reminders of this country’s legacy of racial violence. By Jasmine Wahi, The New York Times Style Magazine Sonya Clark’s work is unequivocally political: Her 2019 wall hanging “These days. This country. This history.” consists of the remains of an unraveled American flag […]

By  Kelly Richman-Abdou, My Modern Met In the early 20th century, a remarkable renaissance emerged in Harlem. On the historic heels of the Great Migration, a mass exodus of over six million African Americans fleeing the segregated South, the New York City neighborhood became a cultural hub for Black creatives. While a wealth of figures […]

Amy Sherald, Michael R. Jackson and others discuss the challenges and opportunities of cultivating black audiences and dismantling historically white institutions. By Noor Brara, Interviews by: Amy Sherald, Michael R. Jackson, Tschabalala Self, Wardell Milan, Renée Cox, Calida Rawles, Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, Rashid Johnson & Mary Lovelace O’Neal, The New York Times Style Magazine “If you’re […]

A triumphal retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum confirms her standing as one of the great American artists — transcending craft, challenging painting and reshaping the canon. By Roberta Smith, The New York Times In 1997 I walked into the Berkeley Art Museum to be greeted by a staggering sight: an array of some 20 […]

By Angelica Villa, ARTnews Jean-Michel Basquiat is poised to continue his reign at auction this summer. Alongside Joan Mitchell’s painting Noel, valued between $9.5 million to $12.5 million, Phillips will put up a key work by the artist in its New York contemporary evening sale on July 2. Standing some 6 feet by 11 feet, the monumental Victor 25448 (1987) features a host […]

Kadir Nelson is an award-winning American artist whose works have been exhibited in major national and international publications, institutions, art galleries, and museums. Nelson earned a Bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and has since created paintings for a host of distinguished clients including Sports Illustrated, The Coca-Cola Company, The United States Postal […]