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Spring '24 by Janel St. John
We surveyed the Spring '24 exhibition season and found that the artists fell into distinct categories: 'First in Class; 'The Geniuses,' 'Ones to Watch,' or they are apart of amazing group or solo shows. Here are their stories and the shows you don't want to miss!
Historical artists, Alma Thomas, (1891 – 1978) and David C. Driskell, (1931-2020) and contemporary artist, Simone Leigh, (b. 1967) are pioneer African Americans artists. ALMA THOMAS was the first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972 and the first Black artist to have her work included in the White House collection in 2015. A DC Public Schools teacher for 35-years, she organized the first art gallery in DC public schools and in 1943 became the founding vice president of the nation’s first commercial Black-owned art gallery, Barnett-Aden. Thomas's innovative use of bold, rhythmic brush strokes and a vivid palette earned her widespread acclaim. Her unique ability to infuse her work with a sense of movement and energy, coupled with her distinctive use of color theory, made her a pioneering figure in the abstract art movement.
DR. DAVID C. DRISKELL is the ‘Father of Black American Art.’ A distinguished artist, scholar and curator, his groundbreaking contributions are unmatched. In 1976, he became the first African American to curate an exhibition at the Smithsonian, titled Two Centuries of Black American Art - a watershed moment in the recognition of Black artists. The landmark showcase traveled the country and featured over 200 works by 63 artists, establishing African-American Art as a distinct field of study.
For 7 decades, he created art across various mediums, served as a mentor and advocate for emerging artists, and curated more than 35 exhibitions of work by Black artists. In 1996 he advised the White House on the purchase of Henry Ossawa Tanner's "Sand Dunes at Sunset: Atlantic City." It became the first artwork by a Black artist to enter the White House collection.
Paintings by Alma Thomas at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on view thru June 2, 2024. The show is an intimate view of Thomas’s evolving practice during her most prolific period, 1959 to 1978.
Artwork: Alma Thomas, The Eclipse, 1970, acrylic on canvas, 62 in. × 49 3⁄4 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.
David C. Driskell & Friends: Creativity, Collaboration and Friendship is now on view at the University of Maryland, David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture thru May 24, 2024.
Artwork: David C. Driskell, Mask series 2, 2019,
Relief Woodcut, digital pigment
One of Time Magazine’s ‘100 Most Influential People of 2023,’ Sculptor SIMONE LEIGH has worked in ceramics, bronze, video and installations for 20-years.
In 2022, she made history as the first Black woman chosen to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. At the event, she received the prestigious Golden Lion Award for her impressive 16-foot bronze sculpture titled "Brick House."
Focused on the experiences of Black women and their contributions, Leigh draws inspiration from African and African diasporic history and traditions. She sheds light on the overlooked work and cultural significance of Black women, often marginalized by colonialism and its lasting impact.
Now, the first museum survey of her work Simone Leigh, was recently on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Artwork right: Simone Leigh, Herm (detail), 2023. Bronze, 98 × 30 × 28 in © Simone Leigh, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo by Timothy Schenck.
Let's call it an artistic trifecta! The works by three MacArthur Genius award-winners are all on view at the same time! Born in 1948, artist JOYCE J. SCOTT, alongside contemporaries MARK BRADFORD (born 1961) and CARRIE MAE WEEMS (born 1953), exemplify the vanguard of contemporary art by intertwining themes of identity, social justice, and cultural heritage within their diverse oeuvres.
Scott's intricate beadwork confronts social and political injustice, while Bradford's dynamic mixed-media compositions interrogate the complexities of race and class. Weems, through her compelling photography and video installations, confronts issues of race, gender, and power. Together, these groundbreaking artists not only redefine the boundaries of their respective mediums but also catalyze critical conversations surrounding race, identity, and representation in contemporary art. Photos above by the MacArthur Foundation.
Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams is now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art thru July 14, 2024. This 50-year career retrospective encompasses the full range and depth of Scott's prolific and genre-defying practice.
The show features nearly 140 works from the 1970s to the present - sculpture, jewelry, textiles, fashion art, performances, prints, mixed-media, and a new large-scale commission. It's a grand celebration of Scott, an award-winning multidisciplinary artist with storied history in the Baltimore community.
Artwork: Joyce J. Scott. Coppers. 2023. Image courtesy of Goya Contemporary Gallery, Baltimore, © Joyce Scott courtesy Goya Contemporary, photo: Mitro Hood
Mark Bradford: Pickett's Charge is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. This monumental new commission is Bradford's first solo exhibition in D.C., and his largest indoor work, spanning nearly 400 feet and encircling the entire Third Level. The works are inspired by a nineteenth-century painting by Paul Philippoteaux, depicting the final charge of the Battle of Gettysburg. Bradford collaged and transformed the historic Gettysburg imagery. The resulting work invites viewers to reconsider how narratives about American history are shaped and contested.
Artwork: Mark Bradford, Pickett's Charge: The High-Water Mark, (detail). 2017. Hirshhorn. Photo by Joshua White
Carrie Mae Weems; Looking Forward, Looking Back. is now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum thru July 7, 2024. This focused exhibition pairs two projects by Weems, a major multimedia installation, Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me – A Story in 5 Parts and eight photographs from the series Constructing History.
Artwork: Carrie Mae Weems, The Assassination of Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin, from the series Constructing History, 2008, archival pigment print, 61 1/2 × 51 3/8 × 3 in., SAAM, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2022.48.8, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.
Artwork: Carrie Mae Weems, Mourning, from the series Constructing History, 2008, archival pigment print, 61 × 51 1⁄8 in. (154.9 × 129.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2022.48.4, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Alexandre Diop, Ayana V. Jackson, and John Akromfrah are award-winning contemporary artists whose work captivates and challenges viewers, making them 'Ones to Watch' in the evolving art scene. DIOP, (b. 1995) a Franco-Senegalese painter and sculptor, has garnered attention for his innovative practice that explores the legacies of colonialism while tackling universal themes of ancestry, suffering, and historical violence. The Vienna-based artist was mentored by artist Kehinde Wiley in the Reiffers Art Initiative. His artistic practice blends traditional African aesthetics with contemporary expressions, creating a visual language that resonates on a global scale. In 2022 he was chosen for a residency at the Rubell Museum. Now those works, including his largest work ever, are featured in Alexandre Diop: Jooba Jubba, l’Art du Defi, the Art of Challenge at the Rubell Museum DC, showing concurrently with Singular Views: 25 Artists, through September 2024.
Alexandre Diop, L’Incroyable Traversée d’Abdoulaye Le Grand, Troisième de la Lignée [The Incredible Crossing of Abdoulaye the Great, Third in Line to the Throne], 2022, mixed media on wood, triptych, overall 144 x 324 in.
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AYANA V. JACKSON, (b. 1977) an American artist and photographer, brings her distinctive vision to the forefront, exploring issues of race, gender, and historical narratives. Jackson, who lives and works between Brooklyn, NY and Johannesburg, South Africa, uses her lens to deconstruct 19th and early 20th century portraiture, questioning photography’s authenticity and role in perpetuating socially relevant and stratified identities. Her impactful work has earned her accolades such as the 2018 Smithsonian Fellowship, National Black Arts Festival’s 2017 Visual Artist Award Jackson and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow for Photography. She merges photography, performance, and multimedia installations to challenge conventional perspectives and provoke critical discussions on societal norms and power dynamics. Jackson's first major museum survey - From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya - is now on view at the National Museum of African Art through January 2025.
Installation view, Ayana V. Jackson, From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya
From the Deep imagines a powerful underwater world of African spirits. Jackson’s speculative fiction brings to life an immersive, feminist and sacred aquatopia inspired by the legend of Drexciya, a mythic underwater kingdom populated by the children of pregnant women who were thrown overboard or jumped into the ocean during the Middle Passage.
This exhibition presents the artist’s most recent body of work. Jackson uses her own body in her lens-based works to ask that people reckon with the brutal history that cast these humans to the sea while simultaneously envisioning a word of powerful, resilient women.
The exhibition includes original photographs, video, animation, installation, sound, and costumes by designers in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and Angola.
JOHN AKROMFRAH (b. 1957) is living his best life! The Ghanaian-born, London-based artist was chosen to represent Great Britain at the prestigious Venice Biennale - the oldest and longest-running art show in the world. His pavilion piece, an exploration of post-colonialism and environmental devastation is on view through Nov. 2024.
A pioneering filmmaker, Akomfrah founded the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982, and has built a reputation for creating extraordinary, thought-provoking films. He was recently honoured with a knighthood and last year, introduced his largest installation at the Hirshhorn Museum during his DC debut.
But you don't have to travel all the way to Venice to experince his artistry. John Akomfrah: Five Murmurations is on view at the National Museum of African Art. Deemed a 'visual essay of our current times' the film is his response to the global pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and worldwide protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Artwork above: Listening All Night To The Rain, Canto V by John Akomfrah. Image by Jack Hems, British Pavillion.
Singular Views: 25 Artists, now on view at the Rubell Museum DC through Septemer 2024, highlights the work of 25 contemporary artists. A ‘must-see exhibition’ of 2024, the show is drawn entirely from the Rubells’ unparalleled collection of contemporary art and features over 120 artworks across media. Featured artists include Amoako Boafo and Hank Willis Thomas, as well as DMV-based artists: February James, Murjoni Merriweather, Rozeal, Sylvia Snowden, and John Waters.
Shown concurrently with Alexandre Diop, the show consumes 32,000 square feet, with each artist’s work presented as a focused solo exhibition. Standouts include the dedicated room for Mickalene Thomas, (b. 1971) who is currently trending.
Thomas is known for large-scale acrylic paintings of Black women in states of leisure and repose. Through her signature collage-like compositions, she layers diverse materials - rhinestones, acrylic paint, and photographic fragments, creating mesmerizing tapestries where image and texture converge in electrifying harmony. 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.
The Camden, New Jersey-born artist's work is also the focus of new touring special exhibition, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, running from May 25 to September 29, 2024. Artwork: 1. Mickalene Thomas, Baby I Am Ready Now, 2007, acrylic, rhinestone and enamel on panel diptych, overall 72 x 132 in.; 2. Mickalene Thomas, Portraits of Quanikah, 2006. (detail) acrylic, rhinestone and enamel on panel, 15 panels, overall 70 x 126 in.
Hampton University Museum
Hampton University Museum
Hampton University Museum
Sankofa: Constructing Modern African Art features more than 40 artworks by 30 artists from 11 countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the United States. This exhibition captures how Modern African artists utilized the past (traditional values and cultural heritage of the pre-colonial era) to construct their versions of Modern African art.
Ben Enwonwu, Fulani Girl of Rupp, 1949. Oil on canvas, Hampton University Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 67.328. Photo: Alexander’s Photography
Chrysler Museum of Art
Hampton University Museum
Hampton University Museum
I Am Copying Nobody: The Art and Political Cartoons of Akinola Lasekan features more than 50 drawings, paintings, and political cartoons created by Akinola Lasekan, a pioneer of modern art and political cartoons in Nigeria. Lasekan’s artworks capture Nigeria’s landscape, people, culture, and political climate in the 1940s and 50s. On view through August 11, 2024.
Akinola Lasekan, Abike, ca. 1940s. Pastel on paper, Hampton University Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 67.470. Photo: Alexander’s Photography
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Theaster Gates: Wonder Working Power, is a site-specific installation by the Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist and professor.
Visitors will experience Gates’s passion for—and mastery of—the medium of clay. For Gates, the medium speaks not only to the ancient, elemental traditions of so many cultures but also to the precarious fragility of our contemporary selves. Using land development, sculpture, performance, and spatial theory to provoke dialogue and revitalize spaces of urban decay, Gates activates an astonishing array of materials to, in his words, “redeem spaces that have been left behind.”
On view thru January 2025.
Moss Arts Center - VA Tech
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Erika Ranee’s How Are Things on My End features mixed-media paintings and works on paper. Ranee’s colorful abstract paintings are built through a push-pull application of painting, collage, and décollage methods, creating layered surfaces. Her observations of nature and family float suspended in the open spaces of the painting with a stained-glass window-like effect.
On view thru August 30, 2024.
Grandma, 2021; acrylic, shellac, spray paint, and paper collage on canvas; 84 × 72 inches; courtesy of the artist and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York
Maryland Center for History & Culture
Maryland Center for History & Culture
Maryland Center for History & Culture
Elizabeth Talford Scott and the Crazy Quilt Tradition
is on view at the MCHC as part of BMA's anniversary show, presenting Talford Scott’s work at locations throughout Baltimore. Talford Scott’s work is the centerpiece of this collaborative exhibition which includes responsive works by the African American Quilters of Baltimore and the antique quilts in MCHC’s collection.
On view thru December 29, 2024.
Abstract #1, Quilt, 1983, Elizabeth Talford Scott, 1916-2011
Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Center for History and Culture, 2023.19.
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Maryland Center for History & Culture
Maryland Center for History & Culture
BLACK WOMAN GENIUS: Elizabeth Talford Scott—Tapestries of Generations, focuses on Talford Scott as a key figure for Black women in the fiber arts. Her work is showcased alongside local contemporary Black women fiber artists. The exhibit will explore themes including Ancestry, Tradition, Fiber Narratives, and Healing, aiming to spotlight the distinctive elements of Talford Scott’s work and featured artists
On view thru September 30, 2024.
Elizabeth Talford Scott, Infected Eye (1979–80), fabric, thread, 21 x 17.25 in. Image courtesy Goya Contemporary
Galerie Myrtis
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection
Moon in Scorpio is the inaugural solo exhibition by acclaimed artist and Baltimore native, Megan Lewis.
Lewis is an accomplished painter who uses various mediums to create art that delves into critical perspectives on social, historical, and cultural issues related to Black life. Her recent body of work explores the Black male experience, particularly within the context of Baltimore.
On view thru July 20, 2024.
Everything begins with a thought, 2023,
Oil and acrylic on canvas 48 x 60 in.
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection
Where We Meet brings works from the collections of the Howard University Gallery of Art and The Phillips Collection into conversation. The selections reflect a continuum of artistic dialogue between two storied Washington, DC, institutions that has endured for almost a century.
This show features works by artists acquired early in the life of both institutions, including HU professors Loïs Mailou Jones and James Lesesne Wells, as well as works by seminal artists from each collection. On view thru August 15, 2024.
Lois Mailou Jones, Jennie, 1943, Oil on canvas, 36 × 28 1/2 in., Howard University Gallery of Art
National Museum of African American History & Culture
National Museum of African American History & Culture
National Museum of African American History & Culture
Reclaiming My Time features work by contemporary Black designers engaging ideas about cultural heritage, bodies at rest, and histories of labor and leisure.
By featuring selections from the museum’s growing collection of seating design, this exhibition highlights the importance of taking time for rest and restoration. Our resilience and rejuvenation depend on our ability to rest well.
Ongoing.
Amy Sherald
Grand Dame Queenie, 2012, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Amy Sherald
Smithsonian American Art Museum
National Museum of African American History & Culture
National Museum of African American History & Culture
Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice.
William H. Johnson (1901–1970) painted his last body of work, the Fighters for Freedom series, in the mid-1940s as a tribute to African American activists, scientists, teachers and performers as well as international leaders working to bring peace to the world. This landmark exhibition brings together—for the first time since 1946—34 paintings featured in the series.
On view thru September 10, 2024.
William H. Johnson, Harriet Tubman, ca. 1945, oil on paperboard, 28 7⁄8 x 23 3⁄8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation, 1967.59.1146
HISTORY
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC traces Black feminism in Washington, DC from the turn of the 20th century through the civil rights and Black Power movements to today.
The exhibition focuses on the stories and voices of Black feminist organizers and theorists— including Anna Julia Cooper, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mary Treadwell, and Nkenge Touré - whose expansive work made a difference in the lives of Black women in their Washington, DC communities and for all people throughout the United States. Standing at the intersection of race, class, and gender, Black feminists fought for a definition of freedom and liberation that extended beyond their individual circumstances—work that remains unfinished today. On view thru September 15, 2024.
Banneker-Douglass Museum
REVISIT/REIMAGINE: The Civil Rights Era in Maryland and Parallels of Today remembers the legacies of civil rights leaders and their effect on Black Marylanders and throughout the U.S.. In collaboration with Afro Charities, images of nationally and locally recognized civil rights leaders from the AFRO American Newspapers archives will be on display accompanied by the work of contemporary artists living and working in the Maryland area.
Featured Artists: Quinci Baker, Sanah Brown Bowers, Schroeder Cherry, Shaunte Gates, Kyle Hackett, Jeffrey Kent, Lex Marie, Murjoni Merriweather, Jason Patterson, Ernest Shaw, Victoria Walton, Lionel Fraizer White, and Redeat Wondemu.
On view thru January 4. 2025