Stay updated with breaking news from David Driskell. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Check out this week's edition of UPFRONT Inside the Entertainment . It features Queen Sugar star Tina Lifford, Manager of Marketing for the High Museum of
comments Why does the current wave of Black American artists feel like such a new thing? Because it is. Curators are rapidly placing Black art in museums, collectors are learning and understanding what Black artists are trying to say, and fellowships for Black artists are increasing. Finally, the rest of the world is starting to recognize our talents. The reason it has taken so long is because Black people came into this country as property in 1619. And even though I'm sure plenty of those captured Africans were talented artists, there was no way for their work to be acknowledged, let...
Central to the new documentary Black Art: In the Absence of Light is a pivotal art exhibition that debuted in 1976. "Two Centuries of Black American Art" was the first major show by a Black curator to look at the history of art produced by African Americans. Covering the period between 1750 and 1950, it featured 200 works and 63 artists, with painting, sculpture, drawing, graphics, crafts and decorative arts. When it went on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the fall of 1976, it drew unprecedented crowds for an exhibit of American art. "Two Centuries of Black American Art," ...
Bridget Cooks, author of "Exhibiting Blackness," steaks with Folasade Ologundudu about the changing field of Black art history.
Bridget R. Cooks. (Photo by Evelina Pentchev.) This article is part of a series of conversations with scholars engaged with Black art for Black History Month. See also Folasade Ologundudu’s interviews with Richard J. Powell, Darby English, and Sarah Lewis. *** In her much-discussed 2011 book, Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, Cooks looked at the ways that museums have perpetuated racial inequity through the presentation and curation of African American and African diaspora artists. Her account started with the very first show in America featuring Africa...