Exhibitions

Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem is still on view at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, CA, United States until April 14, 2019

Black Refractions surveys close to a century of creative achievements by artists of African descent and is the first traveling exhibition in twenty-five years to reveal the breadth and expansive growth of the Studio Museum’s permanent collection. MoAD’s showing of the exhibition includes over sixty works by nearly fifty artists across all media dating from the 1920s to the present. The landmark exhibition explores the vital contributions of artists of African descent, proposing a plurality of narratives of black artistic production and multiple approaches to understanding these works. Such an ambitious, multifaceted project is uniquely possible through the use of the Studio Museum’s collection. Through its pioneering exhibitions, public programs, artist residencies, and bold acquisitions, The Studio Museum in Harlem has served as a nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally since its founding in 1968.

Fashioning the Black Body is still on view at projects+gallery in St. Louis, United States until May 4, 2019

Fashioning the Black Body is a mixed-media exhibition that surveys how fashion, style, and the garment act as devices of investigative storytelling. In turn, the exhibition becomes a dialogue about space: the space between black skin and cloth, the space that exists between the historically commodified and fetishized black body, and the space claimed for one’s self-defined identity. “Far from the reaches of frivolity –a domain to which fashion is usually relegated– Black people have continually engaged the fashion object beyond its utilitarian functions into a device of pride, protection, resistance and camouflage,” states curator Dario Calmese. Through the work of these artists, the Black body is transubstantiated into a semipermeable membrane between the gaze and the contents it holds – and more concretely – the tenuous distances between who we are, who we want to be, and how we are perceived.

Arcmanoro Niles: My Heart is Like Paper, Let the Old Ways Die is still on view at Rachel Uffner Gallery in New York, United States until April 28, 2019

For this show, Niles presents a series of paintings, which carefully observe how those around him deal with heartbreak and disappointment. Each considers how trauma and loss can consequentially linger within us, reverberating throughout life and affecting our relationships and interactions. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Niles continues to draw inspiration from his upbringing and his portraits are based on family members, friends, or the artist himself. While his last body of work found his subjects depicted outside of their homes, here Niles turns to interiors. Considering our emotional attachment to place, he positions each character in a ‘safe’ space where they feel most comfortable and introspective. Niles takes us on a room-by-room tour of a house filled with people in states of deep reflection, some seem aware of the viewers’ presence and meet our gaze with a challenging stare, while others appear more vulnerable with their heads bowed or turned away.

Festivals

Images Festival 2019 will open at various venues in Toronto, Canada from April 11-18, 2019

For its 32nd edition, Images Festival will highlight artistic excellence in contemporary moving image culture through 14 gallery exhibitions, 73 on-screen works, and eight live performances happening throughout the city. The 2019 program calls attention to histories, solidarities, and collaborations, providing vivid perspectives that further challenge and uproot the dialogue surrounding experimental media art. Images Festival’s Opening Night film will be the Canadian premiere of Software Garden, a music video album by Rory Pilgrim at The Royal Cinema. In contrast to a recent fascination with technology’s dystopian impact on public and private life, the film asks how we meet from both behind and beyond our screens. The Closing Night program titled Outer Worlds is curated by Janine Marchessault, featuring five new large-format digital film shorts in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the invention of IMAX. Taking place at the historic Cinesphere Theatre at Ontario Place, Outer Worlds include works by Oliver Husain, Lisa Jackson, Kelly Richardson, Michael Snow, and Leila Sujir.

Talks

A Conversation on Art and Politics will take place at Bozar in Brussels, Belgium on April 24, 2019

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. He often incorporates recognizable icons into his work, many from well-known advertising and branding campaigns. Thomas sees cultural disconnects everywhere in day-to-day living particularly as it relates to race. In a 2013 review by Holland Cotter in the New York Times, “[Hank] has been particularly astute in examining the workings of what W. E. B. Du Bois called double consciousness, the condition in which people see themselves reflected, often negatively, in the view of others and end up molding their lives to confirm that view.” In this way, his work has gone beyond just making art, to examining and exposing deeper divisions in our culture. During this evening conversation, artist Hank Willis Thomas, curator Christine Eyene and Open Society’s president Patrick Gaspard will review the artist’s work in light of evolving political contexts.