Exhibitions

Faith Ringgold: American People is still on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in Chicago, United States until February 25, 2024

Faith Ringgold: American People presents the most comprehensive assessment to date of the artist’s impactful vision. Featuring her best-known series – such as her experimental story quilts, renowned painting series American People and Black Light, soft sculptures, performance objects, and ephemera related to her activist work—the exhibition examines the artist’s figurative style as it evolved to meet the urgency of political and social change. The exhibition also foregrounds her radical explorations of gender and racial identities, which the artist incorporates into the rich textures of her paintings, soft sculptures, and story quilts. Among the most important artworks of the past half century, her fabric works combine local traditions and global references to compose a polyphonic history of this country.

Africa & Byzantium is still on view at The Met in New York, United States until March 3, 2024

Art history has long emphasized the glories of the Byzantine Empire (circa 330-1453), but less known are the profound artistic contributions of North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had a lasting impact on the Mediterranean world. Bringing together a range of masterworks – from mosaic, sculpture, pottery, and metalwork to luxury objects, paintings, and religious manuscripts – this exhibition recounts Africa’s central role in international networks of trade and cultural exchange. With artworks rarely or never before seen in public, Africa & Byzantium sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of medieval Africa. This long-overdue exhibition highlights how the continent contributed to the development of the premodern world and offers a more complete history of the vibrant multiethnic societies of north and east Africa that shaped the artistic, economic, and cultural life of Byzantium and beyond.

Spectrum: On Color & Contemporary Art is still on view at the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco, United States until March 3, 2024

How do artists use color to guide our perception? In this exhibition, curated by Key Jo Lee, MoAD’s inaugural Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs, a multigenerational and international group of contemporary Black artists will illuminate the importance of color to both the form and content of their work. Participating artists include: Tariku Shiferaw, Stacey Gillian Abe, Sheena Rose, Mildred Thompson, Barkley Hendricks, Manyaku Mashilo, Delita Martin, Tawny Chatmon, Rashid Johnson, Richard Mayhew, Gabriel Mills, and Felandus Thames. Through a series of thematic couplings and groupings, each visitor will explore how each artist employs color to convey mood, identity, architecture, event, etc. The exhibition will be accompanied by digital and analog educational tools and programs meant to equip our audiences with new and/or refined questions and language with which to engage contemporary Black art through color.

Biennials

Lagos Biennial will open at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, Nigeria from February 3-10, 2024

Under the theme “Refuge”, Lagos Biennial 2024 addresses the concept of the nation-state and critically reflects on the site of the exhibition, Tafawa Balewa Square, the venue of Nigerian independence celebrations in 1960, and also a key venue of the Festival of Black Arts and Culture FESTAC ’77, notably hosting a concert of the great musician an activist Miriam Makeba. The important legacy of FESTAC is seen in its ambition to create a planetary-scale project that celebrates and promotes African cultures of the continent and its diasporas. Also important as a point of reference is the 6th Pan African Congress in 1974 in Dar es Salaam, the first of the series to take place on the African continent. How can this cultural inheritance be reimagined in Lagos fifty years later? By situating Lagos as an international geopolitical nerve point and an international hub for artistic expression, the biennial opens a speculative space for the fabrication of alternate realities.

Art Fairs

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair will open at La Mamounia & DaDa in Marrakech, Morocco from February 8-11, 2024

In a significant development, the art fair is expanding its physical footprint in Marrakech by inaugurating a second location at DaDa, underscoring its commitment to deepening involvement in the dynamic Marrakech art scene. This expansion comes in recognition of the fair’s phenomenal success. Throughout the week, 1-54 will host dedicated programming, featuring specially curated content, events, and partnerships. Selected galleries at DaDa and la Mamounia will showcase curated selections of groundbreaking contemporary pieces by both emerging and established artists. The program includes events and gatherings across Marrakech that celebrate the rich cultural landscape of the city.