CURRENT
EXHIBITIONS
MYTHIC TIME / TENS OF THOUSANDS OF REMEMBERINGS
Sir John Soane’s Museum | London
July 10, 2024 —— January 19, 2o25
We're delighted to introduce Mythic Time / Tens of Thousands of Rememberings, a collaborative exhibition between artist Lina Iris Viktor and the Museum, which will be on view for the second half of 2024.
Lina’s work unearths connections across time and cultures, from ancient Egypt to medieval illumination and indigenous Australian art. In bringing together these connections, she mirrors Soane’s own eclectic approach to collecting objects from varied cultures and time periods. Viktor’s sculptural works, made especially for this exhibition, are interspersed throughout the Museum, introducing new presences and memories into Soane’s former home.
Spanning sculpture, painting, photography and gilding, Viktor’s practice explores the complexities of time, memory and historic traditions. Both her sculptural works and paintings employ ancient, elemental materials, from bronze and ceramic to wood and silk, drawing on their primal, timeless qualities, as well as their formal characteristics.
The fusion of motifs, materials and fragments of time across Viktor’s work and the Soane collection imbues the Museum with new layers of memory, immersing audiences in a Mythic Time of Viktor’s own creation.
LIBERATORY LIVING : PROTECTIVE INTERIORS & RADICAL BLACK JOY
MoAD | san francisco
October 2, 2024 —— March 2, 2o25
Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors and Radical Black Joy features designs, artworks, and environments dedicated to the global necessity for Black people to cultivate domestic interiors not only as spaces of revolutionary action, but also of radical joy and revolutionary rest. Conceptually, Liberatory Living evokes bell hooks’ concept of “Homeplace,” or those concrete spaces which inspire that [particular] feeling of safety, arrival, and homecoming—reminiscent of the warmth and belonging she experienced at her grandmother's home.
In tandem, Elizabeth Alexander's notion of the "Black interior" unfolds as a space of unlimited imagination—a "Black imaginary" that challenges us to envision what we are not meant to envision and captures themes society often overlooks including complex Black identities; genuine and actionable Black empowerment; and rampant and unfetishized Black beauty. These two Black feminist frameworks collaborate in Lee’s curatorial idea of spaces crafted to incubate Black Joy, an idea that will be expressed theoretically and materially throughout the exhibition.
Liberatory Living features sixteen contemporary designers and artists whose furnishings, wall coverings, lighting, ceramics, and other atmospherics are brought together to suggest what might be necessary to construct and sustain a sense of safety and belonging, in response to the enduring need for beauty to bolster those sensibilities. The exhibit also blends custom and retail objects, showcasing a broad spectrum of work that reflects a persistent impulse to create spaces offering sensory circumstances for profound relief.
The first exhibition of its kind at Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors & Radical Black Joy is an open invitation to deep, communal contemplation of contemporary interior design integral to dismantling destructive colonial legacies and opening spaces of Radical Black Joy without fetishizing Black strength and resilience.
Artists include: Andile Dyalvane, Angela Hennessy, Chantal Hildebrand, Cheryl R. Riley, Chuma Maweni, dach&zephir, Germane D. Barnes, Kapwani Kiwanga, King Houndekpinkou, Lina Iris Viktor, Malene Djenaba Barnett, Michael Bennett, Nandipha Mntambo, Norman Teague, Sandra Githinji Studio, Sheila Bridges, Traci Johnson, Zanele Muholi, Zizipho Poswa.
Curated by Key Lo Jee
KEEPING TIME
Gallery 1957 | Accra
Ocotber 26, 2024 —— January 11, 2025
Gallery 1957 is thrilled to present the monumental group exhibition ‘Keeping Time’ curated by Ekow Eshun and Karon Hepburn.
By presenting artworks that are both dream-like and speculative, abstract and figurative, the exhibition questions and disrupts our sense of being in the world through African diasporic perceptions of time.
Perhaps it can be said of all artworks that they affect our perception of time. But in the case of an exhibition of Black artists that is taking place in Africa, context becomes a significant factor. This is to say that the exhibition proceeds from an awareness that the experience of time is often a reflection of power relations between societies. In the Western imagination, people of African descent have historically been seen as the antithesis of Western modernity.
Against this backdrop of chronopolitics and colonial imposition, Keeping Time explores how the work of artists is inviting looser and more lyrical readings of time. Conceived as a follow-up to In and Out of Time, the 2023 Gallery 1957 exhibition curated by Ekow Eshun, which was founded on a similar scepticism to linear notions of progress and modernity, Keeping Time presents works that invoke African diasporic perceptions of time as the inspiration for works of expansive dreaming and possibility.
The show introduces artists who are exhibiting with Gallery 1957 for the first time, such as Okiki Akinfe, ruby onyinyechi amanze, Alvaro Barrington, Winston Branch, Kenwyn Crichlow, Kimathi Donkor, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Lyle Ashton Harris, Andrew Pierre Hart, Che Lovelace, Sola Olulode, Sikelela Owen, Ravelle Pillay, Elias Sime, Lina Iris Viktor and Michaela Yearwood-Dan, as well as returning artists Gideon Appah, Rita Mawuena Benissan, Amoako Boafo, Phoebe Boswell, Godfried Donkor, Modupeola Fadugba, Julianknxx, Arthur Timothy, and Alberta Whittle.
SILVER LININGS : CELEBRATING THE SPELMAN ART COLLECTION
University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA)
August 24, 2024 —— January 5, 2024
Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women located in Atlanta, Georgia, announces the first-ever national tour of its art collection. The tour, made possible through the Art Bridges Foundation, will travel the group exhibition Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection to five institutions across the United States, beginning with Vassar College in September. Through the work of nearly 40 artists, Silver Linings uplifts the legacy of artists of African descent spanning the 20th Century through the contemporary moment, many of whom have been overlooked by mainstream art museums.
“Spelman’s art collection has long been regarded as a hidden gem and we have lent individual works of art for many years. Now, we are excited to share a selection of works by artists who shape our collection with audiences around the United States for the first time,” said Dr. Liz Andrews, Executive Director, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. “Our hope is that this tour will raise awareness of the work we are doing in Atlanta to uplift Black women artists.”
Though Spelman College Museum of Fine Art was founded in 1996 with a mission to uplift art by and about women of the African diaspora, the college’s art collecting dates back to 1899. Originally curated by Spelman College Museum of Fine Art Executive Director Liz Andrews and Curator-in-Residence Karen Comer Lowe, Silver Linings celebrates Spelman College’s art collection while looking to the important role Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have had in providing exhibition opportunities and establishing provenance for Black artists.
The full list of exhibited artists include: Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Firelei Báez, Herman “Kofi” Bailey, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Floyd Coleman, Renée Cox, Myra Greene, Sam Gilliam, Samella Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Howardena Pindell, Lucille Malkia Roberts, Deborah Roberts, Faith Ringgold, Nellie Mae Rowe, Lorna Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Lina Iris Viktor, Carrie Mae Weems and Hale Woodruff.
Currently on tour. The exhibition first premiered at Spelman Museum of Fine Art from March 1 until June 30, 2022.