There’s no better way to tap into your best intellectual self than immersed in the rich tapestry of Black art. From bold modern pieces to inspiring historical nostalgia, these exhibitions offer something for everyone to enjoy. And there’s no lack of choices this season.
You can enjoy a double dose of Black art with opening installations in New York City from artists Otobong Nkanga, Norman Teague and Jammie Holmes. The West Coast is serving up Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, featuring work from Mark Bradford, Derek Fordjour, Savanah Leaf and more. And the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Lif is diving into Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti, making your art experience global.
Get out to an exhibit near you to expand your mind, heart and soul.
Otobong Nkanga: Cadence and Designer’s Choice: Norman Teague, MoMA—New York City
Otobong Nkanga: Cadence showcases the Nigerian-Belgian artist’s large-scale installation, which features an all-encompassing environment of sculpture, sound and text that addresses the rhythms of ecological life cycles and social upheaval. Designer’s Choice: Norman Teague juxtaposes historic design icons from MoMA’s collection with Teague’s unique reinterpretations of many of these objects. The Chicago-based designer draws inspiration from the historically underrepresented voices of women, people of color, and non-Westerners, remaking storied design objects anew through generative AI. Opening October 10.
Morning Thoughts, Marianne Boesky Gallery—New York City
In his second solo exhibition with the gallery, artist Jammie Holmes presents large-scale paintings of gardens and flowers with potent narratives of love and loss, hope and survival, community and resistance. Opening October 10 through November 16, 2024.
Don’t Touch My Hair, Harriet Tubman Square—Newark, New Jersey
From The Culture Parlor, this interactive experience, designed and curated by Ayana Morris, invites visitors to walk through a modified shipping container designed with an archway of 3-D printed hands, symbolizing the unsolicited and intrusive act of touching a Black woman’s hair. The exhibition launches during the Newark Arts Festival and is hosting a three-day schedule of programs and events to celebrate its unveiling. Opening October 11 through November 15.
MÓYÒSÓRÉ MARTINS, TRAFFICARTS New York—Paris
In the City of Lights, Nigerian-born and New York City-based artist Móyòsóré Martins showcases his powerful, iconographic and expressionistic canvases filled with a rich anthology of characters and personal symbolism—such as the “watchman,” googly-eyed monsters and Dogan figures. Many of his paintings were created in Ghana, Africa, for the artist residency Arms Around the Child. Opening October 16 through November 16.
NWBA (Jordan), Holly Bass, 2012. Image: © Holly Bass; courtesy of the artist.
Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—San Francisco
Several Black artists, including Mark Bradford, Hank Willis Thomas, Derek Fordjour, Holly Bass and Savanah Leaf, are featured in Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture, which explores identity through the lens of sports. The museum also provides an interactive way for visitors to play and design breakthrough sports gear, from the original Air Jordan to race car steering wheels to football helmets and surfboard designs. Opening October 19.
Afro Goddess Looking Forward, Mickalene Thomas, 2015. Image: © 2024 Mickalene Thomas.
Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, The Broad—Philadelphia
This exhibition marks Mickalene Thomas’ only East Coast stop on her upcoming international tour. All About Love showcases nearly 50 vivid works from the past 20 years. From paintings to videos and installations, Thomas’ bold, multifaceted pieces explore beauty and desire through a Black feminist lens, blending art history and pop culture. Opening October 20.
Andrea Chung: Between Too Late and Too Early, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami—Miami
Known for her powerful works on colonialism and slavery in the Caribbean, Andrea Chung’s work is a new commission. It features hauting pieces like sugar bottles, a tribute to mothers who committed infanticide to save their children from slavery. The bottles contain notes to lost children and they dissolve over time, filling the gallery with their scent, highlighting the impermanence of history and memory. Opening November 6.
Following Space: Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder, Seattle Art Museum—Seattle
Sculptor Thaddeus Mosley is presented in one of his largest exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum. It examines two innovative artists’ dialogue approaches to movement, weight and time. According to an exhibition curator, “Following Space presents a wonderful opportunity for visitors to explore a study in contrasts: how Mosley and Caldereach evoke the momentary with distinctly different visions.” Opening November 20.
Clearance, Greene Naftali—New York City
Ndife’s work unsettles distinctions between daily life and its surrealist lining. Organic shapes are nested within sculptural shells that resemble domestic furniture, hand-built to evoke the mass-produced items that order our private lives. Through October 26.
Images: courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery.
Nina Chanel Abney: Lie Doggo, The School, Jack Shainman Gallery—Kinderhook, New York
The title Lie Doggo—meaning to stay hidden and wait—hints at themes of strategic invisibility and timing, urging reflection on when to observe quietly and when to take action. Through this collection, Abney invites viewers to examine the space between what is spoken and what is left unsaid, prompting introspection and inspiring action. Through Nov. 16, 2024.
Mambo, Andre Pierre, 1960s. Image: courtesy National Gallery of Art, Gift of Kay and Roderick Heller.
Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti, National Gallery of Art—Washington, D.C.
Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti highlights the country as the world’s first free Black republic, featuring some of the most prominent artists who have lived or worked there over the past century. Paintings by trailblazing Haitian artists like Rigaud Benoit, Hector Hyppolite and Philomé Obin are joined by works from renowned contemporary artists and African American artists who looked to Haiti as a source of inspiration, demonstrating the remarkable reach of Haitian artistic production. Through March 9, 2025.
