Past
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Art Institute of Chicago - Project a Black Planet:
The Art and Culture of PanAfrica 14 Dec 2024 - 22 Mar 2025 Framing the individual artworks in the exhibition are the ideas of three influential 20th-century cultural and political movements—Garveyism, Négritude, and Quilombismo—that offer competing visions of a Black Planet, all of them premised on a great contrast with the world we all inhabit today. Further exhibition spaces in Project a Black Planet spotlight debates around Blackness, inner life, political and psychological agitation, and the role of ancestors and spirituality.
The center of the exhibition, meanwhile, turns around an extensive display of books, magazines, record albums, and ephemera which have helped circulate ideas of resistance and self-invention worldwide since the early 20th century. Together this expansive presentation—artworks from across the globe in nearly every media—prompts questions and invites visitors to grapple with and participate in Pan-Africanism’s calls for equality and social transformation.
Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica is curated by Antawan I. Byrd, associate curator of Photography and Media, Art Institute of Chicago, and assistant professor of Art History, Northwestern University; Elvira Dyangani Ose, director, Museu d’art contemporani de Barcelona; Adom Getachew, Professor of Political Science and Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity, University of Chicago; and Matthew S. Witkovsky, vice president for strategic art initiatives and Sandor Chair of Photography and Media, Art Institute of Chicago.
SPONSORS
Major support for Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica is provided by The Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Family Foundation, Hilary and Gidon Cohen, Anita Blanchard and Martin Nesbitt, the Artworkers Retirement Society, the Council for Canadian American Relations, The Opatrny Family Foundation, the Lewis and Susan Manilow Fund, and Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson.
Seed funding has been provided by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (EHTF).
Additional support is provided by the Guimarães Rosa Institute from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture. Additional research funding has been contributed by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Members of the Luminary Trust provide annual leadership support for the museum’s operations, including exhibition development, conservation and collection care, and educational programming. The Luminary Trust includes an anonymous donor, Karen Gray-Krehbiel and John Krehbiel, Jr., Kenneth C. Griffin, the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, Josef and Margot Lakonishok, Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff, Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel, Cari and Michael J. Sacks, and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation.
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Amherst College - Re/Presenting:
Art Beyond the Color Line 12 Nov 2024 - 6 Jul 2025 EmbraceRace
Since 2016, EmbraceRace has supported parents, guardians, educators, and other caregivers working to raise children who are thoughtful, informed and brave about race so that U.S. multiracial democracy can thrive. EmbraceRace identifies, organizes, and creates the tools, resources, discussion spaces, and networks to:
Nurture resilience and joy in children of color
Nurture inclusive, empathetic children of all stripes
Raise kids who think critically about race and racial inequality
Support a movement of kid and adult racial justice advocates for all children
About the Mead x Drawing Differences Partnership
EmbraceRace was founded by Amherst residents, Melissa Giraud and Andrew Grant-Thomas, who generously invited Mead Art Museum educators to join in early piloting of the Drawing Differences curriculum alongside EmbraceRace’s senior research-to-practice program manager, Christina Rucinski and children’s librarian, Mia Cabana at the Jones Public Library in 2023. Mead staff were deeply inspired and intrigued by the themes and questions that Drawing Difference raises about art, as well as its experiential pedagogy, and these intersecting goals led to the exhibition. The full curriculum is available for free at EmbraceRace Drawing Differences. Read more -
The High Museum - Giants:
Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys 13 Sep 2024 - 19 Jan 2025 Musicians, songwriters, and producers Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys have stood as giants in the global cultural landscape for decades. As collectors, the Deans have lived their ethos of “artists supporting artists,” acquiring a world-class collection of paintings, photographs, and sculptures by diverse, multigenerational artists. The exhibition illuminates... Read more -
Cal State Northridge - Before You Now:
Capturing the Self in Portraiture 31 Aug - 7 Dec 2024 Selections from the LACMA collection Read more
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Art Center College of Design - Kwame Brathwaite:
Things Well Worth Waiting For 17 Apr - 17 Aug 2024 ArtCenter College of Design is proud to announce the exhibition Kwame Brathwaite: Things Well Worth Waiting For , on view April 17 through August 17, 2024. This major solo exhibition—the first in Southern California since Brathwaite’s death in April 2023, features approximately 50 of the artist’s color and black-and-white photographs... Read more -
Brooklyn Museum - GIANTS: The Dean Collection
Works from the Collection of Alicia Keys and Swiss Beats 10 Feb - 7 Jul 2024 Gordon Parks. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Lorna Simpson. Kehinde Wiley. Nina Chanel Abney. These names loom large in the past and present of art—as do many others in the collection of musical and cultural icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. Expansive in their collecting habits, the Deans, both born and... Read more -
Art Institute of Chicago - KWAME BRATHWAITE
Things Well Worth Waiting For 25 Feb - 24 Jul 2023 This exhibition focuses on Brathwaite’s passion for music, for it not only ignited his photography career and led to his writing music reviews for numerous international publications in the 1970s, addressing the distinct sounds of soul, R&B, and funk, but his love of music also informed his pictures and his... Read more -
Philip Martin Gallery
Pocket Universe 14 Feb - 11 Mar 2023 Philip Martin Gallery is pleased to present, 'Pocket Universe,' an exhibition celebrating Philip Martin Gallery's new location and the artists with whom it is honored to work: Ericka Beckman, Kwame Brathwaite, Brian Bress, Carl Cheng, Holly Coulis, Katy Cowan, Tomory Dodge, Daniel Dove, Jackie Gendel, Sky Glabush, Pamela Jorden, Kristy... Read more
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Vielmetter
It's Time: Kwame Brathwaite, Kwesi Botchway, Genevieve Gaignard, Rodney McMillan, Wangechi Mutu, Paul Mpagi Sepuya 14 Jan - 25 Feb 2023 Vielmetter Los Angeles is pleased to present 'It's Time,' an exhibition of works by Kwesi Botchway, Genevieve Gaignard, Rodney McMillan, Wangechi Mutu, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya in conversation with works by legendary New York-based photographer Kwame Brathwaite (b. 1938, Brooklyn NY). Anchored by Brathwaite's influential images, the exhibition creates a... Read more -
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
A Time of Gifts - Santa Barbara Museum of Art 16 Oct 2022 - 15 Jan 2023 Featuring over 80 superb works by Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Kwame Brathwaite, Nell Campbell, Awol Erizku, Janna Ireland, Aaron Siskind, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, among many important artists, A Time of Gifts celebrates the generosity of numerous Santa Barbara Museum of Art donors whose gifts of photographs and funds have allowed... Read more -
New York Historical Society
Black is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite 19 Aug 2022 - 15 Jan 2023 One of the minds behind the "Black Is Beautiful" movement, Kwame Brathwaite has long deployed his photography as an agent of social change. This exploration of his work features 40 stunning studio portraits and behind-the-scenes images of Harlem's artistic community. Read more -
Reynolda House
Black Is Beautiful : The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite 5 Feb - 8 May 2022 Throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the transformative idea that 'Black is Beautiful.' This exhibition-the first dedicated to Brathwaite's remarkable career-tells the story of a central figure of the second-wave Harlem Renaissance. In addition to his work in photography, Brathwaite co-founded two key organizations: the African... Read more
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Jack Shainman Gallery - The School
This Tender, Fragile Thing 15 Jan - 30 Apr 2022 Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to present This Tender, Fragile Thing , a group exhibition on view through April 30, 2022. The show shines a contemporary lens on the gallery's 2005 exhibition The Whole World is Rotten , which juxtaposed Black Panther materials from the gallery collection alongside works by... Read more -
LACMA
Black American Portraits 7 Nov 2021 - 17 Apr 2022 Black American Portraits To complement the presentation of The Obama Portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald on tour from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery (NPG), LACMA presents Black American Portraits . Remembering Two Centuries of Black American Art, guest curated by David Driskell at LACMA 45 years ago, this... Read more -
Philip Martin Gallery
Changing Times 2 Oct - 13 Nov 2021 Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, 'Changing Times,' an exhibition of never-before-seen works by photographer Kwame Brathwaite (b. 1938, Brooklyn, NY). Shot between 1965-1975, Brathwaite's thoughtful, strikingly beautiful images depict love and unity across the Black diaspora. In photographs exploring Black subjectivity and viewership, Brathwaite, a leading architect of... Read more -
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Facing Forward: Photographic Portraits from SBMA 15 Aug - 19 Dec 2021 Drawn from SBMA's distinguished collection of photography, this installation features 25 modern and contemporary works featuring the human face as central and absorbing subject matter. Highlights include: the renowned American photographer Kwame Brathwaite's engagingly direct and vivid 1964 self-portrait from the era he and his colleagues popularized the still influential... Read more
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Centraal Museum - The Netherlands
Voices of Fashion : Black Couture, Beauty & Styles 5 Jun - 15 Aug 2021 A major new fashion exhibition entitled Voices of Fashion. Black Couture, Beauty and Styles. is set to open at the Centraal Museum. The show will be the first ever staged by an art museum in the Netherlands to query the white gaze as the default vantage point from which to... Read more -
Philip Martin Gallery
The Struggle Continues, Victory is Certain 19 Sep - 9 Oct 2020 Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, "Kwame Brathwaite: The Struggle Continues, Victory is Certain." The exhibition will include large-scale works and new prints released this past fall and spring by The Kwame Brathwaite Archive. Read more
