black artists
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Local Color: Your Museum-Worthy Guide to Getting Cultured Over the Holidays
So, maybe you’re back home for the holidays—or maybe you’re hosting this year. Maybe you’re spending the break blessedly solo. No matter the specifics, you’ve hopefully got some long overdue downtime coming your way over the final days of 2018. But how many rounds of leftovers, good-natured (we hope) family feuds, epic sleep-ins and Hallmark…
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Spelman College Museum of Fine Art to Showcase Painter Amy Sherald in 2019
She immortalized our former forever first lady for the National Portrait Gallery, and now, portraitist Amy Sherald is getting a very special tribute from the school where she honed her craft. On Jan. 31, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will present “Amy Sherald,” an exhibition organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis…
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Art and Activism Create Darker Gods for Art Basel Miami
Activism and art are frequently complimentary forces, but a new exhibit at Miami’s Art Basel brings the two together in a visionary new way. Artist Damon Davis is using sound, photography, film, illustration and written word to reframe and deify blackness—specifically, the ways in which the media represents and fetishizes blackness and black pain—in his…
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Painting Black Men to Be Seen and Respected as Powerful Figures in the Art World
Jordan Casteel wants to change the staleness of the high art world and how it views black men. The Denver artist has been painting portraits of people in her community before she was an art student at Yale and it evolved as she made a home in Harlem, N.Y. “As I moved to Harlem,” Casteel…
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Sculptor Simone Leigh Becomes 12th Artist to Win Guggenheim’s Hugo Boss Prize
Black excellence has been awarded again. On Thursday, the Guggenheim Museum awarded its coveted Hugo Boss Prize to Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist Simone Leigh. The Hugo Boss Prize recognizes achievement in contemporary art. Leigh, a Chicago native of Jamaican descent, works in various media but was recognized for her work in ceramics, which incorporates traditional African…
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Watch: Inside the Mind of a Random Fly Director
Terence Nance is the lead visionary behind HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness and was recently named as the director for Space Jam 2. His first film, 2012’s An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, won rave reviews at Sundance and put Nance on the map in the indie film world. The film even impressed Jay-Z, who became…
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Old in Art School: Nell Painter Paints a Refreshing Portrait of What Coming-of-Age Can Look Like
At 76, Nell Painter dresses differently than she did just 10 years ago—but not in the ways one might expect. A prominent historian and professor emeritus at Princeton, Painter dressed as a professor would. When she wore earrings, they were simple, classic diamond studs. She certainly wouldn’t wear cowboy boots, as she showed me one…
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The MTV VMA Nominations Are In! Cardi B and the Carters Lead the Nominees
The MTV Video Music Awards, like others, are highly anticipated each year. We keep a special close eye out to see how our fave black artists are represented during these award shows and thankfully, we weren’t disappointed this year. Cardi B has the most nominations for the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, with 10 nods.…
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11-Year-Old Nigerian Artist Creates Stunning Portraits of Figures in His Community
The youngest professional artist in Nigeria is gaining international exposure for his stunning lifelike portraits. Eleven-year-old Kareem Waris Olamilekan draws family members, friends and other community members from his makeshift art studio in Lagos. He also recently caught the attention of French President Emmanuel Macron. Watch the video above to learn more about this amazing…
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Flawless or Forgery? Did Bey and Jay’s Homage to the Louvre ‘Borrow’ From This Black-Owned Label?
Angelic iconography. The streets of Paris. Baroque architecture. The halls of the Louvre Museum, lined with French and Italian masterworks and iconic Greek and Egyptian sculptures that date well before Christ. The murals that adorn the ornately gilded ceilings of the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon (the Apollo gallery) … The first single and video from the…