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"Triple Portrait of Charles I" is one of two canvases by Brooklyn painter Kehinde Wiley in the three-month show.
Fifty-five bold, edgy works are being installed at the DIA for a provocative exhibit opening next Sunday.
The collection "explores issues of racial, political, historical and gender identity in contemporary culture," the museum says of "30 Americans." The paintings, sculptures, photos, videos and installations from 1978-2008 are "an exhibition bound by one nation and divided by 30 experiences," the description adds.
Among the 30 prominent African American artists are Kerry James Marshall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kara Walker, Nick Cave, Kehinde Wiley, Carrie Mae Weems and Robert Colescott.
"We organized the exhibition around seven themes reflected in the artworks: defying, sampling, freestyling, signifying, confronting, transforming and representing," DIA curator Valerie J. Mercer writes at a Knight Foundation post.
These themes indicate the varied artistic approaches used by the artists and demonstrate that these practices continue to assert African-Americans’ right to be included in the art world, to reap opportunities afforded all talented artists regardless of race and to courageously challenge the status quo by sharing their distinct and honest perspectives on the world and time in which they live. . . .
These artists are among the most important working today
Valerie J. Mercer: "The exhibition should provoke those long-awaited conversations about race."
(Photo from Knight Foundation)
Barkley Hendricks, Mickalene Thomas, Nina Chanel Abney, Glenn Ligon, Rashid Johnson, Lorna Simpson and Hank Willis Thomas also are represented.
Mercer, the museum's first African American art curator, says the DIA wants "to inform our audience about the humanity of African Americans and that the history emphasized in these artworks is not solely African-American but wholly American, and should be known by all." She adds, pointedly:
African-American art is not included in college and university art history courses, and still scarcely represented in mainstream fine art museums throughout the country
The curator, who lives downtown, came to Detroit from New York during a turning-point month for that city and the country -- September 2001. She's "charged with conducting research and developing special exhibitions, lectures and symposia on African American art," her DIA bio says. "She also pursues acquisitions and plans exhibitions on the museum’s growing collection of African American art."
This 2008 Lambda laser print by Rashid Johnson of Chicago is titled "The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Thurgood)."
Her essay at the foundation's site makes clear that "30 Americans" is intended to shake up and wake up:
The skill and talent revealed in the artworks are impressive, although the historical truths expressed in each object’s content can be unsettling for some. However, just because the facts are disturbing is not a good reason to keep avoiding them.
The exhibition should provoke those long-awaited conversations about race, especially between whites and blacks, that we keep hearing need to happen. These conversations are way overdue and it’s frightening to consider what will happen next if the need for them continues to be ignored.
The nearly five dozen works, on view Sunday through Jan. 18, are from a 200-piece Rubell Family Collection in Miami.
Plan your visit
- Opening celebration: Oct. 17, 7-11 p.m. Benefit for Friends of African and African American Art. Tickets ($175) available here.
- Reserved admission: Hourly entry tickets, which include an audio tour, can be booked here; $14 for adults, $10 for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb residents; $7 for ages 6-17 (or $5 for tricounty youths).
- Free days for anyone: Oct. 18 debut, Jan. 18 finale and first weekends of November, December and January (Nov. 7-8, Dec. 5-6, Jan. 2-3)
