What's On
Mannes Sounds: Africa Unite!
Details: Thursday 2nd May, 2024, 7:30PM to 9:30PM (EDT)
Location: Updated- now at: Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street (between 6th Ave and Broadway)
Curated and directed by Claude Grunitzky, this performance traces the evolution of Black music in sound, dance, and African photography from the Kora tradition of West African griots and musicians to American jazz and funk all the way to a new generation of hip hop and afrobeats. The event will include a Djassi DaCosta Johnson solo dance set to the sound of the kora played by Salieu Suso, poetry by Léopold Sédar Senghor spoken by students from the School of Drama, a three-part medley and rhyming performed by The Trace it Back Ensemble student quintet from the School of Jazz and Contemporary music, a visual montage of African and African diaspora photography from the Isabel S. Wilcox collection created by new media artist Eva Davidova, faculty member of Parsons School of Design, and more. This performance is co-produced by Isabel S. Wilcox and Mannes Sounds Festival, and director, Pavlina Dokovska.
RSVP HERE
Jan Wade: COLORED ENTRANCE
Details: Thursday 2nd May, 2024, 7:30PM to 9:30PM (EDT)
Location: Richard Saltoun Gallery New York
Richard Saltoun Gallery New York’s inaugural exhibition will be a solo presentation by African-Canadian artist Jan WADE (b. 1952), on view between 2 May – 22 June 2024.
COLORED ENTRANCE will be Wade’s first solo exhibition in the United States, on the occasion of the acquisition of her work iconic work, Epiphany (1994 – 2012), by the National Gallery of Canada, as well as her upcoming retrospective Soul Power opening at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario in June 2024. Previously touring from Vancouver Art Gallery (2022), this marked the first solo show by a Black woman artist in the museum’s ninety-year history.
The exhibition COLORED ENTRANCE spans both historic and new work, continuing Wade’s exploration of Black identity in a post-colonial landscape, drawing from her heritage, African diasporic spiritual practices, and the history of Southern Slave Cultures. A main highlight is her new series of Memory Jugs, inspired by traditional vessels found on African-American graves in the American South.
RSVP HERE
Fire in Her Eyes
Details: Thursday 28th March – Thursday 16th May, 2024
Location: Kvasnevski Schwartz Projects
Kvasnevski Schwartz Projects proudly announces the highly anticipated second exhibition in New York City, Fire in Her Eyes, opening on March 28, 2024. This captivating exhibition shines a spotlight on the journeys, practices, and enduring contributions of women throughout history.
Fire in Her Eyes invites viewers to immerse themselves in a vibrant showcase celebrating the indelible impact women have had on the world, shaping societies through their art and activism. Featuring the works of ten extraordinary artists including Hélène Amouzou, Adela Beltran, Mina Boromand, Angèle Etoundi Essamba, Wrya Eyes, Leila Rose Fanner, Robin Holder, Holly Suzanne Rader, Ashleigh Sumner, and Rezvan Zahedi, the exhibition presents a diverse range of mediums from evocative photographs to stirring paintings, bold sculptures, and intricate collages.
Further details HERE
Sharif Bey: Crowns Encoded
Details: Thursday 18th April – Saturday 1st June, 2024
Location: albertz benda
Bey’s sculptural practice reclaims fragments of disparate visual histories and creates a new context for their interpretation, welcoming conjecture and speculation. These works further his enduring interest in nkisi nkondi power figures from the Congo region, while also drawing upon iconography from his upbringing in Pittsburgh. Impaled by nails and ceramic shards, the large-scale busts of his Domestics series are adorned with headdresses made of oversized colorful glass spoons. Bey recalls seeing similar decorative objects, originally made of carved wood, hung in the homes of family and friends as a child. Re-imagined as a monolithic glass crown, the spoons take on a totemic significance magnified by the suggestive ritual function of the sculpture’s impaled surface.
Further details HERE
'The Land Wants You' Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing,
Details: Friday 3rd May 2024, 7 PM
Location: Whitney Museum of American Art
As part of Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, this film program organized by guest curator asinnajaq opens up dialogues between Indigenous artists based in the United States and Indigenous communities beyond its borders, by bringing together works by Samí, Mongolian, Mapuche, Inuk, and Native American artists that are grounded in place, land stewardship, kinship, care, and belonging.
This program features works by Siku Allooloo, Seba Calfuqueo, Kite, Jenni Laiti, Niillasaš-Jovnna Máreha Juhani Sunná Máret – Sunna Nousuniemi, Sydney Frances Pascal, Lada Suomenrinne, Alisi Telengut, and Zulaa Urchuud. The screening will be followed by a conversation among asinnajaq; Biennial artists Kite, Lada Suomenrinne, and Sydney Frances Pascal; and Samí photographer and director Carl-Johan Utsi.
Book HERE
The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism
Details: Until Sunday 28th July 2024
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In February 2024, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the groundbreaking exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. Through some 160 works of painting, sculpture, photography, film, and ephemera, it will explore the comprehensive and far-reaching ways in which Black artists portrayed everyday modern life in the new Black cities that took shape in the 1920s–40s in New York City’s Harlem and nationwide in the early decades of the Great Migration when millions of African Americans began to move away from the segregated rural South. The first art museum survey of the subject in New York City since 1987, the exhibition will establish the Harlem Renaissance and its radically new development of the modern Black subject as central to the development of international modern art.
Book HERE
Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys
Details: Saturday 10th February 10 – Sunday 7th July, 2024
Location: Brooklyn Museum
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 raised in New York, champion a philosophy of “artists supporting artists.” The first major exhibition of the Dean Collection, Giants showcases a focused selection from the couple’s world-class holdings. The Brooklyn Museum’s presentation spotlights works by Black diasporic artists, part of our ongoing efforts to expand the art-historical narrative.
Book HERE
Pascale Marthine Tayou, Look at yourself in the mirror
Details: Thursday 9th November, 2023 – Thursday 30th May, 2024
Location: FIAF Gallery
FIAF’s new exhibition presents the work of Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou. Through sculpture and multi-media works, Look at yourself in the mirror reflects Tayou’s unique perspective. Drawing on his nomadic origins, the artist proposes a “global village” of images in his work. Tayou combines unconventional materials with ancestral objects. Neon, wood, chalk, and paint are among the materials offered throughout FIAF’s Gallery and lobby. By reimagining popular visual culture, Tayou addresses the complexities of individual and national identity.
Further details HERE
The Ways of Langston Hughes: Griff Davis and Black Artists in the Making
Details: Until Monday 8th July, 2024
Location: The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1901–1967) held friendships with artists across generations and disciplines. He forged connections between creative professionals, encouraged the work of others, and helped build a larger network of Black creatives and intellectuals responding to, and shaping, the current events of the time. Among them were Arna Bontemps, Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, Regina Andrews, Margaret Danner, Louis Armstrong, Randy Weston, and Roy DeCarava. The photographs in this exhibition offer an intimate look at Langston Hughes with students, writers, visual artists, and performers in different periods of their maturation.
Book HERE
Harlem Sculpture Gardens
Details: Spring 2024
Location: Harlem Sculpture Gardens
Launching in Spring 2024, the Harlem Sculpture Gardens is a groundbreaking initiative transforming historical Morningside, St. Nicholas, and Jackie Robinson parks into a vibrant exhibition space. In collaboration with the West Harlem Art Fund and New York Artist Equity Association, we bring sculpture, dance, and sound art to the heart of Harlem, celebrating its rich cultural tapestry. Inclusivity is at the heart of Harlem Sculpture Gardens. We invite artists of color and emerging artists from underserved communities to contribute their creativity to the Harlem Sculpture Gardens. Our community-driven selection process ensures diverse voices shape the artistic landscape. Beyond art, the Harlem Sculpture Gardens is about community. We’re fostering park stewardship through educational workshops and engaging local youth in artistic endeavors. This is more than an exhibition; it’s a movement towards a more inclusive and culturally vibrant Harlem.
Further details HERE