Select Art Exhibitions: Highlights for Spring 2012

This highlight features a few exhibitions that open this spring (second quarter of 2012). Presenting the exhibitions as they approach their opening dates assures a freshness and currency of information for the visual art enthusiasts. For a more comprehensive coverage of ongoing exhibitions in 2012, look to the right sidebar of the blog. This sidebar is updated on a weekly basis by either adding newly discovered exhibitions or removing those that are closely approaching their expiration date. Because a number of important traveling exhibitions from previous months are still on tour in 2012, they are not featured in these highlights; however, they are accessible from the sidebar.

Black Art Project (BAP) welcomes any information or leads that you might have relating to Black art exhibitions, particularly regional exhibitions that are not traditionally marketed on a national scale. BAP will verify the accuracy of any information submitted. Thank you for any assistance that you provide.

Brooklyn, New York

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art

(MoCADA)

The Box That Rocks: 30 Years of Video Music Box and the Rise of Hip Hop Music and Culture is an exhibition of contemporary art that celebrates the global influence of Video Music Box, and the show’s historic contribution to urban music and culture. The exhibition features photography, painting, mixed-media, video installation, and interactive digital art. 

The Box That Rocks will be on view at MoCADA through May 28, 2012.  

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston University, Sherman Gallery



Tony Gray

 Tony Gray: The Panther Series is on view at the Sherman Gallery, School of Visual Arts at Boston University. "This solo exhibition presents recent work and continuations of ongoing series in which Gray explores representations of African American men and women in popular culture and mass media. Through painting and mixed-media works on paper, Gray presents an Afro-centric worldview through which to address social and racial issues."

 The Panther Series will be on view through May 20, 2012.

Chicago, Illinois

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Rashid Johnson, Death by Black Hole: The Crisis,
2010, Steel, black soap, wax, books,
shea butter, plant, space rocks,
mirror, gold paint, stained wood,
96 1/2 x 76 1/4 x 30 in.,
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery,
Image courtesy of the artist
and David Kordansky Gallery,
Los Angeles, CA

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presents Rashid Johnson’s first major solo museum exhibition, Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks, which will survey the first ten years of his career. This exhibition of the Chicago-born artist "opens up a dialogue with historically important figures ranging from W. E. B. DuBois and Sun Ra to Miles Davis and Public Enemy. The title of the exhibition is taken from a 1969 album by avant-garde musicians Art Ensemble of Chicago, who performed with a variety of percussive found objects, spanning musical styles to radically redefine the rules of jazz. Inspired by their message, Johnson pays homage to these creative pioneers of his hometown and channels their nonconformist vision for his generation of artists."

Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks will be on view April 14 - August 5, 2012. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. 

Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

The Soul of a City: Memphis Collects African American Art will be on view at Brooks Museum of Art from June 9 - September 2, 2012. This exhibition puts its hand on the pulse of collecting in Memphis, highlighting the variety of paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, and mixed media works from the 20th and 21st centuries in both private and public collections.

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica Museum of Art

Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe is the first major solo museum exhibition for the artist. It opens at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on April 14 and will be on view through August 19, 2012.



Mikalene Thomas, Qusuquzah, Une Très
 Belle Négresse #3, 2012, Rhinestones, acrylic,
oil, and enamel on wood panel, 96" x 80",
Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin Gallery,
New York, and Susanne Vielmetter,
Los Angeles

 In Origin of the Universe, Thomas "introduces a new model of trans-generational female empowerment as she explores interior and exterior environments in relation to the female figure. The exhibition consists of 15 works in a variety of sizes and media that examine art historical constructs of feminine identity, sexuality, beauty, and power.

Origin of the Universe will travel to the Brooklyn Museum from September 28, 2012 to January 20, 2013. A full-color, illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition.   

Washington, DC

Smithsonian American Art Museum

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond consists of 100 artworks by forty-three Black artists that are from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s rich collection of African American art.

The artists, working in various styles, address a diverse array of subjects. Their artworks present a vision of America from an African American perspective.

Some of the artists included in African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond are as follows: Benny Andrews, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Roy DeCarava, Thornton Dial, Sr., Melvin Edwards, Roland Freeman, Sargent Johnson, Loïs Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Robert McNeill, Marilyn Nance, Gordon Parks, James Porter, Alma Thomas, and others. This exhibition is a part of the Smithsonian's Traveling Exhibition Program, and will be on tour at other museums through the coming years. "More than half of the featured works...are being exhibited and circulated by the museum for the first time, and ten works are recent acquisitions." 

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond will be on view, 1st floor West, American Art Museum, from April 27 - September 3, 2012. A catalogue accompanies this exhibition.

NOTE: For a more comprehensive coverage of ongoing exhibitions in 2012, look to the right sidebar of this blog. Remember, this sidebar is updated on a weekly basis.

Swann Galleries: African-American Fine Art, Sale 2255

Swann Auction Galleries' African-American Fine Art Sale 2255 on October 06, 2011 was the most successful auction over the past three years (February 2009 to present), bringing in $1,789,989 with Buyer's Premium, and selling approximately 75% of the lots. According to Nigel Freeman, Director of African-American Fine Art at Swann Galleries, “We are very pleased by the results of yesterday’s sale. We saw strong prices that reflect the quality and importance of the pieces featured in this auction, and a handful of new auction records for artists including Joseph Delaney and Loïs Mailou Jones.”

I was particularly pleased to see that Loïs Jones' "Marché de Kenscoff, Haiti", oil on canvas, 1962 which sold for $32,400, exceeding its high estimate of $18,000 set an auction record for the artist. This is an accomplishment that has been long overdue. Sale 2255 featured five paintings and watercolors from the estate of Loïs Mailou Jones, marking the first time works have been available at auction directly from her personal collection.

Also, it is worth noting that four lots in this Sale surpassed their high estimate and hit the six figure mark: Charles White, Work (Lot 61, crayon and charcoal on board, 1953, $306,00); Robert S. Duncanson, Untitled Landscape (Lot 1, oil on canvas, late 1850's, $120,000); Jacob Lawrence, two Untitled gouache paintings of Card Players, (Lot 30, panels from a folding screen, circa 1941-42, $108,000); and Hughie Lee-Smith, Desert Forms, (Lot 65, oil on masonite, 1957, $102,00). The price quotes reflect the buyer's premium. Images of these four lots follow:

 

Charles White, Work

Robert S. Duncanson, Untitled (Landscape)

Jacob Lawrence, Untitled  (gouache paintings)

Hughie Lee-Smith, Desert Forms

                                                                  
Although Sale 2255 was the most successful auction over the past three years, historically it has not been the largest nor the highest earning auction  over the period that Swann has sponsored the African American Fine Art Sale. Both in size of lots and earnings, the February 6, 2007 (Sale 2102) and February 19, 2008 (Sale 2136) were larger.

As I reflect on these Sales over the years, I am thankful that works by African American artists are more visible on the auction scene. This visibility has raised the awareness of African American artists to a larger audience in the artworld. Although some of the lots sold for prices below pre-sale estimates, offering buyers an opportunity of great deals, I wonder what impact the low selling prices will have on an artist's career? Even more so, what impact will a "no sale" have on the career of the contemporary artist? What are the factors that make the African American artists' works at auction seem to hover in the five figure range or lower when their contemporaries (non-African Americans) can more consistently command six figures and millions? If the aesthetic quality and content of a work between two artists are comparable, how much does patronage or curatorial sanction play in auction prices? What impact does low auction prices have on works of artists in existing private collections? How is African American art fitting into the larger auction-market trend? What are the lessons that collectors, artists, art historians, and art critics drawing from the current auction-market trends? The long and short of my queries focus on a value judgment; ...simply stated what makes an artwork valuable? 

Markets, and the art market is not an exception, are cyclical in nature and are determined by a number of variables, including prevailing public taste, supply and demand, quality, and the like. I remain optimistic that the monetary value of the work of African American artists will be realized over time; particularly,  as they become documented in major texts through comprehensive scholarship, become better known by curators and offered more opportunities for exhibitions in top-tier museums, and are included in more galleries that focus on representing and promoting their careers rather than simply selling their art. 

The artwork in these Sales are by important artists whose works are of immense value, even if that value is not consistently reflected in the realized prices at auction.