The work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (12/22/60 – 8/12/88), is on view in Chelsea.
“Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure…Featuring over 200 never before and rarely seen paintings, drawing, ephemera and artifacts, this celebration of Basquiat’s life opened on April 9, 2022 at the NYC Landmark Starrett-Lehigh Building.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure
Starrett-Lehigh Building (Entrance on 27th Street)
601 West 26th Street,
New York, NY
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“Judy Chicago: A Retrospective pays homage to the pioneering feminist artist… whose lifelong fight against the suppression and erasure of women’s creativity has finally come full circle…The exhibition includes approximately 130 paintings, prints, drawings, and ceramic sculptures, in addition to ephemera, several films, and a documentary.”
Judy Chicago: A Retrospective
De Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
March 1 – March 31, 2022 is set aside to acknowledge women’s accomplishments in all fields. However their art, on view in the permanent collection at the Atlanta High Museum, is showcased all year.
“Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection”
“In observance of the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote, this installation is drawn from the High Museum’s collection and features artworks made exclusively by women.”
Included are “some of the most influential voices of the past fifty years, such as Kiki Smith, Lorna Simpson, and Shirin Neshat; midcareer artists such as Won Ju Lim and Chantal Joffe; emerging artists such as Jamian Juliano-Villani and Ella Kruglyanskaya; and Atlanta-based artists Annette Cone-Skelton and Rocío Rodríguez.”
“Pioneers, Influencers, and Rising Voices: Women in the Collection”
High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree St NE
Atlanta, GA
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The Museum of African Diaspora / MoAD in San Francisco, CA has reopened. (The Museum has been closed since March 2020 due to Covid – 19.)
“Founded in 2005, MoAD is a self-described contemporary art museum that celebrates black culture. It’s one of the few prominent institutions in the country dedicated to black art”.
All visits, tours, and events had been postponed or canceled. But there was a successful online auction – “important to invest in the sustainability of the institution.”
Some of the participating artists:
Otis Kwame Kye Oquaicoe, Amoako Boafo, Manuel Mathieu, Ferrari Sheppard, Wangari Mathenge, Andrea Chung, Cassi Namoda, William Cordova, Purvis Young, Adia Millett, Lava Thomas, Didier William, Raelis Vasquez, Dewey Crumpler, Wesaam Al-Badry, Enrico Riley, Alexandria Smith, Tiffany Alfonseca, February James, Whitfield Lovell, Peter Uka, Kwame Brathwaite, Ludovic Nkoth, Jerrell Gibbs, Dominic Chambers, Clotilde Jiménez, Todd Gray, Rashaad
MoAD – The Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street San Francisco, CA
(Image: AMOAKO BOAFO, “untitled,” 2020 (oil on canvas)
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Isn’t this beautiful!
This 16th century brass piece is the head of a West African “Oba”, or king. Many such examples of royal sculpture, from the Benin Kingdom of Nigeria, Edo Empire (it flourished from 1440 to the late 1800’s), are included in the Met’s “Arts of Oceania, and the Americas” permanent exhibits.
I am so grateful that some of this former kingdom’s art has been preserved. Art can be such a history lesson sometimes. So often it represents what is most important to a people during specific periods of their time.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
*Head of an Oba, 16th century (ca. 1550)
Nigeria; Edo, Court of Benin (Brass)
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