This season, artists are exploring religion, inspiration, connections, and cultural traditions. Clothing as self-expression is taking center stage as curators revisit the tastemakers who motivated us to rethink our personal style. Interactive and immersive displays are spurring bonds through similar lived experience. Blockbuster exhibits are embedding strong messages about afro-diasporic influence. Unlikely unions, like the one between music and mythology, are forming.
The divine, the patriotic, and the chic are coming together to force us to go outside. See nine exhibitions we’re sprinting to check out before they’re gone.
Africa Fashion
Portland Art Museum
Did you miss this blockbuster exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum? No worries. You have a second chance because the designs are headed out west! It celebrates the ingenuity and beauty helmed by Africa’s most innovative designers who have influenced fashion’s global evolution. Stop by and witness the impressive materials and construction before it vanishes on February 18.
Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other
High Museum of Art in Atlanta
In “We Are Each Other,” Clark invites audiences from across the diaspora to engage with their shared roots. She also challenges them to celebrate their differences in search of creating a more connected community, as she has throughout the three decades of her career. Her background as a DMV native born to Caribbean parents informs the work. Catch it before it’s gone on February 18.
Faith Ringgold: American People
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Sixty years of exploring ideas about race and gender through canvases, sculptures, and quilts are presented in this exhibition. Inspired by her personal narrative and facets of public memory, Ringgold has become one of the most impactful figures in the art world. Here, guests can observe her rise from contemplative historian to cultural icon until February 25.
Adama Delphine Fawundu: In the Spirit of Àṣẹ Through
The Newark Museum of Art
Video installations, paintings, and photography depict the connection between art, nature, and spiritual practices, as seen by Adama Delphine Fawundu. Exalting the enduring Yorùbá philosophy of àṣẹ, Fawundu’s artworks aren’t merely inanimate objects, but rather interconnected energies. It closes on March 10.
Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Ancient Future
Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami
Richmond-Edwards asks audiences to envision a joyful future with the help of fantasy and portraiture. Her vision of Afro-Futurism incorporates references to the power of the past. It also asks questions about the potential of a world uninhibited by division and tyranny through the use of cosmic symbols and pop culture iconography. Come out and imagine what our world could be before it closes on March 17.
Hip Hop Til Infinity An Immersive Trip Through 50 Years Of Hip Hop
Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles
This exhibition explores 50 years of hip-hop, beginning with the birth of the billion-dollar cultural juggernaut. See the origin story of the culture, and its key players, that would force the world to sit up, take notice, and contemplate where the future lies for music at this massive exhibition. Tickets are available through March 17.
THIS WAY: A Houston Group Show On View
Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston
This group exhibition showcases original work from Houston artists engaging with the legacy of
Houston Freedmen’s Town. The art is complemented by archival material that bolsters the sentiment of the work with time-tested research. As ownership of cultural narratives is being debated in public forums, it is more important than ever that stories be cherished. It closes on March 24, 2024.
Spirit in the Dark Religion in Black Music, Activism, and Popular Culture
National Museum of African American History and Culture
You don’t have to be a preacher’s kid to connect with the spirit of this work, featuring curated images from the Johnson Publications Archive that illustrate Black religious traditions. Nostalgia fills the room: Feast your eyes on still from Jet and Ebony as phantom smells of Easter Sunday press and curls penetrate your nostrils. You can catch this show until April 7.
Remember The Rain
Seattle Art Museum
Sculptures and paintings reflect various aspects of daily life in this celebration of Haitian culture. The exhibition taps into the myths and fables entrenched in the culture’s values as well as the beauty found in daily rituals. Opulence as reverence and the respect embedded in commitment are explored. There is the beauty in laying a loved one to rest. There’s also the nobility in being someone who can be relied on. The show is on view until October 2024.
