Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Built Environment will examine the historicity and rich panoply encompassing the Black built environment, both physical and imagined. Exploring the concept and its relationship to photography, architecture, urban planning, and visual culture, artists have reconceived and reconstructed visions of our built environment while exploring themes conversant with the spiritual and ritualistic continuities of the African diaspora.
On June 9th, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, New York, hosted a book launch and conversation. Award winning biographer A’Lelia Bundles and CBVC Founding Director Dr. Deborah Willis were in conversation about Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. A vibrant and deeply researched biography of A’Lelia Walker–daughter of Madame C. J. Walker.
NYU Stovall Gallery. This annual art show displays the unique artistic visions of fellow administrators. Visual arts are exhibited throughout the summer in the Stovall Gallery on the 8th floor of the Kimmel Center. For those who can’t make it in-person, please check out the virtual gallery.
1924 – 2025. Anna Mae Robertson,101 years old, was one of the last surviving members of the “Six Triple Eight,” an all Black, all-female WWII battalion. Robertson had been a member of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in 1943, the only African American Women’s Army Corps to serve overseas during World War II.
1941 – 2025. Beuford Smith, was a prominent member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective that nurtured Black photographers at a time when they were marginalized by the mainstream.
1933 – 2025. Clarence O. Smith convinced skeptical advertisers of the power and worth of the Black female consumer market in becoming a founder of Essence, the first generalcirculation magazine catered to Black women.
1943 – 2025. Sly Stone, pioneering leader of the eclectic ban Sly and the Family stone passed away. He was a monumental figure, a groundbreaking innovator, and a true pioneer who redefined the landscape of pop, funk, and rock music.
Review by Alisa Prince, Boston Art Review. At the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery, the exhibition, co-curated by Dr. Deborah Willis and Dr. Cheryl Finley presents memory as both a method and mandate for liberation, tracing the afterlives of history through photography, film, and archival intervention. Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory is a traveling exhibition that was first on view at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum.
The Gordon Parks Foundation. Devin Allen first rose to fame in 2015, when his photograph of the Baltimore uprising that followed the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police was published on the cover of Time magazine. Since then Allen has continued to photograph the fight for social justice in his hometown of Baltimore, creating work that is not only a tribute to Black resistance but also a celebration of his community.
Blog/News, AUTOGRAPH. Inspired by the notion of A Thousand Small Stories, the title of Eileen Perrier’s current exhibition at Autograph, we’re inviting you to join the storytelling process by sending us your image(s) and a short text caption that considers the diasporic experience.