The 14th iteration of Black Portraitures is now available to watch on Youtube. Black Portraitures: Shifting Paradigms took place over two days during the vernissage of the 60th Anniversary of the Venice Biennale. This year’s theme, Shifting Paradigms, centered thought leaders from Africa and the African Diaspora who are creating new models for the education, cultivation, exhibition, dissemination, and collection of art and images.
At Film Forum. An explosive 16-film fest of the freshest, funkiest and foxiest flicks from the revolutionary ’70s film movement.
Nicola Vassel Gallery. Barbadian-Scottish artist Alberta Whittle’s creative practice is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as a way to battle anti-blackness. Born in Bridgetown, Barbados, currently living and working in Glasgow, her work encompasses drawing, digital collage, film and video installation, sculpture, performance, and writing.
A Multimedia Stage Play Inspired by the Music of Melvin Van Peebles The trailblazing work of director Melvin Van Peebles (Watermelon Man, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song) made him an iconoclastic legend and one of the most influential filmmakers of the 1970’s.
Wadsworth Atheneum’s exhibition Styling Identities: Hair’s Tangled Histories aims to tell a story about what hair means to us—to our individual staff, to our museum, and to our Hartford communities.
Curated by Mark Sealy. “Offering a rare and reflective insight into the seminal South African photographer Ernest Cole, A Lens in Exile is the first exhibition of his photographs documenting New York City during the height of the civil rights movement in America.
by Lovia Gyarkye, HAMMER&HOPE. “I’ve used my camera as a compass to direct a pathway toward the illuminated truth of the indomitable spirit of working-class families and communities in the 21st century,” Frazier said, reading from a recent essay.
by Amanda Rosa, Miami Herald. “A lot of my work has been trying to discern visual aesthetics for what my identity is with this Caribbean-American aesthetic,” Tulloch said.
by Victoria L. Valentine, culturetype. Titled “Salon” (2024), Saar’s installation is anchored by a larger-than-life Black female figure facing six different chairs familiar to various cultures around the world. The seats are arranged in a circle, forming a welcoming gathering place for rest, reflection, dialogue, and engagement. The work is permanently installed in the public garden of the Champs- Elysées in the 8th Arrondissement.
by Colin Edgington, aperture Mortevivum: Photography and the Politics of the Visual (2024), by Kimberly Juanita Brown lays out an array of exhibits: the Civil War, lynching, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, apartheid and the Soweto uprising in South Africa, the Rwandan genocide, Rodney King, and George Floyd, among many others.