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Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America
Exhibited: March 23, 2023 - March 3, 2024 Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America is a groundbreaking exhibition that will feature new art installations spread across multiple galleries at both institutions. Visitors will see how each artist engaged with the theme of the rising sun in a time when perspectives about human rights, equality, free speech, and other democratic principles are radically disparate. Viewers are invited to reflect on, challenge, and expand their own understanding of democracy in the process. |
Beloved | Habibi حبيبي
On View (In-Person) Jack T. Franklin Auditorium Exhibited: December 28, 2022 - September 5, 2023 Beloved is a photography exhibition featuring artist, Karim Brown. Karim is a photographer based in North Philadelphia. With the community and its inhabitants at the forefront of his mind, Brown uses the medium of photography to intimately engage with the diverse ways of life within the Black community that he calls home. Karim’s academic discipline of Black Studies is the foundation of his practice. Drawing inspiration from his scholarly pursuits, Karim uses the camera as an extension of his person, as he intentionally performs the ritual of recording the often-overlooked imagery of the Black mundane. The persistent thought of, ‘how do we, as Black folk, understand and tell the story of ourselves through the Black gaze?’ enables him to depict the Black experience of local Philadelphians. |
Vision & Spirit: African American Art | Works from the Bank of America Collection
On View (In-Person) Exhibited: October 1, 2022 - February 19, 2023 Vision & Spirit: African American Art is composed of more than 100 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and mixed-media works by 48 artists born in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Curated in partnership with the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, the exhibition highlights key aspects of these artists’ lives, as well as the important objects they created. Vision & Spirit focuses on these talented individuals’ strength and spirit as creative forces whose work continues to shape our understanding of the world. The wide variety of artists represented in the exhibition look forward, contribute to progress and guide the visitor toward greater equity and understanding. The theme of Vision & Spirit is resilience and how African American artists have shown this through their work. The exhibition explores the meaning of resilience: Is it perseverance? Is it staying power, or is it something much deeper? In any case, resilience embodies strength and humanity. |
Black Healthcare Studies
Exhibited: October 6 - December 11, 2022 The Black Healthcare Studies exhibition explores the adverse history and barriers faced by Black students pursuing careers in healthcare. Through mixed media and collaged compositions artist, Doriana Diaz transforms everyday objects and archival materials into afro-futuristic depictions of Black figures in healthcare. Diaz draws inspiration from afro-feminist caretaking and activism histories, historical research, and personal testimonials from Janita Matoke, an upcoming Medical Student at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine who received her Master’s in Public Health at Thomas Jefferson University. Diaz’s artistry and Matoke’s scholarship converge for an interdisciplinary analysis of systemic racism faced by Black healthcare students and the unique culture and tools through which they transcend these hardships. The Black Healthcare Studies exhibition encourages visitors to rethink the context and utility of materials as tools for healing, self-care, preservation, and future building in Black communities. |
Taking Care: Recent Acquisitions & Conservation
Exhibited: April 21 - September 11, 2022 Taking Care features works of art accessioned into the AAMP collection since late 2019, including gifts by self-taught artist Purvis Young; archival broadsides, and posters from A Cinema Apart African American film memorabilia from the 1920’s through the 1950’s from the Beverly and late Larry Richards collection; a suite of lithograph prints by John E. Dowell Jr.; and a sculptural maquette of Nesaika by John Rhoden acquired from the City of Philadelphia. Also featured are newly conserved works (2020-2021), including early 20th century silkscreen prints by William H. Johnson and Martina Johnson Allen’s beloved work, The Seven Crones. Taking Care spotlights these objects as well as the conservation process undertaken by AAMP's University of Delaware graduate summer intern Nylah Byrd, University of Delaware fellows Olav Bjornerud and Elle Friedberg who collectively worked under the auspice of the Conservation staff in the Winterthur Conservation Labs doing this significant, scientific work to help AAMP preserve and protect these objects for future generations to study and enjoy. |
Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow
Exhibited: AAMP Auditorium Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow explores the struggle for full citizenship and racial equality that unfolded in the 50 years after the Civil War. When slavery ended in 1865, a period of Reconstruction began, leading to such achievements as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. By 1868, all persons born in the United States were citizens and equal under the law. But efforts to create an interracial democracy were contested from the start. A harsh backlash ensued, ushering in a half-century of the “separate but equal” age of Jim Crow. |
Derrick Adams: Sanctuary
Exhibited: April 7 - August 28, 2022 Derrick Adams: Sanctuary consists of approximately 50 pieces of mixed-media collage, assemblage on wood panels, and sculpture presented in an installation designed by the artist that reimagines safe destinations for the Black American traveler during the mid-twentieth century. The exhibit is inspired by “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” an annual guidebook for Black American road-trippers published by New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967 during the Jim Crow Era in America. The Green Book provided a list of hotels, restaurants, barbershops and beauty parlors, taverns, and more where African American travelers were safely welcomed during segregation. The exhibit continues Adams’ examination of leisure for Black Americans throughout history and the challenges in creating safe spaces and refuge for Black Americans. |
Gilberto Wilson: Di Nada
Exhibited: December 10, 2021 - March 6, 2022 Di Nada seeks to expand our sense of collective memory. Like so many immigrants their stories are an amalgamation of similar but often very different experiences. This has prompted Wilson to continue asking, excavating, collecting, and searching for nuggets of insight into our communal history. Holding on to these ancestral sentiments Wilson is a keeper of these sacred genealogies, visually telling their stories through his art. In his collage like compositions, Wilson fuses photography and printmaking to create a visual language that tells the stories of our nostalgic past and the present urban landscape we call home. Wilson builds on metropolitan motifs such as maps, streets, and manhole covers, incorporating personal iconography, color, and form to convey the diverse stories of the Caribbean and city life bridging the gap between the many displaced descendants of the diaspora. |
Portals+Revelations: Richard J. Watson Beyond Realities
Exhibited: October 21, 2021 - March 6, 2022 Portals + Revelations explores the artist’s creative evolution during his time as AAMP’s artist-in-residence, spotlighting mixed media, abstraction, and assemblage- lesser known but powerful aspects of his practice. The exhibition forges an ancestral link between past, present and future, while transforming the ordinary into the sublime. |
Anna Russell Jones: The Art of Design
Exhibited: May 6 - Sep 12, 2021 & Online Anna Russell Jones: The Art of Design highlights the diverse treasures of AAMP’s permanent collection. Anna Russell Jones (1902-1995), was the first African American graduate of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, now Moore College of Art and Design, and an alumna of the anatomy department of Howard Medical School, now Howard University College of Medicine. She was known to contemporaries as a talented artist, working in wallpaper and carpet design, as a civil service illustrator, and freelance artist. |
In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity
Exhibited: September 20, 2019 - March 1, 2020 Photography exploring the construct of Black masculinity, through the lenses of 55 women and non-binary photographers of African descent. Through an array of photographic genres including documentary, fashion, portraiture and conceptual, these image makers share interpretations, observations and their own experiences concerning the notions of Black men, masculinity, sexuality and gender identity. |
Sonya Clark: Self-Evident
Exhibited: May 25 - September 8, 2019 A mixture of new and previous work, Self-Evident maps Clark’s artistic trajectory and features work that seamlessly blends visual art and American history. The exhibition is particularly connected to the Museum’s 1976 founding as part of the City’s bicentennial celebration, and its location in the heart of historic Philadelphia—blocks from where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Continental Congress convened. Clark is acutely aware of the Museum’s time and place as she asserts her ancestry and humanity in new work that re-examines James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Every voice and Sing, also known as the Negro National Anthem. Sonya Clark’s brilliance is “rooted” in her use of the familiar to invoke the intangible. Her body of work is re-telling and calling back redacted history, using music, light, and hair—the literal fiber of her being—to simultaneously look at the past and present while hinting at the future. Sonya Clark is currently a professor of Art and the History of Art at Amherst College. She is also currently the featured as the Artist-in-Residence at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Self-Evident was curated by Dejay B. Duckett, AAMP’s Director of Exhibitions. |
Fahamu Pecou, DO or DIE: Affect, Ritual, Resistance
Exhibited: May 25 - August 25, 2019 This travelling exhibition serves as one artist’s action in opposition to overwhelming societal forces, seeking instead to elevate and re-contextualize Black life and death. Through performance, painting, drawing and video, Pecou reframes our view, incorporating references from Yoruba/Ifa ritual, to cultural retentions of hip-hop, to the philosophy of Négritude. Using these elements Pecou shapes a story that seeks to affirm life via an understanding of the balance between life and death. Fahamu Pecou’s Do or DIE has been organized by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, in collaboration with the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. |
AAMP on Paper: Selections from the Permanent Collection
Exhibited: March 8 - May 12, 2019 This year’s collection exhibition features rarely seen works on paper, including drawings, photography, paintings and prints from 20th century masters such as Elizabeth Catlett, Paul Keane, Hughie Lee Smith, Dox Thrash and Hale Woodruff and more. These works provide an intimate look at the some of the gems of the Museum’s works on paper via portraiture, landscape and abstraction. |
Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion and Resistance
Photography by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn Exhibited: March 8 - May 12, 2019 Barrayn’s photographic series visually engages the Baye Fall, a sub-group of Senegal’s notable Sufi Muslim Community, the Mourides. The Baye Fall possess a unique aesthetic that includes “locked” hair, patchwork garments, symphonic chanting and artisanal leather talismans and prayer beads. Through witnessing the lives of the Baye Fall, and the Senegalese cities in which they dwell, this series shows how pre and post-colonial politics have influenced their spiritual practice. Baye Fall first shown at Contemporary Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) in Brooklyn NY. |
The Sacred Star of Isis and Other Stories
Photography by Adama Delphine Fawundu Exhibited: March 8 - May 12, 2019 As the only child in her immediate family born in America, Fawundu’s mixed media photographic works explore the tension between her family’s traditional Mende beliefs (Sierra Leone) and Westernized values. By incorporating the artist’s ancestral gifts of colorful handmade batik fabrics and layering these complex and distorted histories, her work uncovers personal and universal cultural patterns that are present within herself and the African Diaspora. |
Photographic Memory: Archival Images by Maurice Sorrell
Exhibited: January 18 - April 1, 2019 An exhibition of images by Maurice Sorrell (1914-1998), the first Black member of the White House Photographers Association. AAMP will showcase 45 black and white photo reproductions in the Jack T. Franklin Auditorium. Guest curated by Stephanie Renée. |
Cotton: The Soft, Dangerous Beauty of the Past
Photographs by John Dowell
Exhibited: September 15, 2018 - February 24, 2019
The 35 large-scale photographs, installation and altarpiece featured in Cotton: The Soft Dangerous Beauty of the Past explore the dichotomy between the beauty of the plant, and its inexorable link to the horrors of chattel slavery in the U.S. The exhibition also evokes the often overlooked history of slavery in the North, specifically in New York City. Dowell meticulously documents cotton as a symbol to channel ideas, dreams and fantasies—and as a portal to communicate with ancestors and with the viewer.
Photographs by John Dowell
Exhibited: September 15, 2018 - February 24, 2019
The 35 large-scale photographs, installation and altarpiece featured in Cotton: The Soft Dangerous Beauty of the Past explore the dichotomy between the beauty of the plant, and its inexorable link to the horrors of chattel slavery in the U.S. The exhibition also evokes the often overlooked history of slavery in the North, specifically in New York City. Dowell meticulously documents cotton as a symbol to channel ideas, dreams and fantasies—and as a portal to communicate with ancestors and with the viewer.
Collective Conscious
Exhibited: June 2 - August 26, 2018
Exhibited: June 2 - August 26, 2018
This group exhibition was produced in conjunction with the AAMP Residency for Art and Social Change, which strives to advance the work artists of color from around the Philadelphia region—while forging and deepening AAMP’s relationships and impact in Philadelphia neighborhoods. The featured artists were gleaned primarily from the Residency nominees, who used their work to process or respond to the constantly changing socio-political and cultural landscape.
Went Looking for Beauty: Refashioning Self
Exhibited: February 15 - April 29, 2018
Exhibited: February 15 - April 29, 2018
The African American Museum in Philadelphia presents Went Looking for Beauty: Refashioning Self, a photography exhibition featuring the work of Philadelphia born and MacArthur Genius award winning artist and scholar Deborah Willis. Through the exploration of two main themes, “My Friends’ Closets” and “Street Views,” Willis’ photos reconstruct an imagined past through images depicting its beauty, identity, and cultural memory. This project is a new way of looking at fashion, art, and women and men as consumers through the private space of the closet, the public space of city streets and through the beauty rituals of neighborhood beauty shops in her hometown of North Philadelphia and beyond.
Black Pulp!
Exhibited: February 2 - April 29, 2018
Black Pulp! is an unprecedented overview of over a century (1912–2016) of image production by Black artists and publishers, and non-Black artists and publishers who foreground the Black experience. The exhibition sets historical material in dialogue with contemporary art that together explore the creative and strategic use of printed media. This ranges from small-run magazines, novels, posters, and comic books, to traditional and experimental fine art prints that—along with other mediums on view—challenge racist narratives and preconceived notions of Black experience.
Exhibited: February 2 - April 29, 2018
Black Pulp! is an unprecedented overview of over a century (1912–2016) of image production by Black artists and publishers, and non-Black artists and publishers who foreground the Black experience. The exhibition sets historical material in dialogue with contemporary art that together explore the creative and strategic use of printed media. This ranges from small-run magazines, novels, posters, and comic books, to traditional and experimental fine art prints that—along with other mediums on view—challenge racist narratives and preconceived notions of Black experience.
Gardens of the Mind: Echoes of the Feminine View
Exhibited: October 6, 2017 - January 16, 2018
The African American Museum in Philadelphia presents Gardens of the Mind: Echoes of the Feminine View, an exhibition featuring five black women artists whose work explores spiritual cultivation and memory through their artistic practice. By using large scale installation, sculpture, painting, photography and printmaking, artists Barbara Bullock, Martha Jackson Jarvis, E.J. Montgomery, Joiri Minaya and Glynnis Reed examine links between history, memory, and the natural environment. The artists consider our relationship with nature and how the mind itself is a field, which is developed and nurtured to promote creative, spiritual and intellectual growth.
Exhibited: October 6, 2017 - January 16, 2018
The African American Museum in Philadelphia presents Gardens of the Mind: Echoes of the Feminine View, an exhibition featuring five black women artists whose work explores spiritual cultivation and memory through their artistic practice. By using large scale installation, sculpture, painting, photography and printmaking, artists Barbara Bullock, Martha Jackson Jarvis, E.J. Montgomery, Joiri Minaya and Glynnis Reed examine links between history, memory, and the natural environment. The artists consider our relationship with nature and how the mind itself is a field, which is developed and nurtured to promote creative, spiritual and intellectual growth.
Philaesthetic: 40 years of Collecting African American Art
Exhibited: June 15 - September 17, 2017
The African American Museum in Philadelphia continues its 40th anniversary celebration with a groundbreaking, two-gallery exhibition showcasing four decades of collecting works by some of the country’s top Black visual artists. From gifts from artists, to acquisitions from a 1998 gift from the Ford Foundation The exhibition, PhilAesthetic: 40 years of Collecting African American Art was curated from the permanent collection –and was part of the city-wide PhilAesthetic: The Black Arts Movement in Philadelphia celebration
Exhibited: June 15 - September 17, 2017
The African American Museum in Philadelphia continues its 40th anniversary celebration with a groundbreaking, two-gallery exhibition showcasing four decades of collecting works by some of the country’s top Black visual artists. From gifts from artists, to acquisitions from a 1998 gift from the Ford Foundation The exhibition, PhilAesthetic: 40 years of Collecting African American Art was curated from the permanent collection –and was part of the city-wide PhilAesthetic: The Black Arts Movement in Philadelphia celebration
Tone Poems & Light Stories: The Great Migration
In Collaboration with Scribe Video Center at the African American Museum in Philadelphia
Exhibited: April 13 - June 4, 2017
The African American Museum in Philadelphia is proud to partner with Scribe Video Center to present Tone Poems & Light Stories: The Great Migration. For this project, five artists were commissioned to create audio/video works that commemorate and celebrate five institutions that played a critical role in the first Great Migration to Philadelphia, a period between 1916 and 1929 when masses of African Americans left southern states in search of better economic opportunity and to escape racial oppression.
In Collaboration with Scribe Video Center at the African American Museum in Philadelphia
Exhibited: April 13 - June 4, 2017
The African American Museum in Philadelphia is proud to partner with Scribe Video Center to present Tone Poems & Light Stories: The Great Migration. For this project, five artists were commissioned to create audio/video works that commemorate and celebrate five institutions that played a critical role in the first Great Migration to Philadelphia, a period between 1916 and 1929 when masses of African Americans left southern states in search of better economic opportunity and to escape racial oppression.
Waging Peace: 100 Years of Action
Presented by the American Friends Service Committee Exhibited: January 14 - April 23, 2017 Waging Peace: 100 Years of Action is a new interactive traveling exhibition presented by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The exhibit demonstrates the effectiveness of nonviolence to build justice, overcome oppression and prevent violence using the provocative stories of those who fought against injustice and those who have been helped in the fight during the last century. The exhibit addresses issues we continue to struggle with today: Building Peace, Ending Discrimination, Addressing Prisons, Just Economies, and Immigrant Rights. The final section is a Call to Action, inspiring visitors to engage in justice work beyond the museum. You can learn more about the work of AFSC at www.afsc.org. |
Shawn Theodore: Church of Broken Pieces
Exhibited: February 2 - April 2, 2017
Shawn Theodore’s Church of Broken Pieces is a photographic exploration of the psychic, physical and technological translocation of black America. Theodore’s photos document the success of the movements toward plural black identities, and free, safe black digital spaces (such as Black Twitter) and futures - even as displacement/gentrification, socioeconomic disparity, and violence threaten to impinge progress.
Exhibited: February 2 - April 2, 2017
Shawn Theodore’s Church of Broken Pieces is a photographic exploration of the psychic, physical and technological translocation of black America. Theodore’s photos document the success of the movements toward plural black identities, and free, safe black digital spaces (such as Black Twitter) and futures - even as displacement/gentrification, socioeconomic disparity, and violence threaten to impinge progress.
Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A.
Exhibited: January 26 - April 2, 2017
In 1979 African American photographer Dawoud Bey (born 1953) held his first solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, showing a suite of 25 photographs titled Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A. Though raised in Queens, Bey and his family had roots in Harlem, and it was a youthful visit to the exhibition Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that gave him the determination to become an artist.
Exhibited: January 26 - April 2, 2017
In 1979 African American photographer Dawoud Bey (born 1953) held his first solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, showing a suite of 25 photographs titled Dawoud Bey: Harlem, U.S.A. Though raised in Queens, Bey and his family had roots in Harlem, and it was a youthful visit to the exhibition Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that gave him the determination to become an artist.
i found god in myself: the 40 anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls
Exhibited: October 6, 2016 - January 8, 2017
Through 20 commissioned artworks by nationally acclaimed artists including Renee Cox, Rafia Santana, Pamela Council, Alexandria Smith and Danny Simmons the exhibition is a tribute to the Broadway play that honors the individual poems and underscores the enduring significance of the choreopoem and the social and cultural issues of the women of color.
Exhibited: October 6, 2016 - January 8, 2017
Through 20 commissioned artworks by nationally acclaimed artists including Renee Cox, Rafia Santana, Pamela Council, Alexandria Smith and Danny Simmons the exhibition is a tribute to the Broadway play that honors the individual poems and underscores the enduring significance of the choreopoem and the social and cultural issues of the women of color.
Arresting Patterns:
Perspectives on Race, Criminal Justice, Artistic Expression, and Community
Exhibited: April 30, 2016 - September 11, 2016
The exhibition includes multi-media, installation, photography, paintings and prints bringing together some of America’s leading contemporary artists. Their work gives voice to the impact of pervasive patterns of racial bias in our judicial system, giving visual form to the notion that the sentencing policies over the past 40 years have transformed the nation’s prison system into a “modern equivalent of Jim Crow.”
Perspectives on Race, Criminal Justice, Artistic Expression, and Community
Exhibited: April 30, 2016 - September 11, 2016
The exhibition includes multi-media, installation, photography, paintings and prints bringing together some of America’s leading contemporary artists. Their work gives voice to the impact of pervasive patterns of racial bias in our judicial system, giving visual form to the notion that the sentencing policies over the past 40 years have transformed the nation’s prison system into a “modern equivalent of Jim Crow.”
Drapetomanía: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba
Exhibited: January 30 - March 27, 2016
Drapetomanía is a tribute to Grupo Antillano (1978-1983), a forgotten visual arts and cultural movement that privileged the importance of African and Afro-Caribbean influences in the formation of the Cuban nation. Grupo Antillano valiantly proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture.
Exhibited: January 30 - March 27, 2016
Drapetomanía is a tribute to Grupo Antillano (1978-1983), a forgotten visual arts and cultural movement that privileged the importance of African and Afro-Caribbean influences in the formation of the Cuban nation. Grupo Antillano valiantly proclaimed the centrality of African practices in national culture.
Soulful Stitching
Exhibited: September 10, 2015 - January 3, 2016
The Siddis of Karnataka, India are the descendants of both early African immigrants to South Asia and enslaved Africans brought to Goa on India’s west coast by the Portuguese beginning in the 16th century. Gradually, they escaped slavery and moved southward into the remote Western Ghatt mountains of Northern Karnataka in order to create free, independent African diaspora communities.
Exhibited: September 10, 2015 - January 3, 2016
The Siddis of Karnataka, India are the descendants of both early African immigrants to South Asia and enslaved Africans brought to Goa on India’s west coast by the Portuguese beginning in the 16th century. Gradually, they escaped slavery and moved southward into the remote Western Ghatt mountains of Northern Karnataka in order to create free, independent African diaspora communities.
Africans In India
Exhibited: September 10, 2015 - January 3, 2016
Africans in India: From Slaves to Generals and Rulers highlights the accomplishments of some of the Sidis of yesterday. This new exhibition describes their fascinating story in the richly diverse history of the global African Diaspora. Over the course of nearly 20 centuries, millions of East Africans crossed the Indian Ocean along with its several seas and adjoining bodies of water in their journey to distant eastern lands. Called Kaffir, Siddi, Habshi, or Zanji, these men, women and children from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the south Africanized the Indian Ocean world and helped shape the societies they entered and made their own.
Exhibited: September 10, 2015 - January 3, 2016
Africans in India: From Slaves to Generals and Rulers highlights the accomplishments of some of the Sidis of yesterday. This new exhibition describes their fascinating story in the richly diverse history of the global African Diaspora. Over the course of nearly 20 centuries, millions of East Africans crossed the Indian Ocean along with its several seas and adjoining bodies of water in their journey to distant eastern lands. Called Kaffir, Siddi, Habshi, or Zanji, these men, women and children from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the south Africanized the Indian Ocean world and helped shape the societies they entered and made their own.
Outcry!
Part of the 14th Annual First Person Arts Festival Presented by PNC Arts Alive.
Exhibited: November 10 - 15, 2015
Part of the 14th Annual First Person Arts Festival Presented by PNC Arts Alive.
Exhibited: November 10 - 15, 2015
Legendary:
Inside the House Ballroom Scene
Exhibited: June 12 - August 23, 2015
Gerard Gaskin’s work immerses the viewer in the culture of house balls of the African American and Latino gay, transgender and queer community. The work celebrates the exuberant world of artistry and self-fashioning where a frequently marginalized community can be their most vibrant and spectacular selves. “Legendary” is comprised of photographs taken at events in Philadelphia, as well as Richmond, Washington, DC and New York City. The resulting images represent a collaboration between Gaskin, a camera laden outsider who has been attending balls for twenty years, and the house members who allowed him to enter the intimate world of ball culture. Gerard Gaskin was the 2012 recipient of the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Black Enterprise, OneWorld, Teen People, Caribbean Beat and DownBeat. Among his other clients are the record companies Island,
Sony, Def Jam and Mercury. His work has been featured in a solo and group exhibition, both nationally and internationally. His work is also held in the collections of such institutions as the Museum of the City of New York and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Inside the House Ballroom Scene
Exhibited: June 12 - August 23, 2015
Gerard Gaskin’s work immerses the viewer in the culture of house balls of the African American and Latino gay, transgender and queer community. The work celebrates the exuberant world of artistry and self-fashioning where a frequently marginalized community can be their most vibrant and spectacular selves. “Legendary” is comprised of photographs taken at events in Philadelphia, as well as Richmond, Washington, DC and New York City. The resulting images represent a collaboration between Gaskin, a camera laden outsider who has been attending balls for twenty years, and the house members who allowed him to enter the intimate world of ball culture. Gerard Gaskin was the 2012 recipient of the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Black Enterprise, OneWorld, Teen People, Caribbean Beat and DownBeat. Among his other clients are the record companies Island,
Sony, Def Jam and Mercury. His work has been featured in a solo and group exhibition, both nationally and internationally. His work is also held in the collections of such institutions as the Museum of the City of New York and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Plan-ta-shun
Exhibited: June 19 - Aug 23, 2015
Plan-ta-shun is an installation by contemporary artist Colin Quashie that uses the language and imagery of marketing and mass media to lampoon racist historical norms and challenge contemporary racial and social constructs. Quashie compels the viewer to become the participant in the difficult conversations regarding race, power and identity. Art is his op-ed.
Exhibited: June 19 - Aug 23, 2015
Plan-ta-shun is an installation by contemporary artist Colin Quashie that uses the language and imagery of marketing and mass media to lampoon racist historical norms and challenge contemporary racial and social constructs. Quashie compels the viewer to become the participant in the difficult conversations regarding race, power and identity. Art is his op-ed.
Badass Art Man
Exhibited: April 24 - May 31, 2015
“Badass Art Man,” is a ground-breaking exhibit featuring the original art work of Danny Simmons, coupled with objects from his eclectic collection of African and African American art and historic objects. The exhibit offered visitors a unique perspective on Simmons who has been identified by the International Review of African American Art as one of the “top ten players in the Black art market.” Simmons’s artistic talents and interests are broad and varied. He is a published poet as well as a visual artist whose abstract-expressionist work has been displayed nationally. He is also an avid collector whose private collection includes an extensive collection of traditional African works, contemporary works by Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Derrick Adams, Sol Sax, and historic art and artifacts, including works by James Van Der Zee and the first Negro comic book (c. 1941).
Exhibited: April 24 - May 31, 2015
“Badass Art Man,” is a ground-breaking exhibit featuring the original art work of Danny Simmons, coupled with objects from his eclectic collection of African and African American art and historic objects. The exhibit offered visitors a unique perspective on Simmons who has been identified by the International Review of African American Art as one of the “top ten players in the Black art market.” Simmons’s artistic talents and interests are broad and varied. He is a published poet as well as a visual artist whose abstract-expressionist work has been displayed nationally. He is also an avid collector whose private collection includes an extensive collection of traditional African works, contemporary works by Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, Derrick Adams, Sol Sax, and historic art and artifacts, including works by James Van Der Zee and the first Negro comic book (c. 1941).
As We See It:
Selected Works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Exhibited: February 5 - March 21, 2015
The As We See It exhibit provides a unique perspective on the works of African American masters such as Henry O. Tanner, Barbara Bullock and Dawoud Bey by placing works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art in conversation with the artwork of local youth. The show fulfills the collection’s vision of using African American art to inspire and enlighten young people. Over 100 students from Philadelphia and the surrounding region referenced art work from the collection to explore how color, light and composition can be employed to convey their ideas and emotions. Led by artist Richard J. Watson, whose work is included in the collection, the “Explorations in Creativity” workshops inspired the work of the youths included in the exhibit. The exhibit included interactive stations where visitors engaged in their own art making based on exhibit themes. Videos of the artists in the collection provided insights on the production process, and artist Richard J.
Selected Works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art
Exhibited: February 5 - March 21, 2015
The As We See It exhibit provides a unique perspective on the works of African American masters such as Henry O. Tanner, Barbara Bullock and Dawoud Bey by placing works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art in conversation with the artwork of local youth. The show fulfills the collection’s vision of using African American art to inspire and enlighten young people. Over 100 students from Philadelphia and the surrounding region referenced art work from the collection to explore how color, light and composition can be employed to convey their ideas and emotions. Led by artist Richard J. Watson, whose work is included in the collection, the “Explorations in Creativity” workshops inspired the work of the youths included in the exhibit. The exhibit included interactive stations where visitors engaged in their own art making based on exhibit themes. Videos of the artists in the collection provided insights on the production process, and artist Richard J.
Cash Crop
Exhibited: September 12, 2014 - January 5, 2015
The core sculptures in Stephen Hayes' Cash Crop exhibit are inspired by the infamous diagram of The Brooks slave ship. The cornerstone of this exhibition is a life sized installation comprised of 15 chained forms that represent the 15 million men, women and children who endured the Middle Passage. Expounding upon the subject of slavery, Cash Crop draws parallels between the economics of the Atlantic slave trade and the third world sweatshops of today, connecting to contemporary human rights violations. “The sweatshops of third world countries are today’s slave ships,” said Hayes. “The exhibition…asks the question; what or who is the next cash crop?”
This body of work expounds upon the subject of slavery as they draws parallels between the economics of the Atlantic slave trade and the third world sweatshops of today. The work compels the viewer to make connections between the brutal exploitation of slavery and contemporary human rights violations.
The powerful work in this show is augmented by historical artifacts on loan from the Delaware County Bar Association and the Lest We Forget Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery as well as a video installation created specifically for this exhibit by Dario Moore, Artistic Director of Moore Dance Project. The video will be comprised of a series of modern dance vignettes from “Sacred Slave Stories” which was inspired by historic interviews with the nation’s last generation of African-American slaves, and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Exhibited: September 12, 2014 - January 5, 2015
The core sculptures in Stephen Hayes' Cash Crop exhibit are inspired by the infamous diagram of The Brooks slave ship. The cornerstone of this exhibition is a life sized installation comprised of 15 chained forms that represent the 15 million men, women and children who endured the Middle Passage. Expounding upon the subject of slavery, Cash Crop draws parallels between the economics of the Atlantic slave trade and the third world sweatshops of today, connecting to contemporary human rights violations. “The sweatshops of third world countries are today’s slave ships,” said Hayes. “The exhibition…asks the question; what or who is the next cash crop?”
This body of work expounds upon the subject of slavery as they draws parallels between the economics of the Atlantic slave trade and the third world sweatshops of today. The work compels the viewer to make connections between the brutal exploitation of slavery and contemporary human rights violations.
The powerful work in this show is augmented by historical artifacts on loan from the Delaware County Bar Association and the Lest We Forget Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery as well as a video installation created specifically for this exhibit by Dario Moore, Artistic Director of Moore Dance Project. The video will be comprised of a series of modern dance vignettes from “Sacred Slave Stories” which was inspired by historic interviews with the nation’s last generation of African-American slaves, and funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
More Places of Our Own
Exhibited: April 25 - August 17, 2014
A sculpture exhibit featuring the work of Philadelphia artist Syd Carpenter. From legendary topiary gardens to urban farms and vineyards, the ways in which African Americans live on the land today may appear vastly different from the past, yet the contemporary story has its foundations in an historical narrative. These works depict the complex and ever evolving relationship that African Americans have with the land today.
Embodying the artist’s visual impressions inspired by her journeys to farms in the South, these sculptures give the viewer the experience of walking through a ceramic and steel botanical garden. These sculptures are powerful. These sculptures tell a story. Each piece is a place. Each piece represents a family - a tradition. Each piece is a roll call that commemorates those who remain on the land and those who are gone but not forgotten.
Exhibited: April 25 - August 17, 2014
A sculpture exhibit featuring the work of Philadelphia artist Syd Carpenter. From legendary topiary gardens to urban farms and vineyards, the ways in which African Americans live on the land today may appear vastly different from the past, yet the contemporary story has its foundations in an historical narrative. These works depict the complex and ever evolving relationship that African Americans have with the land today.
Embodying the artist’s visual impressions inspired by her journeys to farms in the South, these sculptures give the viewer the experience of walking through a ceramic and steel botanical garden. These sculptures are powerful. These sculptures tell a story. Each piece is a place. Each piece represents a family - a tradition. Each piece is a roll call that commemorates those who remain on the land and those who are gone but not forgotten.
Distant Echoes
Photographer: John Ficara
Exhibited: April 10 – August 17, 2014
Distant Echoes is comprised of 60 photographic images that capture signs of adversity and endurance, poverty and self-determination. The images of African American farmers from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Michigan chronicle a battle with economics and discrimination. It has been posited that "land ownership has been a cornerstone for the advancement of the Black Farmer and the Black Family as a whole. It is vital that we as a nation find a way to preserve this heritage for generations to come."
Photographer: John Ficara
Exhibited: April 10 – August 17, 2014
Distant Echoes is comprised of 60 photographic images that capture signs of adversity and endurance, poverty and self-determination. The images of African American farmers from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Michigan chronicle a battle with economics and discrimination. It has been posited that "land ownership has been a cornerstone for the advancement of the Black Farmer and the Black Family as a whole. It is vital that we as a nation find a way to preserve this heritage for generations to come."