Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition
29 February - 24 May 2020
Phillips Collection
Washington, USA
The Phillips Collection is pleased to announce Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, a pioneering exhibition expanding the narrative of modern art in America by exploring the rich and complex history of 20th– and 21st–century African American artists and their responses to European modernism. Organized by guest curator Dr. Adrienne L. Childs and The Phillips Collection, Riffs and Relations will be on view exclusively at The Phillips Collection from February 29–May 24, 2020.
“We are proud to feature this groundbreaking exhibition at The Phillips Collection, the first museum of modern art in America. Through his support of living artists, our founder Duncan Phillips helped to broaden and shape discussions on modern art by displaying works from various times and places to tell a more comprehensive story,” says Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, Vradenburg Director and CEO of The Phillips Collection.
Modern European art has served as a guidepost for many African American artists. Riffs and Relations will explore how blackness has often been conceived through the lens of international connections and complex dialogues. The contributions of 54 artists will be on view including Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Renee Cox, Leonardo Drew, Hank Willis Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, and more, shown alongside pieces by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and other European modernists. The 72 works include paintings, photographs, prints, mixed media, and sculpture drawn from private and public collections in the US and Europe. This assembly of compelling objects addresses themes including representations of the female body, modernist “primitivism,” cubism, landscape, and abstraction.
In their efforts to represent African American life and history, artists like Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, and Hale Woodroff drew inspiration from European traditions and iconography. Others, including Romare Bearden and Robert Colescott, used imagery to question and challenge the supposed authority of European art. Emma Amos and Faith Ringgold have addressed the female form as a site of contention in the history of art, particularly at the hands of Matisse and Picasso. Felrath Hines, Norman Lewis, Martin Puryear, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Alma Thomas forged new territories as they interrogated abstraction. Many of these artists sought out aesthetics and ideological approaches that were not limited by the restrictive politics of both whiteness and blackness in America.
“This exhibition shows the ways in which many African American artists draw on the substance of European art history to tell their own stories. By exploring this terrain, we hope to enhance the narrative of modern and contemporary art in America by presenting the compelling works born of these riffs and relations,” says Dr. Adrienne L. Childs, guest curator.
The continued relevance of these exchanges between African American artists and European modernism resides in the critical and popular reception of contemporary artists, and the exhibition will debut three new engagements. Baltimore painter Mequitta Ahuja responds to Picasso's pivotal Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Los Angeles collage artist Janet Taylor Pickett refashions Matisse's Interior with Egyptian Curtain (1948) from the Phillips's permanent collection, and internationally acclaimed photographer Ayana V. Jackson riffs on Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass (1863). These artworks and others by Titus Kaphar, Mickalene Thomas, and John Edmonds are emblematic of contemporary practice in American art and will influence generations to find new ways of representing the complexities of black identities.
exhibition credits
The exhibition is organized by The Phillips Collection with guest curator Dr. Adrienne L. Childs.
With lead sponsorship provided by The Frauke and Willem de Looper Charitable Fund and The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.
about the phillips collection
The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of Modern art, presents one of the world’s most distinguished Impressionist and American Modern art collections. Including
artists such as Wolfgang Laib, Whitfield Lovell, Zilia Sánchez, and Leo Villareal. The Phillips’s impact spreads nationally and internationally through its highly distinguished special exhibitions, programs, and events that catalyze dialogue surrounding the continuity between art of the past and the present. Among the Phillips’s esteemed programs are its award-winning education programs for educators, students, and adults; well-established Phillips Music series; and sell-out Phillips after 5 events. The museum contributes to the art conversation on a global scale with events like Conversations with Artists and the International Forum. The Phillips Collection values its community partnerships with the University of Maryland—the museum’s nexus for academic work, scholarly exchange, and interdisciplinary collaborations—and THEARC—the museum’s new campus serving the Southeast DC community. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.
picture credits The Phillips Collection
visit the exhibition's website HERE