In her article “Visiting ‘Soul of a Nation,’” Ashawnta Jackson reviews a 2018 Brooklyn Museum art exhibit that explored the idea of a Black aesthetic. According to the show’s curator, Ashley James, the exhibition brought together “artists who questioned the Black aesthetic and those who had an answer. [But it could] only offer a glimpse into a longer practice … [by] surveying and charting the landscape.” From assemblage artist Betye Saar to quilter Faith Ringgold to jazz great Miles Davis, the following profiles of Black visual artists and musicians survey and chart a similar landscape on a much smaller scale.
Visiting “Soul of a Nation”
How Oscar Micheaux Challenged the Racism of Early Hollywood
The Gospel According to Kanye West
The Assemblage Sculptures of Betye Saar
How Basquiat Used His Surroundings as a Canvas
Afrofuturist Artist Krista Franklin
Butterfly Flow: Tupac, Kendrick Lamar, and the Resurrection of New Black Godz
The Triumphant Return of Jacob Lawrence
Power in the Painting: Faith Ringgold and her Story Quilts
Emma Amos’s Family Romance
The Rediscovery of Photographer Seydou Keïta
Why Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” Is So Beloved
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