Contemporary Black Art

Candace Hunter's Intentionality opens September 24th The Dan Ryan Expressway carries Chicagoans across the city every day. For artist Candace Hunter, it also marks a rupture. On September 24, Hunter opens Intentionality 1960, Whose Dreams?, an exhibition that asks viewers to look past the familiar story of urban development and confront the communities erased to make it possible. The project begins with a number: 50,831. It represents the estimated number of African Americans

Artist Kari Blak's work appears on the east side of the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) On the east garage doors of the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC), a flower with a face is crying while a bumblebee moves to console it. It is a small gesture inside a large question, and it sits at the heart of Nature of Reality, the mural series by Chicago artist Kari Blak. Blak merged five distinct vignettes into one cohesive narrative, each addressing a different facet of the relationship betwee

From top row middle - Artists Howard Simmons, Candace Hunter, Edo, Salome Jaffe and Jesse Howard. The inaugural fair opens at THE MART, October 7–10 Pigment International will exhibit at the first-ever Spectrum Chicago Show, October 7–10 at THE MART (formerly the Merchandise Mart) — a new fair joining Chicago's fall art calendar with an opening night preview and three days of public programming. Pigment's presentation features five artists, listed alphabetically: Edo, Jesse H

Top row middle D. Lamar Preston and Patricia Andrews-Keenan. Right - Gwen Yen Chiu and D. Lamar Preston, past Richard Hunt Award winners, in conversation with Christie's Steven Zick. Bottom row - Gwen Yen Chiu, Steven Zick of Christies and D. Lamar Preston. Middle: a maquette of Preston's work Gifted to Me. Right - Sculptor Eric Stephenson and Naomi Davis, Blacks in Green. Anniversary gala honored Richard Hunt Award winners at Theater on the Lake Chicago Sculpture Exhibit (CS

Middle row right - President of Columbia College Chicago Shantay N. Bolton. Bottom row - Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., foreground; background curator Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. An exhibition that imagines a life, not a loss Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago opened "If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground" with an emotionally moving convening. The exhibition imagines the life Emmett Till might have lived had he safely returned home to Chicago,

2025-26 Richard Hunt Awardee D. Lamar Preston A significant new opportunity for sculptors has officially launched. Chicago Sculpture Exhibit (CSE), in partnership with the Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation, is accepting applications for the 2027 CSE Richard Hunt Award, honoring one of Chicago’s most influential and internationally acclaimed artists. The award will support an emerging or mid-career sculptor in creating a new work for installation at a prominent Chicago location.

Top Row: Cultural Impact Award was given to Lavett Ballard; work by Dwight White and Marryam Moma. Middle Row: Pigment’s Allison Casselberry and Patricia Everett with Norman Teague; Cow Horn Sculpture by Teague, Paul Bacardi Smith’s Watermelanin. Third row: Chicago in Indy; Work by Lavett Ballard and Nyzere Dillon. The 6th Annual BUTTER Fine Art Fair returned to Indianapolis Labor Day Weekend, continuing its evolution as one of the country’s most consequential artist-centere

Issue VI of Pigment International's award-winning magazine issue lands this September, and it is one of our most ambitious editions yet. Inside, readers will find a profile of designer Norman Teague, whose furniture and architectural work continues to reshape how Chicago sees Black craftsmanship. The issue also spotlights Chicago artists connected to the Obama Presidential Center, tracing how the campus is emerging as a new anchor for the city's creative community on the Sout

Stephen Marc, Untitled, from Changing Chicago Project, 1988. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) invites the public to a day of programming marking the opening of If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, an exhibition curated by Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., Emmett Till's cousin, close friend, and last surviving witness to his 1955 k

Jane Carpenter Rock, Deputy Director, Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State continues its tribute to Betye Saar with a curator talk by Jane Carpenter-Rock, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery. Carpenter-Rock wrote her doctoral dissertation on Saar's work and is the author of Betye Saar, part of the David C. Driskell Series of African American Art. Her talk arrives weeks after Saar's passing on July

Heads/Hearts/Hands by Candace Hunter and In the Land of the Free by Reggie McFly. Both works are headed to museum exhibitions. Flag reinterpretations from Candace Hunter snd Reggie McFly move to museum exhibitions Two artists whose work has moved through Pigment International's galleries are now commanding national attention. Candace Hunter, whose piece Heads/Hearts/Hands from Glory! Glory! — Pigment's exhibition reimagining the American flag through Black artists' eyes — has

Artists Jesse Howard, Edo, and Reggie McFly in conversation with D. E. Simmons to close out the exhibition Revolutionary at Vjosa Cafe. Revolutionary closed the way it opened — in conversation. At Vjosa Café & Events in Bridgeport, artists Jesse Howard, Reggie McFly and Edo joined Pigment International founder Patricia Andrews-Keenan and D.E. Simmons of Diaspora Rhythms for a closing-night talk that moved from craft to calling. Edo (Eddie Santana White) went deeper into his o

Bronzeville Center for the Arts launches “From The Ground Up” in partnership with the Milwaukee Art Museum and Chipstone Foundation The Bronzeville Center for the Arts (BCA) has announced From The Ground Up, a new national speaker series bringing leaders who have built some of the world's most significant cultural institutions to Milwaukee for candid conversations about vision, resilience and legacy. Presented with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Chipstone Foundation, the se

The Pigment International art team - Barrett Keithley, Patricia Andrews-Keenan, Brenda Dickerson, Amorion Bell and Phyliss North; Dickerson and Fred Hampton Jr. view the mural; Barrett Keithley and Ray Thompson, whose University of Iowa number is on the basketball court at Wharton Elementary School; Dickerson and her mother Delilah and with April Kates-Ellison with the Nubian Nine an d The Lights On Collective. (photo credit Doug Kenney) A ribbon cutting at Argo Park marked

What if the Black home could be read as a museum—one filled not with objects behind glass, but with the furniture we inherit, photographs we keep, textiles we make, books we read, and traditions we pass from one generation to the next? That question sits at the center of AfroBohemian Home: An Installation by Zsudayka Nzinga, opening September 2 at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art at Colorado State University. Curated by Louise Cutler, the exhibition transforms the gallery in

Above: Norman Teague in conversation with Pigment International will be one of the featured artists at this year's Butter Art Fair; Bottom row: Bianca Marks will be a curator for Butter. Middle and right, Truss Chair and Ibaaka AKA Mule by Norman Teague Design Studios. (Teague image by Big_X_Tsu. Furniture images courtesy of Norman Teague Design Studio) Guest curator Bianca Marks helps shape an expanded Labor Day weekend fair in Indianapolis, as Teague's full profile debuts i

Improvisations in Color” brings new works by the Ethiopian-born painter to Oakland, marking the centennial of jazz legend John Coltrane OAKLAND, CA — Thelma Harris Art Gallery welcomes summer's close with its signature White Linen Afternoon on Saturday, August 22, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., celebrating the opening of Improvisations in Color: Wosene Worke Kosrof Celebrates Coltrane. The exhibition, on view through October 25, presents a new body of work by the internationally acc

Monetta White, executive director of MoAD (bottom right) visited Chicago last week Monetta White, Executive Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, brought her vision for Black artistic economic empowerment to Chicago this summer, meeting with Pigment International and a gathering of local artists and arts leaders, including Monique Brinkman-Hill, Executive Director of the South Side Community Art Center.  White's visit centered on building na

Freedom Monument Sculpture Park features 'Strike" by Hank Willis Thomas From coast-to-coast exhibitions to an outdoor pilgrimage in Alabama, here's how to build culture into your summer plans. Summer doesn't have to mean putting culture on pause. This season, some of the most compelling exhibitions in the country are celebrating Black artistry — and a little planning turns any trip into a pilgrimage worth taking. On the West Coast, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Fr

Top: Barrett Keithley, Cassandra Wilson, Patricia Andrews-Keenan and Edo; Middle: Edo; Bottom: Ruby Simmons and Gyamfuah Melisiziwe; Right: Jesse Howard. Photos by Tafari Melisiziwe The conversation continues at REVOLUTIONARY, Pigment International's thought-provoking summer exhibition at Vjosa Café & Events. Curated by P. Andrews-Keenan, the exhibition features an extraordinary roster of painters, photographers, and mixed-media artists whose work examines 250 years of Black