#artists-of-african-descent

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Social justice
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 day ago

Politics of Black hair: why grooming rules are under scrutiny across the diaspora

Disputes over natural Black hairstyles highlight ongoing colonial influences on grooming standards in schools and workplaces across the African and Caribbean diaspora.
Music
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 day ago

The Guide #237: Fab 5 Freddy, the street artist at the heart of New York's creative zenith

Jean-Michel Basquiat's art has been commercialized through fashion, raising questions about consumerism and the connection to new audiences.
New York City
fromwww.amny.com
2 days ago

Cardi B helps launch Mayor Mamdani's 2-K jingle contest, with one big rule: no AI | amNewYork

Cardi B will help judge NYC's 2-K jingle competition to promote free child care for two-year-olds, with applications opening June 2.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
3 days ago

Melvin Edwards, Who Sculpted a New Vocabulary for Political Art, Dies at 88

Melvin Edwards, influential sculptor, passed away at 88, known for his innovative abstractions reflecting art history and the legacy of Atlantic slavery.
Portland
fromOregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
5 days ago

DanceWatch: South Indian, 'Princess and the Pea,' Dance Theatre of Harlem and more * Oregon ArtsWatch

April showcases a vibrant mix of traditional and experimental dance performances across Oregon, highlighting Bharatanatyam and new ballet interpretations.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 days ago

Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs review the relationships that drove a genius

James Baldwin's legacy has been revitalized, particularly through Raoul Peck's documentary, despite earlier criticisms of his work and its relevance.
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 days ago

Women behind the lens: I grew up hating my natural hair. But I transformed that pain into something empowering'

I create sculptural hairstyles using my natural hair as a material. I add some extensions, and shape it with thread and wire. A sculpture can take me from 30 minutes to more than six hours.
Writing
NYC music
fromwww.amny.com
4 days ago

From Brooklyn to the stage: Timi Dre brings a global sound to SOB's | amNewYork

Timi Dre blends Afrobeats, Konpa, and R&B, creating a unique sound reflective of New York's cultural diversity and energy.
History
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 days ago

How can you forget me': show details Filipino Americans' rich history

The exhibition showcases the lives and stories of Filipino migrants, emphasizing their humanity beyond labor history.
Media industry
fromArtforum
4 days ago

Dialogues and Dreams

Artforum evolved to foster international dialogue and promote substantive commentary in response to contemporary challenges in the arts ecosystem.
Venture
fromForbes
6 days ago

ForbesBLK Newsletter: The Internet Was Built On Black Culture. Now Comes The Renaissance.

Alphonzo Terrell launched Spill to empower Black culture in social media after leaving Twitter, achieving significant growth and partnerships.
NYC LGBT
fromwww.nytimes.com
1 week ago

How a Dexter' Star Is Singing Her Way Through Spanish Harlem

Luna Lauren Velez maintains her Puerto Rican roots while thriving in Hollywood, known for roles in 'New York Undercover' and 'Dexter'.
Music production
fromLos Angeles Times
5 days ago

Irreversible Entanglements refuses to make 'safe' free jazz - and the genre is better for it

Camae Ayewa, known as Moor Mother, is a multifaceted artist blending genres and activism in her music and creative endeavors.
Renovation
fromItsnicethat
5 days ago

"Not too design-y": Third Place Zine is a playful publication about city life that's built for everyone

Third Place's second issue explores how third places foster mobilization and unity through joyous stories and a playful design.
Social justice
fromPsychology Today
1 day ago

Helping Black Women Remove the Mask

Black women navigate stereotypes and require therapy to reclaim their authenticity while clinicians must advocate against oppressive systems.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
3 days ago

Required Reading

Calida Rawles' art explores the duality of water as both healing and destructive within the Black diaspora's history.
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Black music is not a subculture it is the engine': Why the Mobo awards matter more than ever, 30 years on

Kanya King stated, 'Black music shapes what we listen to, how we speak, how we dress, how we tell our stories and I guess it's defined as Britain's cultural identity but structurally and institutionally is still often treated as m.'
London music
#brooklyn-museum
Brooklyn
fromBrownstoner
1 week ago

Brooklyn Museum Will Debut New African Art Galleries in 2027

The Brooklyn Museum is renovating to create permanent Arts of Africa galleries, showcasing over 300 works of African art by fall 2027.
Brooklyn
fromHoodline
1 week ago

Brooklyn Museum To Open Permanent African Galleries On Third Floor

The Brooklyn Museum is renovating storage space into permanent galleries for its Arts of Africa collection, set to open in fall 2027.
Brooklyn
fromTime Out New York
1 week ago

The Brooklyn Museum is creating new permanent galleries for its renowned African art collections

The Brooklyn Museum is renovating its Arts of Africa galleries to create a permanent exhibition space connecting it with the Ancient Egyptian collection.
Brooklyn
fromArtnet News
1 week ago

Brooklyn Museum Plans $13 Million Overhaul for New African Art Galleries

Brooklyn Museum will renovate galleries for its African art collection, opening a 6,400-square-foot space in 2027 featuring 300 works from antiquity to today.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
6 days ago

Brooklyn Museum's Africa Collection to Get a Brand New Space

The Brooklyn Museum is developing a $13 million permanent exhibition space for its Arts of Africa collection to connect North African art with the continent's legacy.
NYC LGBT
fromArtforum
6 days ago

Agosto Machado, Whose Shrines Immortalized a Lost NYC Underground, Is Dead

Agosto Machado, a performance artist and activist, died on March 21, known for his shrines honoring those lost to the AIDS crisis.
Music
fromSPIN
6 days ago

Harriet Tubman and Georgia Anne Muldrow Free the Soul - SPIN

Harriet Tubman's sixth album, Electrical Field of Love, showcases their unique blend of rock, jazz, and funk with soul singer Georgia Anne Muldrow.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
6 days ago

How Long Can You Live Your Ideals?

Pat Calhoun chooses parenthood over radicalism, paralleling Elsa Haddish's struggle between her militant past and raising her daughter safely.
fromThe Atlantic
1 day ago

The Black Daughters of the American Revolution

Karen Batchelor's discovery of her eligibility for the Daughters of the American Revolution was surprising, given the organization's long history of racism and elitism.
Social justice
Arts
fromHyperallergic
3 days ago

An Artist Embraces the Metaphorical Cracks of Matzah

Emily Drew Miller's art reflects the disconnection felt among Jewish people through her matzah-inspired prints.
fromArchDaily
1 week ago

The First Pan-African Biennale Establishes a Platform for a Decolonized, African-Led Architectural Future

The inaugural edition is organized around the central theme "Shifting the Center: From Fragility to Resilience," reclaiming African architecture's place as a site of spatial intelligence and cultural memory.
Renovation
NYC music
fromABC7 Los Angeles
1 week ago

In Harlem living room, jazz tradition blends heart and soul

Marjorie Elliot hosts weekly jazz concerts in her Harlem apartment to honor her late son and connect with the community through music.
#afrofuturism
Fashion & style
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

Why wearing traditional dress will always be political

The wearing of traditional African clothing varies dramatically across the continent, from everyday staples in Sudan and Nigeria to rare ceremonial wear in Kenya and South Africa, influenced by colonial history and cultural diversity.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
4 days ago

Remembering Glen Baxter, Pat Steir, Melvin Edwards

This week honors an absurdist cartoonist, a feminist artist, and a sculptor addressing violence in the US.
fromArchDaily
6 days ago

Choreographing Lagos: Dele Adeyemo on Dance, Cosmology, and Spatial Practices

Eshu's proverb tells both a story of reparation and of ancestrality by joyfully bending spacetime conventions and accessing subjects from the past with present actions.
Social justice
Portland food
fromFuncheap
3 weeks ago

Studio 23 Gallery Art Of The African Diaspora

Studio 23 Gallery hosts the 3rd Annual Art Of The African Diaspora collaborative group show with Resistance Press 510 from March 21 to April 18, 2026, featuring multiple artists and free admission.
Arts
fromArtnet News
3 days ago

Performance Artist Crackhead Barney Moves From the Streets to the Stage: 'Art Should Be Going Insane'

Crackhead Barney is a performance artist known for her viral heckling of protestors and celebrities, significantly impacting NYC's political landscape.
Berlin
fromTime Out New York
3 weeks ago

The Studio Museum in Harlem just made Time's best places list

The Studio Museum in Harlem was named one of TIME's World's Greatest Places of 2026, recognizing its significance as the first U.S. institution devoted to Black fine art and its role in elevating contemporary artists.
Music production
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks ago

New York hip-hop experimentalist Elucid: I like the harmony of the city. Everybody's got a little solo'

Elucid experiences the Dream House installation's meditative drone composition, which triggers his creative process through sensory immersion and unconscious sound-to-word associations.
Arts
fromArtforum
4 days ago

Jacob Lawrence and the Unfinished History of American Inequality

Jacob Lawrence's art addresses migration, racial inequalities, and social issues, making it relevant to contemporary societal challenges faced in the US.
Arts
fromwww.amny.com
4 days ago

In praise of upheaval: Women, art, and the refusal of stillness | amNewYork

Art emerges from upheaval, reflecting change as an inherent female quality and rejecting imposed stillness.
Arts
fromwww.theguardian.com
6 days ago

African people are surreal': songwriter and blues poet Aja Monet on Black resistance and love as spiritual warfare

Aja Monet blends surrealism and blues in her art, addressing themes of love, resistance, and societal absurdities influenced by historical fascism.
Social justice
fromCN Traveller
2 weeks ago

"Black excellence is everywhere, Black connection is not": Inside the event designed to connect, unite and inspire Black thinkers

The Diaspora Salon in Marrakech convenes African and diaspora intellectuals, artists, and entrepreneurs to discuss culture, power, and economic futures across multiple disciplines.
fromHyperallergic
4 days ago

A Palestinian-American Photographer's Intimate Gaze

"In 'break bad (freddy flexing)' (2021), a slim man's attempt to exert physical strength instead displays his fragility. A gentleness in his eyes suggests truer strength beneath the performance."
Arts
Brooklyn
fromBrooklyn Paper
2 weeks ago

'Looking for Terry' exhibition examines stop-and-frisk history and reclaims Black identity in Bed-Stuy * Brooklyn Paper

Black artists reclaim their narrative beyond surveillance and criminality through 'Looking for Terry,' challenging decades of discriminatory policing practices rooted in the 1968 Terry v. Ohio Supreme Court ruling.
Arts
fromArtnet News
5 days ago

Rare Rauschenberg Experimental Dance Revived at Brooklyn Roller Rink

The Trisha Brown Dance Company is reviving Robert Rauschenberg's 1963 dance 'Pelican' for the first time in 60 years at a Brooklyn event.
US politics
fromTruthout
1 month ago

As the Status Quo Shatters, Afrofuturists' Visions Offer a Way Forward

State violence has expanded beyond Black communities to target white protesters, journalists, and politicians, while right-wing authoritarianism threatens multiracial democracy and prompts reimagining of Black freedom beyond the United States.
Arts
fromGothamist
5 days ago

A one-man psychedelic art empire thrives in Brooklyn

Alex Aliume's Brooklyn studio attracts thousands of visitors with his unique glow-in-the-dark art and immersive experiences.
Brooklyn
fromBrooklyn Paper
3 weeks ago

'Printing Black America' examines modern society through a historic lens at the Brooklyn Public Library * Brooklyn Paper

W.E.B. Du Bois's 1900 Data Portraits visualized Black American progress through infographics, now recontextualized in a 21st-century exhibition exploring ongoing racial inequities and sociological questions.
Arts
fromJuxtapoz
1 week ago

Juxtapoz Magazine - Nat Meade's "Franklin" @ HESSE FLATOW, NYC

Nat Meade's exhibition 'Franklin' explores life's struggles and triumphs through figurative works reflecting personal experiences and themes of vulnerability and renewal.
#harlem-renaissance
Arts
fromVogue
5 days ago

In Tribeca, a Pillar of Cape Town's Artistic Community Finds New Ground

Southern Guild opens a new gallery in Tribeca, New York, after learning from its previous Los Angeles location, emphasizing fresh energy and confidence.
Fashion & style
fromApartment Therapy
1 month ago

10 Ways to Infuse Your Space with Afrohemian Design, According to Experts

Afrohemian decor combines African and bohemian styles through curated natural materials, handmade pieces, and heritage-rooted design rather than mass-produced items.
Arts
fromThe New Yorker
5 days ago

The New Museum Returns, but Humans Are Left Behind

The exhibition explores humanity's struggle against technology through diverse multimedia installations and thought-provoking artworks.
fromHarper's BAZAAR
1 month ago

Dance Theater of Harlem Is Bringing Back Firebird . It's Never Felt More Timely.

First performed in 1910 by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and adapted by George Balachine for New York City Ballet in 1949, Firebird was inspired by a Russian folk tale. The ballet tells the story of Prince Ivan, who captures the firebird, a creature who is part bird, part woman, and then lets her go.
NYC music
Photography
fromPortland Mercury
1 month ago

Ronin Roc on Why He Sees Black Art as "More Than February"

More Than February gallery elevates Black creativity year-round through Ronin Roc's digital portraits and a community-centered, accessible platform in Portland's Old Town/Chinatown.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 weeks ago

Artists Set Islamic Futurism Into Motion

Contemporary Muslim artists use calligraphy, installation, and speculative image-making rooted in Islamic philosophy and medieval traditions to imagine and shape Muslim futures.
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 weeks ago

Act Black: posters of Black Americans on stage and screen in pictures

Many of these posters are the only surviving proof of certain shows, with no recordings of plays, and certain films, having been lost over time. They offer a history of Black Americans trying to counter harmful stereotypes and provide vital and humanizing contributions to a growing Black culture.
Arts
Film
fromBerlin Art Link
1 month ago

Interview with Karimah Ashadu | Berlin Art Link

Tendered centers on MUSCLE, exploring Nigerian masculinity's ties to labor, class, patriarchy and colonial afterlives through intimate cinematic focus on Black male bodies.
US politics
fromBrooklyn Eagle
2 months ago

Black History Month 2026 kicks off to a standing room only crowd

Judges, court staff, bar leaders, and officials celebrated Black History Month, emphasizing justice, resilience, communal faith, and recent public-safety progress in Brooklyn.
Books
fromThe Nation
2 months ago

Ishmael Reed on His Diverse Inspirations

A 1960s artist navigated and bridged Black cultural nationalism and the white counterculture while collaborating with multicultural avant-garde artists.
Social justice
fromTruthout
1 month ago

The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition Recognized Fascism Didn't Begin in Europe

White supremacist state power and violence manifest as anti-Black fascism, linking prison abolition, historical uprisings like Attica, and enduring systemic bodily and social harm.
fromwww.kaltblut-magazine.com
1 month ago

Experience the Essence of Black Creativity at Platte Berlin!

From February 17 to March 10, 2026, the vibrant intersection of fashion and art will come alive at Platte Berlin with SPOTLIGHT ON BLACK CREATIVITY. This unmissable pop-up exhibition showcases the brilliance of Black designers and visual artists, setting the stage for an extraordinary celebration of heritage and contemporary expression. Dive into a world where creativity knows no bounds, featuring groundbreaking brands such as adesa, Amaluma Studio, Gelisa George, Dinga, Azea Zalea, and GEMZ.
Fashion & style
US politics
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

This is Muslim New York: artists, thinkers and politicos on defining a new era for the city

Muslim creatives and intellectuals in New York City are rising, reshaping the cultural landscape and rebuking Islamophobia amid a renewed Palestinian-rights movement.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

How Toni Morrison Saw History

Preserve offensive monuments and artifacts and add counterpoints or context to confront and reveal suppressed histories and Black accomplishments rather than erase them.
fromHigh Country News
1 month ago

How community organizers are amplifying Oregon's Black music history - High Country News

When Norman Sylvester was 12, long before he garnered the nickname "The Boogie Cat" or shared a stage with B.B. King, he boarded a train in Louisiana and headed west, toward the distant city of Portland, Oregon. He'd lived all his life in the rural South, eating wild muscadine grapes from his family's farm, fishing in the bayou and churning butter at the kitchen table to the tune of his grandmother's gospel singing.
Social justice
Books
fromABC7 Los Angeles
2 months ago

11 must-read children's books by black authors in honor of Black History Month

Providing access and choice to diverse children's books helps Black children read more and discover history, culture, and role models through picture books and programs.
Books
fromApartment Therapy
1 month ago

I Grew Up in a Black Home, Where the Books on Display Meant More Than Decor

A lifelong desire for a book-filled apartment grew from a childhood home where books signified intellect, memory, and emotional expression.
fromBrooklyn, NY Patch
1 month ago

Inside Brooklyn's Black Future Festival, Where Children Imagine The Next 100 Years Of Black History

From February 15 through February 21, the museum will host its annual Black Future Festival, a weeklong slate of performances, workshops, and hands-on programs designed to give children and families space to imagine the next century of Black creativity, resilience, and innovation. The festival runs during New York City public schools' midwinter recess and fills the museum's galleries with movement, sound, and art-making.
Brooklyn
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

The Jazz Pictures the FBI Silenced

Lisette Model's thousand hidden photographs of East Coast jazz legends from 1940-1959 are revealed in a new book, exposing how government repression forced her to bury this significant artistic legacy.
Brooklyn
fromBrownstoner
1 month ago

Hip-Hop Legends Celebrated With Borough Hall Exhibit

Brooklyn Borough Hall exhibition celebrates Brooklyn hip-hop pioneers through iconic portraits and honors photographers who documented the genre's rise.
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

David Driskell's Gifts to Black Art

Driskell started collecting in 1955 after taking a position as an art professor at Talladega College. As he explained in a 2017 lecture at the Whitney Museum of American Art, he put aside a small budget for art each year from his beginning salary of $3,000.
Arts
fromCurbed
1 month ago

I Miss My Black Brooklyn

I once lived in a Black mecca. But by the summer of 2022, my toddler son and I were often the only Black folks on the playground in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a fact that felt both alienating and surreal. We moved to Bed-Stuy that summer to be close to my sister and her family. Reeling from a recent separation and scrambling for child care in a different neighborhood, I often found myself on the playground, trying to make sense of both our new life and this
Social justice
fromThe Art Newspaper - International art news and events
1 month ago

'If a work is meant to be mine, there's always time': Mashonda Tifrere on the art she collects and why

While taking a break from her musical career, Tifrere founded the nonprofit organisations ArtLeadHER and Art Genesis in 2016. ArtLeadHER provides visual-arts education and exhibition opportunities to women and teenage girls, while Art Genesis helps organise shows for emerging and underrepresented artists.
Arts
fromBuzzFeed
1 month ago

I Bet You Didn't Know These 19 Famous People Have Black Heritage

To be Black in the U.S. has such an expansive meaning that traces back to Europeans deciding who got to be "white." While some people, like the Italians and Irish, earned their way into "white-ness," those with even a drop of Black in their heritage were relegated to the lower rungs of the racial ladder.
Social justice
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Keeping a Critical Eye on the Art World With Damien Davis

Damien Davis will address systemic inequities in the art market and propose actionable strategies for a more equitable, transparent art ecosystem.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

Black Artists Create New Universes in "Unbound"

Unbound at MoAD connects African and diasporic artistic practices to cosmology, ancestral ritual, and futuristic imaginaries through sculpture, photography, and painting.
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

The African Diaspora Pictures Itself

Walking through Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imaginationat the Museum of Modern Art, I noticed that the exhibition didn't have definite sections or texts, and the wall labels abstained from naming the nationalities of the photographers. It was an invigorating experience to be in a show that eschews geographic boundaries set up by Western nations, as well as rejects a cause-and-effect narrative that centers Western colonialism as a framework for understanding African aesthetic production.
Arts
fromArtnet News
1 month ago

How Wifredo Lam Made Surrealism More Surreal Than the Surrealists | Artnet News

An exhibition of Wifredo Lam is about as safe a bet as the Museum of Modern Art can place and still plausibly say that it's a bet on expanding the canon. The Cuban artist is one of the most famous painters of the 20th century, featured in almost every single key show about Surrealism. MoMA acquired his famous painting The Jungle in 1946, a few years after he made it.
Arts
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

We Must Do More Than Simply Depict Our Lives

The Bronx Museum biennial spotlights representational works that center urban youth and marginalized identities, challenging mainstream narratives through sincere, everyday portrayals.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

Art and Power Collide in New York City

New York's art scene faces systemic corruption, yet exhibitions by Goya, Amazonian and Indigenous artists offer hopeful artistic resistance and storytelling continuity.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

Uman's Diasporic Abstraction

Uman's work evokes floating, mutable memories that bridge a lost homeland and the imagined labor of dreaming it back into existence.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

Art Movements: New Leaders Everywhere

Jean Cooney will become executive director of Creative Time; major museum leadership changes include Sally Tallant leaving Queens Museum, Yasha Grobman in Jerusalem, and Amy Sherald signing with CAA.
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

A Somali-American Artist Speaks Out

Amid the savagery of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration - culminating in the killing of Renee Nicole MacklinGood - everyday Americans have shown incredible courage in pushing back against ICE's takeover of their cities. Joining them today are several Minnesotaart institutions that will close their doors to protest against the cruel treatment of their neighbors. You can read all about that today, plus a moving personal essay by Ifrah Mansour, a Somali-American artist based in Minnesota.
Arts
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