Riffs and relations : African American artists and the European modernist tradition / Adrienne L. Childs ; with contributions by Renee Maurer, Valerie Cassel Oliver.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, February 29-May 24, 2020 Includes bibliographical references (pages 200-202) and index
Contents:
Riffs and relations: an introduction / Adrienne L. Childs -- African art and the modern / Adrienne L. Childs -- Contested bodies: artist/model/muse / Adrienne L. Childs -- Duncan Phillips and community / Renee Maurer -- Abstract relations : a conversation between Valerie Cassel Oliver and Adrienne L. Childs -- Works in the exhibition
Summary:
Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition presents works by African American artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries together with works by the early-twentieth-century European artists with whom they engaged. Black artists have investigated, interrogated, invaded, entangled, annihilated, or immersed themselves in the aesthetics, symbolism, and ethos of European art for more than a century. The powerful push and pull of this relationship constitutes a distinct tradition for many African American artists who source the master narratives of art history to critique, embrace, or claim their own space. This groundbreaking catalog--accompanying a major exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.--explores the connections and frictions around modernism in the works of artists such as Romare Bearden, Pablo Picasso, Faith Ringgold, Renee Cox, Robert Colescott, Norman Lewis, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems and Henri Matisse. The volume explores how blackness has often been conceived from the standpoint of these international and intergenerational connections and presents the divergent and complex works born of these important dialogues.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.